Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => General Discussion Area => Topic started by: chrisgixer on 18 November 2013, 22:21:16
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For Mrs Gixer. Hers is old and creaking. She's reluctant to part with it but the inevitable day is coming.
Needs to be a big quality screen. Quick. 1TB drive. Latest Doze os. Blu ray capable? :-\ etc.
The muts nuts in other words. Oh, and £350 budget. Should be quite easy for you lot. :)
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nowadays I have looked also for some friends .. and baffled by the number of models and alternatives.. samsung doesnt sound wrong.. but hardware depends on your requirement.. :-\
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For Mrs Gixer. Hers is old and creaking. She's reluctant to part with it but the inevitable day is coming.
Needs to be a big quality screen. Quick. 1TB drive. Latest Doze os. Blu ray capable? :-\ etc.
The muts nuts in other words. Oh, and £350 budget. Should be quite easy for you lot. :)
Tight wad, best wait for STEMO to come along, he will be able to pass on his wisdom, he is a tight git as well........ ;) ;) :D
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For Mrs Gixer. Hers is old and creaking. She's reluctant to part with it but the inevitable day is coming.
Needs to be a big quality screen. Quick. 1TB drive. Latest Doze os. Blu ray capable? :-\ etc.
The muts nuts in other words. Oh, and £350 budget. Should be quite easy for you lot. :)
No! You can still get WIndoze 7 if you're lucky.
I'll let you know what my new Dell job for work is like - when it turns up. ::)
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For Mrs Gixer. Hers is old and creaking. She's reluctant to part with it but the inevitable day is coming.
Needs to be a big quality screen. Quick. 1TB drive. Latest Doze os. Blu ray capable? :-\ etc.
The muts nuts in other words. Oh, and £350 budget. Should be quite easy for you lot. :)
You need to up the budget slightly if you want Blu-ray, the only manufacturers I would consider for laptops are Asus and Toshiba.
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Is Dohs 8 now good then?
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For Mrs Gixer. Hers is old and creaking. She's reluctant to part with it but the inevitable day is coming.
Needs to be a big quality screen. Quick. 1TB drive. Latest Doze os. Blu ray capable? :-\ etc.
The muts nuts in other words. Oh, and £350 budget. Should be quite easy for you lot. :)
Tight wad, best wait for STEMO to come along, he will be able to pass on his wisdom, he is a tight git as well........ ;) ;) :D
He might even have one brand new in a box minus guarantee ::) ::) ;D ;D ;D ;D
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For Mrs Gixer. Hers is old and creaking. She's reluctant to part with it but the inevitable day is coming.
Needs to be a big quality screen. Quick. 1TB drive. Latest Doze os. Blu ray capable? :-\ etc.
The muts nuts in other words. Oh, and £350 budget. Should be quite easy for you lot. :)
Tight wad, best wait for STEMO to come along, he will be able to pass on his wisdom, he is a tight git as well........ ;) ;) :D
He might even have one brand new in a box minus guarantee ::) ::) ;D ;D ;D ;D
And charger and passwords :)
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Ok, need to up the anti in this.
Come on people. I need links to the hottest lappy you know of.
Prety please. :)
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You need to increase the budget, then the offers may come in...... :y :y
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Ok, need to up the anti in this.
Come on people. I need links to the hottest lappy you know of.
Prety please. :)
Sigh... ::) They've already told you where to find a hot lappy! Go and have a chat with your mate Esta! ;) :)
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got a friend here-this is what she says------i think that you would be extremely hard pressed to get a lappy with the top of everything for 350, if your willing to go with the core i.5 you would be less pressed but to run 1TB and blueray with what i assume would be a 17.3 inc widescreen you would need either 6 or 8 GB of RAM your best bet is actually to build one if you know anyone to do so as it costs less but i brought my laptop which has all you are asking for but with 680GB of harddrive for £1500 2 years ago and can now get that for £900 so you may need to go for lower specifications or raise your budget or buy second hand which can be risky as you never know how they have been treated.
rhea
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For Mrs Gixer. Hers is old and creaking. She's reluctant to part with it but the inevitable day is coming.
Needs to be a big quality screen. Quick. 1TB drive. Latest Doze os. Blu ray capable? :-\ etc.
The muts nuts in other words. Oh, and £350 budget. Should be quite easy for you lot. :)
You need to up the budget slightly if you want Blu-ray, the only manufacturers I would consider for laptops are Asus and Toshiba.
Blu Ray isn't really a high priority. But I presume they can be upgraded.
Straight laptop none of this touch screen nonsense where the screen separates from the base. Long battery life, big drive, big screen etc. :)
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Ok ignore the budget for a minute, let's nail down a particular model first.
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Sony-dell-Toshiba-
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To be honest, quick and a budget of £350 don't really go hand in hand. At that price you would be lucky to get an i3. Perhaps if you go back at least a gen or two you may have some luck. Or second hand perhaps.
Again at that price you are looking at a low res TN screen with generally poor viewing angles. HDD will be generally the slower 5400RPM variant. Ram will be limited as well. Blue ray at £350, well pigs do fly occasionally.
This is a reasonable option:
http://www.ebuyer.com/579806-asus-x551ca-laptop-x551ca-sx153h (http://www.ebuyer.com/579806-asus-x551ca-laptop-x551ca-sx153h)
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To be honest, quick and a budget of £350 don't really go hand in hand. At that price you would be lucky to get an i3. Perhaps if you go back at least a gen or two you may have some luck. Or second hand perhaps.
Again at that price you are looking at a low res TN screen with generally poor viewing angles. HDD will be generally the slower 5400RPM variant. Ram will be limited as well. Blue ray at £350, well pigs do fly occasionally.
This is a reasonable option:
http://www.ebuyer.com/579806-asus-x551ca-laptop-x551ca-sx153h (http://www.ebuyer.com/579806-asus-x551ca-laptop-x551ca-sx153h)
As post #13 Gents...
Ok ignore the budget for a minute, let's nail down a particular model first.
Thanks D. Put it this way...
What would you actually buy for yourself. To your budget, ignore the £350 limit.
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To be fair, an i3 is going to feel like greased lightning to Chris compared to his current laptop, which is this: http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/latit/en/spec_latit_d510_en.pdf
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Some won't agree but we have had extremely good life out of Acer, on my second having, seen off a Samsung in the middle, a period when I went back to the old Acer to tide me over.... :y :y
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Ok, since you asked.
Win with a drive:
http://www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-17-7737/pd.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn (http://www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-17-7737/pd.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn)
Win without a drive:
http://www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-15-7537/pd.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn (http://www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-15-7537/pd.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn)
Win ultraportable:
http://www.dell.com/uk/p/xps-15-9530/pd?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn (http://www.dell.com/uk/p/xps-15-9530/pd?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn)
Win budget machine:
http://www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-15r-5521/pd.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn (http://www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-15r-5521/pd.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn)
Win alternative manufacturer with blue ray player:
http://www.ebuyer.com/543490-asus-n550lf-laptop-n550lf-ck026h (http://www.ebuyer.com/543490-asus-n550lf-laptop-n550lf-ck026h)
Win alternate manufacturer with 4th gen Haswell processor and DVD player:
http://www.ebuyer.com/398940-samsung-700z5c-laptop-np700z5c-a02uk (http://www.ebuyer.com/398940-samsung-700z5c-laptop-np700z5c-a02uk)
Which do you prefer?
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Some won't agree but we have had extremely good life out of Acer, on my second having, seen off a Samsung in the middle, a period when I went back to the old Acer to tide me over.... :y :y
Unfortunately after having 3 separate models die on us within 18 months from purchase, I cannot recommend Acer.
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Thanks D. Put it this way...
What would you actually buy for yourself. To your budget, ignore the £350 limit.
That's quite a reasonable spec for the price, but I'd definitely be upgrading the included Win 8 back to Win 7.
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Unfortunately after having 3 separate models die on us within 18 months from purchase, I cannot recommend Acer.
I managed to knock one of the cursor keys off the keyboard of a mates Acer by catching it with the button on a shirt cuff, the build quality certainly leaves a lot to be desired IMHO.
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Sony-dell-Toshiba-
I'd scrub Sony from that list, their DVD drivers appear very fragile :'(
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If I had to buy a laptop with my own monies, I'd probably go MacBook Air.
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If I had to buy a laptop with my own monies, I'd probably go MacBook Air.
She has loads of data stored in Microsoft office etc, would that be an issue?
Ps, I realise I did ask what you good people here would buy, but this is to replace H's ageing Dell, so apologies there.... guessing it needs to be a Doh's machine for a smooth transition ?
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If I had to buy a laptop with my own monies, I'd probably go MacBook Air.
She has loads of data stored in Microsoft office etc, would that be an issue?
Nope, full Office suite is available for Mac.
A few work mates have them here, for me they tick what a laptop should be. Ultra, ultra lightweight. Slim, quite powerful for the size, great screen and really can use it on the go.
Of course the down side is they are over-priced for the spec you get, but you cannot get a slimmer or lighter laptop for the money.
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I've got a Macbook Pro on order for work, I had the choice of the new Retina one, but that comes with an SSD, the capacity is just not enough, so went for the standard one.
The Air though is considerably thinner...
http://www.apple.com/uk/macbook-air/ (http://www.apple.com/uk/macbook-air/)
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If I had to buy a laptop with my own monies, I'd probably go MacBook Air.
She has loads of data stored in Microsoft office etc, would that be an issue?
Nope, full Office suite is available for Mac.
A few work mates have them here, for me they tick what a laptop should be. Ultra, ultra lightweight. Slim, quite powerful for the size, great screen and really can use it on the go.
Of course the down side is they are over-priced for the spec you get, but you cannot get a slimmer or lighter laptop for the money.
I'd love to get her one of those don't get me wrong, but the price is massively prohibitive, and it only needs to be as mobile as carrying it up and down stairs tbh.
Amy has one though, and it's quite a machine. Does it justify the extra cost (almost double?) though ? :-\
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Sony-dell-Toshiba-
I'd scrub Sony from that list, their DVD drivers appear very fragile :'(
Yep. Nothing to like about Sony laptops, that's for sure.
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It's a very valid point, they are hugely expensive for what they are. If it's only upstairs/downstairs then I'd say it's not worth it, your standard windows brick will be cheaper option.
MotherT has one of those new iMac's it's a beautiful thing, be my next choice for new desktop if I needed one. But these days the iPad for downstairs and occasionally borrowing of work laptop is fine :)
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It's a very valid point, they are hugely expensive for what they are. If it's only upstairs/downstairs then I'd say it's not worth it, your standard windows brick will be cheaper option.
MotherT has one of those new iMac's it's a beautiful thing, be my next choice for new desktop if I needed one. But these days the iPad for downstairs and occasionally borrowing of work laptop is fine :)
Yes it purely the accounts and tax returns that have any professional requirements, the rest is basic leisure use around the house, with the odd trip to her brothers or parents.
(Plus one forgetful "leave it in the car and have some scrotebag break in to steal it" episode. ::) but ignore that )
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Nope, full Office suite is available for Mac.
Except for Visio.. which annoys me immensely.
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Nope, full Office suite is available for Mac.
Except for Visio.. which annoys me immensely.
Ahh didn't know that, guess I'll need to install a virtual machine just for Visio then. ;D
That said I only use it around once a year ;D
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I don't know what visio is and, d'yer know what?, I'm glad I don't know. ;D
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I don't know what visio is and, d'yer know what?, I'm glad I don't know. ;D
Best not, it's for important people ;D
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I don't know what visio is and, d'yer know what?, I'm glad I don't know. ;D
Best not, it's for important people ;D
By important people, I take it you mean the sort of person that spends 2 years at Uni getting a diploma in electronics and can't even crimp a connector on a cable at the end of it? ;D
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I don't know what visio is and, d'yer know what?, I'm glad I don't know. ;D
Best not, it's for important people ;D
By important people, I take it you mean the sort of person that spends 2 years at Uni getting a diploma in electronics and can't even crimp a connector on a cable at the end of it? ;D
;D ;D ;D ;D
Which Uni was that?
I must confess it took me a few attempts first time I crimp'd an RJ45 cable :-[
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Which Uni was that?
I never did Uni Mark, I got my C&G 224 at Highbury College of Technology in Cosham back in 1983 while working for DER Television Rentals.
I must confess it took me a few attempts first time I crimp'd an RJ45 cable :-[
Took me a couple of goes to get a system that worked as well.
I now strip the outer insulation back a couple of inches, untwist the pairs and line the conductors up in the order they need to go in to the plug, cut the conductors back to length in one cut, and the cable slides in nice & easy after that.
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I found getting them all in as far as they should was the problem (queue dirty joke here) ;D
Fiddly job but quite satisfying :)
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Well, I did a B.Eng in electronics and (I kid you not) there were graduates who walked out with 1st class degrees where if you handed them a soldering iron they'd pick it up by the hot end.
Then again, universities aren't really about learning anything practical (as the government would do well to remember before trying to ram everyone down that route of further education). ::)
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Oooooh if I was in room 101 the first thing to go in would be impractical idiots with no common sense. ESP the ones that know everything and know nothing on equal measure but get huge rates of pay by bullshitting their way up to other idiots that know even less.
We all have our strong and week points but if you've been through the entire education system and can't wire a bloody plug then something is seriously wrong.
You lot might think I can't spell. I can (mostly ;D ) I just can't be arsed. The point is made,(quick fire posts aside :-[ ) if you lot want to dot the i's and cross the t's then excuse me while I go do something more interesting. Same with maths.
But build make of fix something, and you have my I divided attention, especially if you get in the way. >:(
Business gets on my wick. No tradesman or technicians and you don't have a business. Yet the management get the pay grades and fail to manage to boot. Wtf?
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Oh, don't get me wrong.. We need people who are good at thinking and useless at doing anything practical, we just don't need very many of them. ;)
As for managers.. The less competent they are the more you need to get a job done. The more you need, the bigger a hierarchy you have to put them in, so there are still company cars in the car park to make them jealous, etc. ::)
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Oh, don't get me wrong.. We need people who are good at thinking and useless at doing anything practical, we just don't need very many of them. ;)
As for managers.. The less competent they are the more you need to get a job done. The more you need, the bigger a hierarchy you have to put them in, so there are still company cars in the car park to make them jealous, etc. ::)
No problem with thinkers. Dreamers however...
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Back OT.
Lets start with the basics first, rather than people calling out all sorts of shite without knowing the requirements. Sonys and Macbooks, I ask you!
I'm guessing this is primarily a business machine, mostly to run MS Office type apps, email and web. Not a consumer machine for playing games and watching films on.
Based on that, I would be looking towards an Ivy Bridge based i3 (Core i3-3xxx) or it (Core i5-3xxx). i7 overkill, and prone to reliability issues. If it brings it in budget, Sandy Bridge i3 (Core i3-2xxx) or i5 (Core i5-2xxx), the CPU itself isn't that different, but the graphics are down performancewise (compared to Ivy Bridge).
As hinted above, no discrete graphics, purely on reliability grounds. Use the Intel on CPU graphics. Battery gets a boost as a bonus.
RAM - 2-3Gb for 32bit Windows (can't use more than 3Gb anyway), 4+ for 64bit Windows. For the use I've assumed, no point going beyond 4Gb, it won't get used, and will zap the battery.
HDD - 1Tb? Have you been drinking? WTF for? If her work patterns need that amount of space (unlikely?), I'd be inclined to go with a smaller, faster drive (SSD, around 200Gb), and offline data to a cheap portable 2.5" external drive (2.5" so you don't need seperate power pack) - Windows (Business versions) can encrypt this, and the main drive, which I'm sure is a company requirement anyway?
Am I right in thinking she works from home a lot, but trundles into office fairly regularly? If so, portability is probably more important than a big, power sapping, hot screen? 'Elf and Safety will demand seperate monitors and keyboards - thats LAW! So you need a monitor port on laptop, and enough USB. Plus budget for a screen/keyboard/mouse.
On subject of budgets, Office is around £200 if you have to buy that out of the same budget.
In this case, I'd be looking at the more robust, servicable items from the likes of HP (Elitebook, Business etc, not Pavilion shite), Dell (Latitude) and Lenovo (Stinkpad) (despite my own personal objections to the Stinkpads). Not consumer oriented shite like Acer, ASUS, crApple, Tosh (as much as I love them), Sony, HP Pavilion and similar, and Dell Inspiron and similar. But you'll need to at least double your budget to just buy the base laptop, before SSDs, monitors, docks (if applicable), Office etc.
Are my assumptions correct, and am I near the mark?
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Just today got a new Latitude for work, actually. I5 with Win7 64, 8gb ram, 500gb HDD came in at about £1k, although that spec will be overkill for Mrs. Gixer.
They do have nice docking stations that make monitor, network, keyboard and mouse connections easy.
Just don't talk to be about the video drivers that came on it. >:(
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Just today got a new Latitude for work, actually. I5 with Win7 64, 8gb ram, 500gb HDD came in at about £1k, although that spec will be overkill for Mrs. Gixer.
They do have nice docking stations that make monitor, network, keyboard and mouse connections easy.
Just don't talk to be about the video drivers that came on it. >:(
With most Dells I've had, I always removed the Dell build, and built it properly. HP are a little better (on business laptops), and can get away with uninstalling the pointless shite.
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Back OT.
Lets start with the basics first, rather than people calling out all sorts of shite without knowing the requirements. Sonys and Macbooks, I ask you!
I'm guessing this is primarily a business machine, mostly to run MS Office type apps, email and web. Not a consumer machine for playing games and watching films on.
Based on that, I would be looking towards an Ivy Bridge based i3 (Core i3-3xxx) or it (Core i5-3xxx). i7 overkill, and prone to reliability issues. If it brings it in budget, Sandy Bridge i3 (Core i3-2xxx) or i5 (Core i5-2xxx), the CPU itself isn't that different, but the graphics are down performancewise (compared to Ivy Bridge).
As hinted above, no discrete graphics, purely on reliability grounds. Use the Intel on CPU graphics. Battery gets a boost as a bonus.
RAM - 2-3Gb for 32bit Windows (can't use more than 3Gb anyway), 4+ for 64bit Windows. For the use I've assumed, no point going beyond 4Gb, it won't get used, and will zap the battery.
HDD - 1Tb? Have you been drinking? WTF for? If her work patterns need that amount of space (unlikely?), I'd be inclined to go with a smaller, faster drive (SSD, around 200Gb), and offline data to a cheap portable 2.5" external drive (2.5" so you don't need seperate power pack) - Windows (Business versions) can encrypt this, and the main drive, which I'm sure is a company requirement anyway?
Am I right in thinking she works from home a lot, but trundles into office fairly regularly? If so, portability is probably more important than a big, power sapping, hot screen? 'Elf and Safety will demand seperate monitors and keyboards - thats LAW! So you need a monitor port on laptop, and enough USB. Plus budget for a screen/keyboard/mouse.
On subject of budgets, Office is around £200 if you have to buy that out of the same budget.
In this case, I'd be looking at the more robust, servicable items from the likes of HP (Elitebook, Business etc, not Pavilion shite), Dell (Latitude) and Lenovo (Stinkpad) (despite my own personal objections to the Stinkpads). Not consumer oriented shite like Acer, ASUS, crApple, Tosh (as much as I love them), Sony, HP Pavilion and similar, and Dell Inspiron and similar. But you'll need to at least double your budget to just buy the base laptop, before SSDs, monitors, docks (if applicable), Office etc.
Are my assumptions correct, and am I near the mark?
Given the lack of info I've given :-[ your pretty close. But I should have said, clearly :-[ , that this is to replace her own personal lap top. Work have now given her a decent work only toshiba running windows 8 by the looks. This machine is strictly for work use, due to security, so she needs her own personal Dell replaced as the drive is starting to give read errors and allocating space incorrectly, I'm told.
Her own laptop will rarely leave the house. It will perform basic office tasks for tax returns and accounts, email, web, iTunes, music, photos hence storage ( ok 1 TB drive is too big, didn't appreciate draw on battery). No games. Very rarely video. She won't be happy taking it on holiday, preferring to read books or kindle anyway.
I'd say battery life is quite important, thinking about it.
If this was for work though, you'd be bang on. But by god they'd be paying for it. Not me. ;)
So, it's purely for her own "personal work" stuff re Microsoft office, plus the normal iTunes web email storage stuff. We do have a portable 1TB drive to back up and dump stuff onto. It won't need a dock mouse or separate keyboard, (although your quite right that she should be using those on her work lappy) as she uses her own away from a desk in personal leisure time.
In all honesty she's had nothing but agro with her Dell. Battery's fail so often she's given up and just uses the power lead automatically. There's been numerous call outs from Dell tech. It crashes causing the screen to go blocky if its picked up in the wrong way. Screen res is poor IMO, it's been replaced for dead pixels two or three times, and the second something goes wrong with it I instantly get the blame. ::)
Although it is over 10 years old by now to be fair.
Guessing a more modest machine then? Reliable, good battery life, doesn't crap itself when "picked up the wrong way" with decent response times. ...? :)
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she needs her own personal Dell replaced as the drive is starting to give read errors and allocating space incorrectly, I'm told.
Back that drive up now.
Guessing a more modest machine then? Reliable, good battery life, doesn't crap itself when "picked up the wrong way" with decent response times. ...? :)
My Tosh Satellite (R630-155) gives a genuine 7 hours on battery with light use (word processing, web browsing, etc), and weighs in at a mere 1.27KG, although that was £750 when new in April 2011. The reason for it being so expensive for a "home user" machine is that it was spawned from the Portege range.
It's 30mm thick (including the lid), and is constructed from magnesium alloy so drops and knocks are soaked up quite well.
I have the i5 chip in mine, but I'm sure you could get the price down by opting for an i3 variant which will cope quite easily with H's work demands.
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Cheers Anyroid, yes she has backed it up to the external hard drive. :)
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as the drive is starting to give read errors and allocating space incorrectly, I'm told.
Close enough ;D (To be exact: the reallocated sector count is enormous - definitely approaching if not already at it's ceiling - and the read error rate is abnormally high.. oh and the drive makes some very interesting noises, although not the usual 'click of death' .. yet!)
Again I'm with those that say anything more than an i3 is probably overkill for Mrs G; it's going to be a million, million miles faster than the hunk o j.. venerable machine she's using at the moment, whatever OS you cripple it with :)
Of course my vote is for Apple, as I'm rainbow coloured if you cut me open.. ;D
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If it's not going to leave the house why not get a stand-alone PC. You can get some very small form factor PCs or all-in-ones these days and they offer much better ergonomics than a laptop.. unless the primary mode of use is going to be in front of the TV?
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If it's not going to leave the house why not get a stand-alone PC. You can get some very small form factor PCs or all-in-ones these days and they offer much better ergonomics than a laptop.. unless the primary mode of use is going to be in front of the TV?
We have a PC. It hasn't been touched for ...since we had the lap top. So 10years. She doesn't want to go sit in the office banished to a quiet corner of the house, just go ping an email. Desc tops are dead in this house. Long live the (only just) mobile device.
She wants a lap top. :)
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Bought a Toshiba satellite c660 - 155 from dabs.com a couple of years ago purely for home surfing, emails and lately streaming. I know its not fancy but it is still going strong and I have been impressed with it. Was about £320ish IIRC. Would recommend/buy same make again - 2 yrs on the specs must have improved too.
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If it's not going to leave the house why not get a stand-alone PC. You can get some very small form factor PCs or all-in-ones these days and they offer much better ergonomics than a laptop.. unless the primary mode of use is going to be in front of the TV?
We have a PC. It hasn't been touched for ...since we had the lap top. So 10years. She doesn't want to go sit in the office banished to a quiet corner of the house, just go ping an email. Desc tops are dead in this house. Long live the (only just) mobile device.
She wants a lap top. :)
Same here, understandable for those of us who just want to surf...... ;) ;)
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If it's not going to leave the house why not get a stand-alone PC. You can get some very small form factor PCs or all-in-ones these days and they offer much better ergonomics than a laptop.. unless the primary mode of use is going to be in front of the TV?
We have a PC. It hasn't been touched for ...since we had the lap top. So 10years. She doesn't want to go sit in the office banished to a quiet corner of the house, just go ping an email. Desc tops are dead in this house. Long live the (only just) mobile device.
She wants a lap top. :)
Same here, understandable for those of us who just want to surf...... ;) ;)
Why limit ones self to a desk top, when a lap top does desk and, er, lap? Madness. We don't need anything that powerful anyway, it has to be said. :)
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Desktops have a use, hence I still have 2 here. Put if you want the flexibility of using anywhere in house, obviously laptop is where its at.
Right, with the new requirements:
Core i3-3xxx (or Core i3-2xxx if it makes price more agreeable, at expense of graphics performance (in region of 25%, cpu performance is about 5%))
2-3Gb RAM for 32bit Windows, 4Gb for 64bit Windows
Use the on-CPU graphics, not discrete video chip, for reasons given yesterday
HDD, I'd still recommend SSD, this may have to be a retrofit
If she/you wish to use it around house, as opposed to on a desk in one room (given the laptop v desktop debate, I assume so), be aware that the larger screened (eg 17") ones are heavier, more bulky, more cumbersome than the smaller ones (14 or 15").
So what is compromise around screen size, easier/more conevenient portability around house, or a larger screen?
Remember, for the most part, laptops cannot be upgraded beyond RAM and disks, so you need to nail the basics.
Everything comes with WiFi (A and G), most have Bluetooth (double check if thats important), consumer oriented tend to have webcams for video calls etc.
The more portable ones tend to lack optical drives, which is a double edged sword.
I'd be looking at brands like HP and Tosh, possibly not Dell at this end of the market. Certainly not a great time to be buying one, as all manufacturers are realigning. Can we get a few more months out of the current one by rebuilding? That said, XP ends in March.
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Screen size. Her old Dell is 15" 4:3, so a widescreen 16:9 mite seem smaller.
Although she says the Dell is a little bit bulky. So a 15" widescreen might be smaller overall and more suitable. She's not into online gaming or long periods viewing so... Yeah, 15" would be the one.
The clarity (resolution?) of the Dell was poor IMO. Made letters look blocky and distorted while peering through a net curtain. Again I presume newer will be better?
Wifi I presume 2.4 AND 5ghz will be present on the newer models? Although the old one was fine.
Bluetooth won't be missed, I think. The Dell bt hasn't worked for years and the phones don't talk to it anyway.
Dell had a DVD player, it wrote cd's that's all I know. She'd see no optical drive as a step back I think.
Would like to thank Aaron for clearing up and diagnosing the old machine. :y
The drive is dying, who knows how long it will last, but Christmas and birthday are approaching in short order. So I'm keen to get sumat sorted. hp or tosh would be good. Work machine is Toshiba 19" screen on doze8 I think. Not sure if she'd want a different machine away from work or get used to another Toshiba quicker. She says there's nothing special about the work tosh, but doesn't moan about it either. Maybe price will decide...? :)
Thankyou for input so far, everyone. Much appreciated. :y
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A couple or 3 USB ports might be handy, as she sometimes uses a remote mouse, and plugs in other stuff I can't remember. Phones and external drives etc.
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Screen size. Her old Dell is 15" 4:3, so a widescreen 16:9 mite seem smaller.
Although she says the Dell is a little bit bulky. So a 15" widescreen might be smaller overall and more suitable. She's not into online gaming or long periods viewing so... Yeah, 15" would be the one.
The clarity (resolution?) of the Dell was poor IMO. Made letters look blocky and distorted while peering through a net curtain. Again I presume newer will be better?
Excuse my cheekiness but why are you watching SWBO's laptop through a net curtain?
Does she make a habit of locking you out of the house?
;D ;D ;D
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The drive is dying, who knows how long it will last,
I've got an old (but working perfectly) 120GB drive here you can have if it gets you out of the crap for a bit.
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Why limit ones self to a desk top, when a lap top does desk and, er, lap? Madness. We don't need anything that powerful anyway, it has to be said. :)
Because they cost half as much for the same spec, can be upgraded, are much more reliable and, whilst you can use a laptop at a desk, the location of screen and keyboard are ergonomically awful, so you only want to be doing so occasionally (unless you add an external keyboard, monitor and mouse).
If the main usage is not going to be sitting at a desk, then a laptop wins but that was not clear at the start. ;)
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The clarity (resolution?) of the Dell was poor IMO. Made letters look blocky and distorted while peering through a net curtain. Again I presume newer will be better?
That sounds like the screen resolution set on the graphics driver did not match the LCD native resolution (which it must on non CRT screens) :y
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Why limit ones self to a desk top, when a lap top does desk and, er, lap? Madness. We don't need anything that powerful anyway, it has to be said. :)
Because they cost half as much for the same spec, can be upgraded, are much more reliable and, whilst you can use a laptop at a desk, the location of screen and keyboard are ergonomically awful, so you only want to be doing so occasionally (unless you add an external keyboard, monitor and mouse).
If the main usage is not going to be sitting at a desk, then a laptop wins but that was not clear at the start. ;)
...other than the title you mean :P ;)
She wants a lappy. Who am I to argue? :y
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The drive is dying, who knows how long it will last,
I've got an old (but working perfectly) 120GB drive here you can have if it gets you out of the crap for a bit.
Thanks AndyRoid. But I'd rather just get something sorted with a new one tbh. Although Aaron said its not the most common sort of drive, as he has spares but non where correct match. I can't for the life if me remember what he said the spec was. :(
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The drive is dying, who knows how long it will last,
I've got an old (but working perfectly) 120GB drive here you can have if it gets you out of the crap for a bit.
Thanks AndyRoid. But I'd rather just get something sorted with a new one tbh. Although Aaron said its not the most common sort of drive, as he has spares but non where correct match. I can't for the life if me remember what he said the spec was. :(
;) You need an IDE drive rather than SATA - I'm guessing at 120Gb the drive suggested is an IDE one so would work..
That sounds like the screen resolution set on the graphics driver did not match the LCD native resolution (which it must on non CRT screens) :y
It's set to native resolution, it's just a 10+ year old LCD with low pixel density.. it looked (to me) like every other 10 y/o LCD used to ;) which is a far cry from the pixel density of any modern device..
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Thanks AndyRoid. But I'd rather just get something sorted with a new one tbh. Although Aaron said its not the most common sort of drive, as he has spares but non where correct match. I can't for the life if me remember what he said the spec was. :(
I'm guessing it has an IDE interface as opposed to S-ATA, in which case the drive I have wouldn't fit either.
EDIT:
Beaten to it by Aaron
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I have some (well) used IDE laptop drives if you do want to swap it?
Might be worth it to keep the old laptop for LPG mapping, etc?
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I have some (well) used IDE laptop drives if you do want to swap it?
Might be worth it to keep the old laptop for LPG mapping, etc?
Might be handy if it dies in short order. Will bare in mind, thanks Kev. :y
I have a netbook for mapping duties. Her Dell has a habit of crashing if its handled the wrong way,(just by picking it up usually) so mapping best avoided when plugged into ecu's I guess. It really is becoming useless. Tbh.