Advice On New Laptop Purchase

My trusty 8 year old HP laptop just $#!+ the bed after an unfortunate dropping incident. I paid about $250 for it at Best Buy and had zero issues with it (being clumsy is my own issue).

Does anyone have any recommendations for a cheap laptop that I might get similar results with? The only thing I use it for is writing and accounting, I rarely even surf the internet on it.

The only complaint I had about my old one was that the track pad was textured. After putting together any mouse heavy project, I barely had a fingerprint left!

I'd go to Refurbees.com (or similar) and get a used Dell. Equip it with a Logitech wireless keyboard & mouse and BOOM. DOne.

If you don't mind all your storage in the 'cloud' i would go with one of the simple chomebook or cloudbooks. they are very cheap and reliable for simple tasks.

a reply to: yeahright

Thanks, but this is one thing I don't want to buy used. I did have a monster Dell XPS before my HP and I loved it. Far too expensive for my needs today though.

Does anyone have a "Chromebook"? If so, how is the OS? What do you use in place of Office?

a reply to: JDeLattre89

Thanks for answering my question before I even asked it! So Chromebooks are cloud based. Not so good for some of the sensitive material I need to store.

Yup, and therein lies the biggest problem with them, although an external hard-drive might work for oversensitive work. Most of them use Google chrome's version of office which has all the bells and whistles but I don't think it is currently compatible with MS Office.

a reply to: Atsbhct

Buy something that you can put windows 7 x64 pro onto. Don't buy an Asus as they will likely experience a full meltdown because of the Win7 updates. I would suggest an i5 intel based system, AMD's get too hot.

Cheers - Dave

My vote is...

+1 for Asus ROG 17 w i7
Or anything Asus in your price range.

-1 for crApple.
-1 for HP or Dell.
-1 for I am jealous of you now.

a reply to: Mandroid7

Why no HP? I had zero issues with mine at all.
As us I get why people would advise against, I've had plenty of friends with issues with theirs.

No matter which company you go with there will be stringent supporters and haters alike. Each company has strengths and weaknesses.

a reply to: Atsbhct

I've been quite satisfied with my Toshiba laptops. My main PC lasted about 5 years, and the only reason the motherboard fried was because I was experimenting with it!

I'm using an ASUS now, and I hate the darn thing. Don't get ASUS.

If you want cheap (cheap as in easy to replace and find spare parts for), then go for a Dell - I found a used latest i7 17-inch monster at a pawn shop, running Linux Mint 18.

And you don't need to buy Office if you don't need it - Libre Office seems to work fine for non-power users (they are still working on the project).

If you want to try, Linux Mint 18 comes with all the software a basic user could want...free. I'm almost to the brink of switching primary laptops.

-fossilera

a reply to: fossilera

I'm a writer by trade, so you could say I'm a power user. Most jobs will only accept Word files.

a reply to: Atsbhct

Supposedly Libreoffice can do Word files. I have yet to use the feature as I'm only saving as RTF. If you want to wait a couple months, I might make an API that can write a newer Word 2007+ document format (I partially kid - So far I've only done a C# implementation for Excel).

a reply to: fossilera

Lol, best of luck with your coding endeavours, but I'll need to stick with industry standards at the moment.

a reply to: fossilera

I had a nice Toshiba and it just died. The shop who gave me the bad news sold me a used business Dell they got as a refurb and it works great. Nice price and a 2 year guarantee. It came with an I-7 processor and a 750 GB HD. It fills my needs nicely. Take your choice and good luck with the project.

a reply to: Atsbhct

Have you looked into OpenOffice?
It's free.

I don't use Word Docs very often....so I cannot tell you how it compares to Windows Office.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

I've never used it. I'm so familiar with Word that I just don't have the need to explore other options right now.

If you're referring to Apache Open Office, I use it and Microsoft interchangeably, they are compatible.

originally posted by: JDeLattre89
Yup, and therein lies the biggest problem with them, although an external hard-drive might work for oversensitive work. Most of them use Google chrome's version of office which has all the bells and whistles but I don't think it is currently compatible with MS Office.

Chromebooks can run the 'online' versions of Microsoft Office apps which run entirely via a web browser.

Here's a link to it.



(Also, the convenience of Chromebooks goes away without an always on internet connection and if you have to juggle an external HDD).

Macbook all the way. I never have any problems since changing over. Will never go back.