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Advice On New Laptop Purchase

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posted on Aug, 15 2016 @ 03:19 PM
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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!



posted on Aug, 15 2016 @ 03:25 PM
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I'd go to Refurbees.com (or similar) and get a used Dell. Equip it with a Logitech wireless keyboard & mouse and BOOM. DOne.



posted on Aug, 15 2016 @ 03:30 PM
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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.



posted on Aug, 15 2016 @ 03:32 PM
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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?



posted on Aug, 15 2016 @ 03:33 PM
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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.



posted on Aug, 15 2016 @ 03:49 PM
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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.



posted on Aug, 15 2016 @ 04:35 PM
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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



posted on Aug, 15 2016 @ 04:38 PM
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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.





posted on Aug, 15 2016 @ 05:25 PM
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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.



posted on Aug, 15 2016 @ 07:45 PM
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No matter which company you go with there will be stringent supporters and haters alike. Each company has strengths and weaknesses.



posted on Aug, 15 2016 @ 08:21 PM
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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



posted on Aug, 15 2016 @ 08:49 PM
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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.



posted on Aug, 15 2016 @ 08:52 PM
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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).



posted on Aug, 15 2016 @ 08:55 PM
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a reply to: fossilera

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



posted on Aug, 15 2016 @ 09:06 PM
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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.



posted on Aug, 15 2016 @ 10:39 PM
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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.



posted on Aug, 15 2016 @ 10:44 PM
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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.



posted on Aug, 16 2016 @ 12:03 AM
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If you're referring to Apache Open Office, I use it and Microsoft interchangeably, they are compatible.



posted on Aug, 16 2016 @ 12:23 AM
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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).

edit on 16/8/2016 by chr0naut because: (no reason given)



posted on Aug, 16 2016 @ 12:41 AM
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Macbook all the way. I never have any problems since changing over. Will never go back.



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