I think I'm about to be in the market for a new laptop...I've never owned a laptop before but would prefer one for the ease of moving it around and so DH can take it with him on business trips.
My current computer is at least 5 years old, if not older, and just this morning started giving me big warnings of "hard disk failure imminent" and refusing to run or keep running. I'm pretty sure this is real and not some fake virus-hack thing. Has anyone else seen this before? Is it fixable?
I'd like to know what a good laptop to buy would be. I'm only looking for the capability to surf the Internet, write Word documents, and store photos. I don't do gaming, spreadsheets or any other things that would require huge amounts of memory or whatever. I personally use (used?) my computer for the Internet and storing photos. Zero anything else. And on the Internet, the most I do beyond read my news and 3FC is search family history things and play Youtube music. Seriously...I'm that dull. LOL
What is a good laptop for just that? What kind of price range? And where is a good place to get it from? My old computer was from Costco.
Even better, since that's all I need a device to do...Would I be better off with something like an iPad? I seriously have NO IDEA. I'm so technology-backwards and behind.
I just bought an Asus from Best Buy. I'm not techno savvy at all, but I found that it had all the features that I wanted at a price I could live with. I do a lot of online schooling so I needed storage space and for it to be fast. I don't know if it's something the techno gurus would recommend, but I'm happy with it!
Does your laptop run at all?? You want to hurry up and back up anything you want to save!! Do you have a thumb drive to save to??
I have a tablet (not an Ipad but the same idea), I love it for reading a book or browsing online whether 3FC or ebay, etc. But I don't love it for typing out messages on sites like this. The keyboard is on the screen and it's a pain. I also type about 80 words a minute so a traditional keyboard is way faster and more comfortable for me to type on.
You don't need anything fancy in a laptop for the internet only and it shouldn't cost you too much. I don't even have Word, Excel, etc. on mine as I don't use it! I literally use the calculator, the internet and sometimes paint. That's it!! So if you are dull, so am I.
Let me know if you want my husband to look up anything for you. He's a computer person, I'm not. But I can relay messages and I'd be happy to help!!
Sounds like for your use, you should be able to find something at a local electronics store for ~300-400 dollars.
Brands like acer and gateway will be cheaper and for light use, they will be good enough for a few years.
HP and dell are somewhere in between while toshiba, sony, apple, and lenovo tend to be higher end in terms of cost and functionality.
I think for your purpose, a simple dual core processor is good enough (down go down to pentium though!). A 4gb memory is pretty standard and anywhere between 300-500 gb of disk space is also good.
I've heard great great things about Asus. That being said, I bought an Acer s couple months ago for $415 , pretty much only bc it had windows 7 in a windows 8 world. And I wanted 7 like you couldn't believe. So, I'm happy with it. Hopefully it lasts me the next 5 years. That seems to be the life of laptops nowadays.
I'm a computer technician, so I feel comfortable giving some input on this.
"Hard disk failure imminent" is a real warning. It means your harddrive is about to crash and you better save anything important elsewhere. Anything you want to keep, you should transfer it to a flashdrive or external harddrive. If your computer is incapable of allowing you to get your data off of it, you can take it to Best Buy and they can probably transfer your data to a new drive, but it will cost you.
I don't have any real suggestions on specific computers, but I can give you some specs to look for.
Hardware:
2-4 GB RAM
250-500 GB Harddrive (depends on how many files/photos you save)
Dual or Quad Core Processor
Built-in wireless
Things to consider if you use them:
CD/DVD Drive
SD Card Reader
HDMI port
Ethernet Port
I suggest Asus or HP laptops. Acer is acceptable for light use as well. If you're comfortable ordering online, you can find great deals at Newegg.com. If not, I would suggest purchasing from a warehouse store (costco, sam's club, etc.) or an electronics store like Best Buy.
You should be able to spend less than $600 and get a good quality computer. You'll probably be able to find a computer with these specs for around $500 though.
thank you all I don't have anything important on my computer, just a bunch of random stuff that I don't need and it's all super old anyhow...all photos are saved to discs and flash drives, which are the only things of importance to me on it...I need to be able to plug my phone into whatever I get and offload my phone's photos etc...I will look around here this weekend with the advice that I've heard here...I need DH's input because whatever we get needs to be something he's comfortable taking on business trips, as he goes frequently and NEEDS a laptop or something similar and doesn't have one right now
Backup what you want to save off that computer now. That includes keys to any software you wish to copy on to the new laptop.
Really, laptops are unbelievably cheap now. Asus is decent, yes. From what you describe your use as, I'd think you'd be able to pick up something between 300-400. Maybe even less.
iPads are nice too, but somewhat difficult to write documents on. If you're looking for photo storage, iPads are have less memory than traditional computers, so if you had a lot of them you'd probably need to offload those somewhere. I have an iPad, but would never use it as my main machine.
It sounds to me like a smaller laptop would be just fine for you.
As Psychic suggested, newegg.com is the place to buy computer stuff. Tigerdirect.com and amazon are also up there. If you prefer buying in the store, that's fine too, but definitely look up the prices and reviews on newegg first to make sure you're not getting ripped off at the store.
Computer Purchase Advice/Help
