OT - Laptop recommendations

secretsam
secretsam Posts: 5,099
edited August 2017 in Commuting chat
Hi all

Need to get at least one laptop for the juniors and myself to work on at SecretSam mansions; will be used for general research and info gathering plus MS Office functions - kids are in Year 8 at school so would be used for homework

Don't want to spend the earth; not sure whether to get a laptop or a desktop? Won't be gaming or any nonsense like that, so don't need to spend oceans of money; space at a premium but needs to be a usable solution

Thanks in advance
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Comments

  • asprilla
    asprilla Posts: 8,440
    I use a Surface Pro which has all the bells and whistles and is very light as I work across various locations.

    However, for the Mrs who just uses a laptop at home for basic stuff (web and office) I got her a Lenovo Thinkpad. I think I paid about £400 for a 14" screen, i5, reasonable memory, 500gb hdd and internal and external battery. I took it to Madrid on a one day work trip and deliberately left the charger at home so it got through 15hrs of work and entertainment.

    Being a Think pad I generally think they have one of the best keyboard / track pad combos on the market; comfort is important.

    It also came with 3yr Lenovo cover so when I had a hardware issue an engineer came to me the following day.
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  • jgsi
    jgsi Posts: 5,062
    Similar I'm looking at Chromebooks which can support Office files... and can be had for LOT less money than a Windows Surface
  • craker
    craker Posts: 1,739
    The cheapskate answer would be to get a secondhand business grade laptop off ebay and put Linux Mint on it for malware proofness.

    £150 or so gets you a Lenovo Thinkpad - have a look for X220 -, Core i5 ish, pretty bombproof, good keyboard as noted above.

    like this one

    I've got 3 of varying ages, will definitely be getting another when the time comes.
  • secretsam
    secretsam Posts: 5,099
    craker wrote:
    The cheapskate answer would be to get a secondhand business grade laptop off ebay and put Linux Mint on it for malware proofness.

    £150 or so gets you a Lenovo Thinkpad - have a look for X220 -, Core i5 ish, pretty bombproof, good keyboard as noted above.

    like this one

    I've got 3 of varying ages, will definitely be getting another when the time comes.

    Have you used that vendor on FleaBay?
    It's just a hill. Get over it.
  • slowbike
    slowbike Posts: 8,498
    if you're going to be using it for Zwift then don't get that one - the graphics aren't good enough ...
  • fenix
    fenix Posts: 5,437
    My family have had a couple of Lenovos on the go for a good few years now - they've served us well.
  • craker
    craker Posts: 1,739
    SecretSam wrote:
    craker wrote:

    Have you used that vendor on FleaBay?

    No, I picked that one at random. Still with enough feedback and the credible appearance of an IT reseller I'm pretty happy to trust ebay. 'Refurbished' can't mean much more than a wipe with a cloth and a clean OS install can it?
  • slowbike
    slowbike Posts: 8,498
    craker wrote:
    SecretSam wrote:
    craker wrote:

    Have you used that vendor on FleaBay?

    No, I picked that one at random. Still with enough feedback and the credible appearance of an IT reseller I'm pretty happy to trust ebay. 'Refurbished' can't mean much more than a wipe with a cloth and a clean OS install can it?

    Most of the time that's all they need - but it could mean be some defunct parts replaced with others - eg, broken keys, keypads. My guess is that the reseller buys job lots at auction then cleans up everything they can sell straight on - or "cobble together" broken laptops for the remainder.

    2 areas I'd look out for with refurb machines are battery and hard drive life - both can be replaced fairly easily - the latter can be a bit more catastrophic if it fails suddenly ... so just make sure you've got a suitable backup!
  • mudcovered
    mudcovered Posts: 725
    Slowbike wrote:

    2 areas I'd look out for with refurb machines are battery and hard drive life - both can be replaced fairly easily - the latter can be a bit more catastrophic if it fails suddenly ... so just make sure you've got a suitable backup!

    You can get an idea for the hard drive by looking at the smart data with something like smartmon tools. That will include a power cycle count and power on hours count. Good for getting a usage picture.

    There is also similar data in the battery which includes charge/discharge cycle counts and the difference between the current 100% capacity and the original 100% capacity (which degrades over charge/discharge cycles). Not sure about windows apps to display this but I think linux can do it. ;)

    Mike
  • nich
    nich Posts: 888
    Chromebooks can be had for good prices. Just got my folks one and would probably get one myself if I didn't already have a macbook. Tremendous battery life and snappy enough for web/music/office documents. Not much to go wrong with them, and Google docs / sheets / slides should be fine for school work. Something to think about would be printing if required - I think it only supports google cloud print (so either you need a printer which is cloud-ready, or you need another computer connected to the printer...or just do it from school) :)
  • itboffin
    itboffin Posts: 20,052
    JGSI wrote:
    Similar I'm looking at Chromebooks which can support Office files... and can be had for LOT less money than a Windows Surface

    ^this^ chromebook all the way, says me typing from mine right now
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  • secretsam
    secretsam Posts: 5,099
    :evil: like
    itboffin wrote:
    JGSI wrote:
    Similar I'm looking at Chromebooks which can support Office files... and can be had for LOT less money than a Windows Surface

    ^this^ chromebook all the way, says me typing from mine right now

    Errr... OK, "Chromebook" = ???? Last personal laptop was an HP where the boot drive died :evil:
    It's just a hill. Get over it.
  • davesnothere
    davesnothere Posts: 620
    I would recommend Acer, I've had 3 or 4 of them and they've been excellent. My laptops take a bit of a battering being out on site etc and they have been very durable

    DNH Jnr also has one for his schoolwork and stuff also

    Something like this https://www.tesco.com/direct/acer-es15-156-laptop-with-intel-pentium-4gb-ram-1tb-hdd-dvdrw-black/571-7260.prd?skuId=571-7260&pageLevel=sku&sc_cmp=ppc*PX+-+DNF+Electrical*PX+-+Shopping+GSC+-+Generic+-+Computing*PRODUCT+GROUP571-7260*&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxNTHou3-1QIV5pXtCh1wVQ4BEAQYAiABEgKqzvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&source=others
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  • nich
    nich Posts: 888
    SecretSam wrote:
    :evil: like
    itboffin wrote:
    JGSI wrote:
    Similar I'm looking at Chromebooks which can support Office files... and can be had for LOT less money than a Windows Surface

    ^this^ chromebook all the way, says me typing from mine right now

    Errr... OK, "Chromebook" = ???? Last personal laptop was an HP where the boot drive died :evil:

    Chromebooks run ChromeOS, which is a operating system designed by Google (based on the Linux Kernel).

    Simply put, you boot it up, you login with a Google email account, you have access to the Google chrome web-browser, and apps in the Google play-store. That's pretty much all it is - just a web-browser. All your browser preferences and docs/slides/spreadsheets/files etc are stored on the web (the cloud), so any work you do is accessible from anywhere, providing you have an internet connection (I'm pretty sure you can work in offline mode as well).

    They'll have wifi/bluetooth/hdmi/usb ports usually. Some have touchscreen - mine for example is this http://www.argos.co.uk/product/7459719 (got it half the price as it was a refurb!).
  • secretsam
    secretsam Posts: 5,099
    nich wrote:
    <<stuff about Chromebooks>>

    Thanks!
    It's just a hill. Get over it.
  • essex-commuter
    essex-commuter Posts: 2,188
    If anyone's interested I may well have a Chromebook for sale very soon. It's about 1 year old (maybe a bit less) and is immaculate, hasn't left the office desk...

    Let me know and I'll post up the model etc. Have receipts etc.
  • elbowloh
    elbowloh Posts: 7,078
    essex-commuter wrote:
    If anyone's interested I may well have a Chromebook for sale very soon. It's about 1 year old (maybe a bit less) and is immaculate, hasn't left the office desk...

    Let me know and I'll post up the model etc. Have receipts etc.
    You know you can't just steal stuff from the office and sell it right? :wink:
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  • meursault
    meursault Posts: 1,433
    The value in laptops is the processor and graphics card. So go for the best of these for the lowest price.
    Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.

    Voltaire
  • essex-commuter
    essex-commuter Posts: 2,188
    elbowloh wrote:
    essex-commuter wrote:
    If anyone's interested I may well have a Chromebook for sale very soon. It's about 1 year old (maybe a bit less) and is immaculate, hasn't left the office desk...

    Let me know and I'll post up the model etc. Have receipts etc.
    You know you can't just steal stuff from the office and sell it right? :wink:


    Doh :(

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