Arm Posted July 29, 2017 Share Posted July 29, 2017 Time for a new laptop as the old is getting unstable. Dont need gaming or picture editing but windows based and upto approx £500. Dell , Lenova or HP. Whats advised ? Thanks A Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John K Posted July 29, 2017 Share Posted July 29, 2017 To be honest they are all decent brands and much of a muchness. Personally I really like the heft of HP gear. The main problem with any purchase from any of the places us public can get them from, the lappy will be loaded with manufacturer bloatware and it will be the same with the recovery partition, it will also be pre-bloated. IMHO buy the one you like the look of and also a copy of W10, format the disk and reinstall W10 from the box copy. In terms of specs I would open the bidding with I7, 8gig ram and SSD, dont be tempted with ultra hidef or touch screens Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Algar - Competition Secretary Posted July 29, 2017 Share Posted July 29, 2017 2nd the comment Re touch screen, I have got one and rarely use it. Although my Mrs does use hers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blatman Posted July 29, 2017 Share Posted July 29, 2017 Lenovo or Toshiba. I use both in my professional life. I take care of them because they are the tools of my trade and they do get a hard life as they travel everywhere with me in a rucksack. Both have proved to be robust and reliable. Both use Windows 7 Pro and will continue to do so until I am forced not to! Make sure the machine has a 64bit dual or quad core processor and get as much RAM as you can. I have found on the Lenovo 12Gigs of RAM makes for a zippy machine. I definitely noticed a difference when I upped it from 8gigs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilfman Posted July 29, 2017 Share Posted July 29, 2017 If you just want it for pictures and internet browsing then an i3 or i5 if you can get a good deal will be fine. Windows 10 (they all tend to be now) and 8gb ram (memory) is what you are looking for. Hard drive size is down to personal need - 480gb minimum I'd say and SSD is best (faster) option but tend to be smaller capacities as more expensive. Again, depends how much space you need. I bought my 15 year old a Lenovo i3 from John Lewis and it is a cracking machine - 2 year guarantee too. Just need to decide on what you want to spend and buy the best available for that budget. Don't overpay and buy something too powerful for your need but likewise don't buy something that won't meet what you want from it. Dont get conned into buying antivirus - you can get Sophos Home free (google it). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pistonbroke Posted July 29, 2017 Share Posted July 29, 2017 As Blatters suggests , stick with win7 until it dies . IMO the Intel i7 platform would be OTT for your needs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Man On The Clapham Omnibus Posted July 30, 2017 Share Posted July 30, 2017 I bought an HP somethingorother laptop a couple of years ago and it had Windows 7 on which more or less automatically 'upgraded' to W10. It's fine, and I don't have any problems with it but MS now keeps insisting I update the OS by downloading a large file which seems to be a virtually complete new copy of Windows. It might be the Creators update. I have v.10586 at the moment. Having recently had a problem with an update of an Android CCTV app, I am suspicious of what appear to be un-necessary updates. Am I simply paranoid or is the Creators update to be avoided? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhett Turner - Black Country AO Posted July 30, 2017 Share Posted July 30, 2017 Also look at refurbished business laptops, got a Lenovo for my mother in law recently from amazon at it was good value. Having used dell and Lenovo laptops for work for years and experienced some that are aimed at home users there is no comparison. I guess that's why business laptops cost quite a bit more and a few old refurbished one good value. Some businesses still change every two or three years even though it is no longer necessary. I had one of my Dell laptops for more than 10 years (as a secondary machine) and it worked perfectly for the whole time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blatman Posted July 30, 2017 Share Posted July 30, 2017 16 minutes ago, Man On The Clapham Omnibus said: I bought an HP somethingorother laptop a couple of years ago and it had Windows 7 on which more or less automatically 'upgraded' to W10. It's fine, and I don't have any problems with it but MS now keeps insisting I update the OS by downloading a large file which seems to be a virtually complete new copy of Windows. It might be the Creators update. I have v.10586 at the moment. Having recently had a problem with an update of an Android CCTV app, I am suspicious of what appear to be un-necessary updates. Am I simply paranoid or is the Creators update to be avoided? I've used Windows 10 a little bit and the most annoying for me is the updates. There doesn't seem to be a choice (or at least I haven't found one yet) as to which ones can be accepted and which ones can be ignored. I *always* ignore the "Windows Malicious Software* checker because several of the tools I use for work have password cracking algorithms and/or network sniffing options which are (strictly speaking) classed as "hacking tools". Windows Malicious Software" will cause these applications to not work and I have to delete them and re-install them. It was a pain until I worked it out... When I go through the updates, those that aren't obvious I check what they are (click on the "More Information link against each one) to see if it is actually required. For example Language Pack updates. Unless the update includes something I NEED for the ENGLISH language pack then the update is un-ticked and hidden (right click, hide update). Why would I want language updates fro any other language on my PC? Likewise I don't use .NET or Silverlight so they get un-ticked. I don't use Server 2012 or 2010 or any other server O/S nor do I use Windows 7 Home/Home Premium/Windows 8 or 8.1 so updates that include those without also including Windows 7 Pro get rejected. Yes it takes a bit of effort but in my experience it is very worthwhile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Man On The Clapham Omnibus Posted July 30, 2017 Share Posted July 30, 2017 Thanks Blatters! Helpful as ever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamperMan Posted July 30, 2017 Share Posted July 30, 2017 If you use your laptop to plu into ecu etc you'll find the new laptops don't have serial ports. I have a old hp with windows xp which I nurse and carefor as it has my vw software and omex software. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blatman Posted July 30, 2017 Share Posted July 30, 2017 38 minutes ago, DamperMan said: If you use your laptop to plu into ecu etc you'll find the new laptops don't have serial ports. I have a old hp with windows xp which I nurse and carefor as it has my vw software and omex software. Get one of these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Keyspan-High-speed-Serial-Adapter-230kbps/dp/B0000VYJRY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501430864&sr=8-1&keywords=keyspan+usb+serial+adapter I used this on DTA, MBE (I think), Megasquirt, Omex (I think) as well as using it at work to connect to switches and routers from 8 or 9 different vendors. It has never failed to connect to anything I have so far thrown at it and I've had it for three or four years now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dombanks Posted July 30, 2017 Share Posted July 30, 2017 Ive had laltops from PC specialist and novotec buikt to spec and found both to be great and sturdy. Not so keen on the pc specialist case but you cant deny their solidity the ex used to take hers to india out in the field all the time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arm Posted July 30, 2017 Author Share Posted July 30, 2017 Thanks for all the replies. A Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corsechris Posted July 31, 2017 Share Posted July 31, 2017 I used to buy laptops for the business I worked in. Settled on HP after trying a few brands. My responsibility was only for 100 or so at any given time but the wider business had them in the tens of thousands and also went with HP. I also went with HP servers and workstations as well. Not brand loyalty, just found them to be the best all round of those I'd tried for what we wanted. if you do end up with a machine that has loads of bloat ware, you can usually remove it with a bit of effort but sometimes you'll find the most random and bizarre hurdles to jump before you can get rid of it. The single most random one I came across was an app that wouldn't uninstall unless you disabled the DVD drive first...... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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