Laptop Advice

ACER will keep you going for about 6-7 years based on that usage. They're designed for stooodents.

Lots of FM, lots of porn, some essays, some researching.

 

I find it difficult to believe that any laptop will last you 6-7 years with a decent amount of use. They aren't even designed to last that long. I've had about four in that time frame.

 

2007 until now. The battery is weak but everything else is fine.

 

:naughty:

 

I'll throw my hat into the ring now that a few people have commented.

Increase your budget. You'll need to spend up to £600 on a decent laptop that will last. Budget stuff will be compromised and fail earlier. It's worth saving up for a bit longer to get that extra quality.
As a student you should be able to get Office cheaply through college & student deals so don't spend money on it with the computer.

Don't pay for antivirus. Use AVG or Avast both freely downloadable. They are as good as commercial software and often better as updates are more frequent. They also drain your system resources and slow your computer less.

Look at last year's models you don't need to pay a premium for the latest thing .

I'd say an SSD is a must. Unless you want to store a lot of images music & movies, in which case it won't be big enough. The added speed and battery efficiency is invaluable in a laptop.
I have a desktop PC with an SSD for speed. All of my files are on a standalone network HD (regularly backed up) which is then accessible from the Desktop, laptop, tablet etc. By far the best way to go if you can. The computer HD only has system and programs installed on it meaning it takes about 20 seconds to boot from cold start.

Windows 8 is to be avoided. 8.1 is preferred, 7 is more than adequate.
Make sure you do have a touch screen if you decide to go for 8.1. It's not a gimmick but it's essential for 8.1. You can upgrade from 8 to 8.1 but why have the hassle on a new machine.

Good luck

 

I've been looking for a new laptop myself in the past few months, and from what I can see, it is mainly mid-range laptops that are touchscreen. To me this suggests that it is a bit gimmicky since it is likely marketed at home users who are easily sold on such technology (and most probably won't be using enterprise class applications).

What gets me the most is that touchscreen is normally at the detriment of some other spec, most notably the screen resolution.
.

 

At the moment, it's probably fair to say it's reasonably gimmicky. But more and more programs are designing themselves for touchscreen utilisation, so if you want a laptop for the long term I think that's the way forward, much like it has been with phones. Most of the apps that come with Windows 8 are best used with a touchscreen, including most if not all of the games on the Store.

 

As you know, I am a bit of an old fart so this is probably a stupid question. But if I get 8.1 with a touchscreen laptop, does that mean that only touchscreen software can be used to the optimum.

So, for example, I use Serif software for all my design, website, publishing, etc. Will that software have to be upgraded at cost, or does the OS allow use through the touchscreen.

 

Touchscreen is optional, and not the only way to interact with the OS. You can still use keyboard and mouse.

It's just an alternative form of user input at the OS level, not one which you have to use at the expense of all other methods.

 

Thanks Arakel, much appreciated.

 

You'll probably also be able to do finger painting on MS Paint.

 

Thanks all for your help. After much deliberation, I have decided to stick with what I have and fork out for the replacement battery and replacement charger.

 

well that was a waste of everyones time

 

:sign15:

 

I learnt lots, didn't you?

 

Hardly, he solicited advice and made an informed decision. The information is still valid for the future.

 

I just got myself a very cheap Acer Chromebook and dualbooted Ubuntu onto it. Very happy with the results.anyone else try this?

 

I got my new one from PC specialist and would definitely recommend them. You add all the hardware you want and can leave out all the gimmicks

 

Decent laptops cost over 500 and last at most half as long as Macs in my experience. I've never had a laptop that performs after 2 years (I do torrent and play FM lots). My current Mac is 5 years old, although given to me after 2 as a present has never let me down.

If you ship them from the US, you can find them almost half price, and I'll do just that when the next update happens, probably when the retina air comes out.

 

My laptop is now 7 yrs old and works fine if not a bit slowly (the hardware in my phone is more powerful!!) My wifes laptop is over 8yrs old so its her turn first. both are old Dells,I know they have a mixed rep ,but have served us well. We bought them new at the time when they were latest spec ,think we have had our moneys worth out of both.

 

Fair enough, I just find what I use my laptop for is not conducive to a long life on Windows computers.

 

If you're playing FM they you need sheer raw processing power. For that you're never going to beat a PC. Laptops have a hard life and only last half the time a desktop does. Cramming all that kit in a small space creates heat and it wears out connections and components quickly.

Having supported PCs & Macs professionally, PCs tend to go wrong more often but are easier to fix. Macs because they have more control over the system and accessories are easier to use and fail less, but are twice the cost and when they do go wrong Apple are a pain in the Harris to deal with.

Both do the same job these days and really it's personal choice which you go for baring a few minor incompatibilities, I just prefer the flexibility and configurability of the PC platform. Oh and I hate itunes.

 

Looking to get a sub 400 laptop for home use (web browsing, mail and office mainly - no gaming) and narrowed it down to an HP and Acer

The Acer has lower spec but intel i5 3337u processor compared to hp's AMD A8 processor

Will I notice the difference?

 

i think you can get a high-s[ec chromebook for half that price

 

Anything on here catch your eye?

 

I'd disagree that an SSD is a must.

Expensive for what they are (slightly faster boot) but still very prone to failure. I've known lots and lots of SSD's go pop very early in their life.

Better to spend the money on as much RAM and the fastest processor you can afford. As far as disk space is concerned - nothing less than around 600Gb or you'll regret it.

Apart from that, they're all pretty much of a muchness. Free anti-virus as someone else said - Avira Free Version is probably the best. Do not pay for Norton under any circumstances unless you want to spend all your computing time attending to its vagaries and occasional demands for more money.

Windows 7 rather than 8.

Open Office is good enough, but some compatibility issues in documents that are complex and include things such as tables etc. If there's an offer on of free or reduced price MS-Office - snap it up.

 

SSD very much depends on how you use your computer. They're not good for file storage. I have my operating system and programs on SSD all of my files are on NAS drive.

Like anything don't get a cheap SSD and you'll be fine. A decent one will have a much higher MTBF and sector contiguousness than a conventional disk based drive. The most important tip is to ensure that Windows defrag tools are turned off for the SSD. As there is no seek time a fragmented file system doesn't slow it down and repeatedly moving parts of files about through defragging will wear it down prematurely.

 

I was told that this is the only way to use an SSD: SSD for boot and programs & HDD for files. So are you really going to get a laptop with an SSD and carry about an external HDD or carry load of flash drives in your pocket?

 

All my files are accessible over the web on my NAS drive (and backed up onto a secodary drive periodically). If I want to watch a movie or something mobile then yes I'd run it from an SD card or USB stick otherwise for small files an internet connection is fine. The odd file can go on the SSD but I wouldn't use it every day for file storage as space is very much more expensive.

It's all down to personal choice and how the machine is being used. If it's primarily for internet consumption then SSD is fine, if you're editing movies or CAD drawings then it's not going to be much use. The sheer speed advantage is such a bonus that I;d never use a physical disk for the OS again.

 

SSD all the way. Unless you have only one drive and like Clive want to sotre lots of porn or kremlin propganda.

 

Very poor advice. SSDs are a significant performance boost for far more than just boot times.

An SSD will do a lot more for the average surf-email-office user than additional RAM or a better processor. Unless you're playing the latest games or using a very hungry 64 bit application, almost every laptop will have as much juice as you'll ever need nowadays. If you already have a multicore processor (which all new machines nowadays do), why do you need a more powerful one to do non-taxing things like surf the net?

Bitdefender Free is better than Avira and doesn't have invasive popups. The best AV products are still pay items, though, but the performance delta isn't worth it for most users.

No. Windows 8.1 is a far, far, far, far better OS than 7. Even vanilla 8 is far better than 7, albeit a little clunky from the UI perspective. The FUD mindset in relation to 8/8.1 is crazy. The last bad OS Microsoft made was Vista, which was very bad. 7 was very good. 8 and especially 8.1 are significantly better than 7. If you buy 7 when you could get 8.1 you are flat out buying a worse OS.

This bit is right. Unless it's the most modern version of Office (currently 2013), get OpenOffice unless you absolutely need more advanced things like Excel macros.

 

*cough* LibreOffice *cough*

 

They're exactly the same thing, silly.

 

I'm old school.

 

What do the experts think of this one - http://www.johnlewis.com/lenovo-ide...500gb-8gb-ssd-13-3-touch-screen-grey/p1101273

For web browsing, work (needs to be able to cope with having a lot of docs open at once and switch easily between them), skyping, portability and web browsing (one handed mainly).