I bought the most cost-effective laptop with 64GB RAM for just over $800; here’s how I did it

Learning the tricks of the trade when it involves refurbished

Ultra-portable laptops with mobile workstation features are all the craze ever since Apple unleashed its MacBook Pro 16-inch behemoth earlier this year.

Although no Windows laptop can exactly match Apple’s features, the Dell XPS 15 comes near, and another Dell product, the Latitude 7490, offers something else which may lure prospective power buyers trying to find a bargain.

For $789, a huge 67% off asking price, you get a business laptop that weighs just over three pounds, with a three-year onsite warranty, a 14-inch full HD display, a quad-core Intel Core i5 CPU, Windows 10 Pro, and a 256GB SATA SSD.

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DIY paradise

Where the 7490 outranks other portable laptops is that it's eminently upgradeable, which we all know as purchased one-second user. it's two memory banks so you'll upgrade the system memory to 64GB using two 32GB SODIMM; which we did.


Newegg sells a pair of those for $257, so altogether you're watching an outlay of about $1040, a bargain assuming you'll open the chassis and pop the modules in and out; we did it and it took just over two minutes.

We purchased a refurbished Dell Latitude 7490 from We buy within the UK for £355/$467 with a further 64GB memory for £260/$341; We buy provides with a two-year warranty as standard but the laptop we purchased came with two-year Dell ProSupport also, from the three-year warranty that comes by default with the laptop.

You can swap most components inside and it's three M.2 expansion slots. the remainder of the specs isn't too shabby; a backlit keyboard, three USB ports, an HDMI one and a Type-C/DisplayPort one, a microSD card slot and a 60Whr battery make it a really attractive proposal at this price.

Other affordable, quad-core laptops with a little footprint, a full HD display and capable of taking 64GB RAM include the Lenovo ThinkPad E495, the Lenovo ThinkPad E490, the HP ProBook 645 G4, HP Elitebook 840 G5 and G6.