New Laptop?

[terrym]

OK folks.
I made my laptop choice last weekend helped by comments on here and elsewhere and a lot of my own research, and its due to be delivered today (so fingers crossed it lives up to my expectations).
Since @Clint seemed to be in similar position to me when I did the OP I thought I would share what I did since it may help others, but recognising that we all have different requirements.
So for anyone who has no idea of what's out there and is thinking of buying new:-
1. Decide what you want to use your laptop for, from emails and occasional surfing through to gaming. More will mean more computing (processor) speed
2. Decide what size of screen you need. I wanted 15". In general bigger costs more.
3. Decide on your Operating system. Apple stuff aside, most laptops are sold with Windows 10. If you are running an older version of Windows be aware that W10 seems to consume more and more in spite of what Microsoft tell us (at least in my opinion)
3. Look on the usual on-line sites, Amazon, PC World, John Lewis (come with a 2 year guarantee as standard) plus Argos, and form an idea of what's available against what you want to spend, and then decide on a budget. I did this and initially set my budget at £400 but in the end raised it to £500 after looking at what I got for £400 and deciding I did in fact want more.
4. Have a good like at what's available in more detail around your budget. Key features will include
- Processor speed in GHz: there are two generally types of processor Intel and AMD each with its own advantages, in general faster means better.
- Screen resolution in pixels, latest will be more but that consumes computing power
- Decide on whether you only want 4Gb RAM, if you buy more now it will speed things up, but notesome laptops can be retrofitted later with more RAM
- Need for a DVD player; most don't come with them now.
- Decide if you want the capability of replacing the battery. On some laptops you cant do this (e.g Lenovo) and others you have to part dismantle it (e.g Dell)
- See what is loaded up as software. Mininum necessary in my view is best.
- Decide whether you are happy with a hard drive (HDD) or would prefer an SSD (look it up) which are now coming in. HDD tend to run slower, but have more storgae, whereas SSDs seem to be limited to 256Gb. SSDs cost more at present.
- If you aren't too bothered about the latest this or that then you may be able to buy better in some areas, for cheaper, especially if a supplier is discounting to clear the stock.
- Some deals on refurbished stuff if you want to take the risk
5. Form a short list of what you think is suitable. Read as many reviews as you can to form an opinion. If you are like me you will find it is difficult to exactly compare like with like, and so some may be better at one thing but worst in another.
6. Take the plunge and decide.

Hope this helps.:thumb:

And for Clint, 'bloatware' is additional software loaded up by the manufacturer which may not be necessary often including trial versions of McAfee anti-virus and MS Office, plus a lot of their own software . Some may find this useful, but there are often freeware versions out there which you can load youself and do the job perhaps just as well or even better. Keeping your software and stuff down to what you use, helps your laptop run as fast as it can.

 

[Covrich]

I had to remove 2 screens worth of 'bloatware' off a dell system***. if you can see your model of laptop in store you can check it out. I found lenovo had less bloatware but they did have an issue with spyware...

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/...stslap_from_ftc_for_superfish_adware_debacle/

asus and acer are generally no-nonsense brands. I find for laptops asus build quality is better than acer**. Hp - the hardware is good although they are second only to dell in the bloatware stakes.

**I have 3 acer monitors in the house a toshiba & dell laptop and have a lenovo & asus laptop at work.

*** The dell business range comes without a shed full of consumer bloatware. I bought a �£400 business laptop for my daughter for uni and it flies compared to the retail channel dells. - there's a thought - get a cheap small business laptop rather than go through the retail channel.

We have Dell and now HP laptops first thing we do on a new model is strip the crap out before we build the base image.

Frustrates me to see so many laptops off the shelf hampered with junk.. why???!!

 

[Pirate_Pete]

I think it's a great idea asking about laptops (or anything else!)on here....in the snug..I wouldn't mind a new laptop but like a lot I know sod all about them!
What's bloat ware?

Bloat ware is the stuff the manufacturers & microsoft put on as extras.
I have a Toshiba laptop and it continually came up with some rubbish about Toshiba PC health.

There's also a load of other rubbish that come pre loaded. All the time it's running it slows the computer down a tad.

You can get rid of it. Or just disable it so it doesn't start when the computer is turned on.

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=...fox-b&gfe_rd=cr&dcr=0&ei=K-44WqXJAvPDXs_ri5AE

 

[foxbat]

Frustrates me to see so many laptops off the shelf hampered with junk.. why???!!

Same reason your subsidised mobile is full of apps you can't uninstall: £££

Software companies pay the laptop manufacturers to pre-install their trial versions. Laptop manufacturers include as much of their own promotional (and often terribly written) software.

First thing I do with a new laptop is format the SSD, install Win10 from scratch and then sufficient Linux server VMs to do dev work with.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

There is another way of stopping this rubbish loading in the first place for those who worry about removing something they may need later -

Right-click the Taskbar and click on Task Manager then click on the startup tab in the next window, open the next screen in full screen mode and go through everything in the list and disable anything you do not need by right clicking on it you can now test and if you have broken something simply enable it again.

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[GerritT]

In older versions there was msconfig.exe, that listed all the items that launched at startup and that sort of things. Including checkboxes to en/disable them. Some of it may have been transferred to the Task Manager though.
Another must-have: CCleaner. And get rid of Chrome.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

In older versions there was msconfig.exe, that listed all the items that launched at startup and that sort of things. Including checkboxes to en/disable them. Some of it may have been transferred to the Task Manager though.
Another must-have: CCleaner. And get rid of Chrome.

I used to type msconfig in the search box but if you use Cortana it no longer works so i now use the above method, i use CCleaner and have for years i also use Chrome its a bit of a memory hog but it works for me and is fast, i have tried Opera, Firefox and Edge but always come back to Chrome.

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[GerritT]

I used to type msconfig in the search box but if you use Cortana it no longer works so i now use the above method, i use CCleaner and have for years i also use Chrome its a bit of a memory hog but it works for me and is fast, i have tried Opera, Firefox and Edge but always come back to Chrome.

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Already tried Firefox 52? Rebuilt, and quite lean and mean. And I was quite impressed with Edge, the few weeks I used it.

 

[Clint]

My laptop is old....it's a HP presario running Windows vista basic. It's rubbish now to be honest..most of my Internet surfing is on my phone. The Mrs uses the laptop for her work "stuff".. . There seems to be a bit of bloat ware on it like HP health what ever which I never use. Physically it's sound just slow.
My son has an ipad air that he doesn't use much lately so I might borrow that...
I wouldn't mind a new laptop though..
Thanks for the replies!

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I have tried 57 but it didn't seem any faster than chrome.

 

[LED_ZEP]

Hi all

A good tip to buying a computer is to think, What I'm I going to use it for?
If it's just to access the internet a play a little music you don't need the stuff on the shelve in your local PC World. If it's going to sit in the same place for 99% of the time you don't need a laptop get a desktop for two reasons.

First you can get the same spec with a nice big monitor (great for watching Iplayer and YouTube) for about a third less.

Second it will last a lot longer. In a laptop all the components are packet in tightly together and the poor cooling leads to thermal failure of the electronic components (and it can be dropped) .

I've always bought tech that's about 3 years older than the latest stuff, normally I'll ask to speak to a manager in the store and ask what they have in the storeroom and then haggle on the price (it's stuff they can't sell any longer so they're glad to get rid).

Don't pay for more than you need, only gamers and scientists get close to using what they're paying for with the latest tech.

Paul

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Most mobiles and tablets will surf the internet as quickly as a laptop or PC but I prefer a desktop as I do a lot of picture editing and uploading etc, I would imagine most basic laptops will have enough grunt to keep the majority of us happy so no need to spend big, I like the fact they are moving to solid state drives as I have had PC's die due to hard disc failure in the past, if my laptop droke beyond economical repair I would seriously consider a large screen tablet and a wireless keyboard as i rarely tale it out of the house these days.

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[simon12]

I keep thinking my 7 year old budget desktop is getting slow until I try someone elses brand new £500 laptop.