A Lappy for Xmas.

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Chardok
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A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by Chardok »

So, for my SO, I'm getting a new Lappy, methinks. I don't do PC gaming anymore, so video performance isn't a consideration. My SO does a lot of photo management (storage should be high), vacation planning (She wants Microsoft Office Suite, not only for managing home stuff (Vacations, coupon organization, etc.) but in her job at work, it would be extremely beneficial to have it at home so she can practice. I've already purchased a copy of Office 2010 through our work purchase program for her, so that's taken care of. And she also does a lot of general websurfing. The Lappy I'm getting, I'm getting from Dell through our work purchase program as well. I was looking at the Inspiron 15R, but it seems like that's probably more power than she needs. Then again, future proofing for future Office suites and all that jazz. So I'm kind of fishing for suggestions based on those criteria. (whether it's too much power, whether I should just get her a less feature-full laptop.

Oh, it should also be verrry user friendly and kind of idiot proof because when it comes to actually managing software, diagnosing problems, and using advanced features, she's bascially functionally retarded.
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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by Mr Bean »

Future proofing for Office suites? Chardok we had enough power to run five Microsoft power point slides with the Pentium 3 in 2001. A computer purchased in 2002 is just fine running any office sweet on the market today except for the fact the OS on that computer would be XP or 2000.

If all she's doing is office work then get her the cheapest 17 incher with the bottom running cpu and at least 4 gigs of ram and as much HD space as they will sell it that's not cheaper to add yourself. (For example a USB 2/USB 3 500 gig external HD the size of a paperback book will set you back 100$ or less, so don't spend 250$ upgrading from the 320 HD to the 750)

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Chardok
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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by Chardok »

Cool. I've been out of the PC POWAR loop for awhile. Thanks for that, Bean!
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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by phongn »

I generally prefer business-line laptops; they're made to better quality. You might not be able to get a discount on that, though. Also, accidential-damage warranties are usually worth it.

Also, have you asked your SO what she'll want and do? A 17" laptop would be a rather poor fit if she wants to carry it around frequently but not a bad idea if it'll stay in one place. If you can afford it, an SSD will be the fastest upgrade you can possibly make and it almost certainly will be noticeable (if not immediately, when she has to go back to a computer with a conventional hard drive).

Hard drives prices are skyrocketing right now thanks to the flooding in Thailand.

EDIT: Friendly-and-idiot-proof? Have you considered a Mac?
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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by Starglider »

phongn wrote:A 17" laptop would be a rather poor fit if she wants to carry it around frequently but not a bad idea if it'll stay in one place.
If it stays in one place you can get a 12" laptop, a docking station and a real monitor that will be vastly better than any laptop display. This is rapidly becoming the business standard (at least at the companies I work with). If you don't want high-end performance, then the only reason to get a 17" laptop is if you want to do 3D gaming or use productivity apps that don't play well with tiny screens, in locations where a monitor and keyboard aren't available.
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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by phongn »

Starglider wrote:If it stays in one place you can get a 12" laptop, a docking station and a real monitor that will be vastly better than any laptop display. This is rapidly becoming the business standard (at least at the companies I work with). If you don't want high-end performance, then the only reason to get a 17" laptop is if you want to do 3D gaming or use productivity apps that don't play well with tiny screens, in locations where a monitor and keyboard aren't available.
Docking stations tend to be limited to business machines, though (mind you, it's not exactly hard to plug things in, if a bit annoying).
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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by Zixinus »

I lower-end Thinkpad should do fine. They're more durable than your average laptops and are considered business-class. Look for one that has XP installed by native and you should be fine. They come nowadays in various sizes, so screen size shouldn't be a big problem.
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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by Mr Bean »

Zixinus wrote:I Look for one that has XP installed by native and you should be fine.
Wait.. why XP?

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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by phongn »

Zixinus wrote:I lower-end Thinkpad should do fine. They're more durable than your average laptops and are considered business-class.
I'm very fond of the X220 and T420 models, personally.
Look for one that has XP installed by native and you should be fine. They come nowadays in various sizes, so screen size shouldn't be a big problem.
That's really bad advice. Windows 7 is the standard in better in virtually every way than XP on modern hardware.
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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by Zixinus »

I meant that by standard, it has XP as it comes out of the factory (or it has XP on when it gets into its packaging or whatever). It if has XP by default, it should handle Office and most modern (and bloated) software with ease.

You can switch to 7 later.

I don't know about how much better 7 is, but yeah, if there is little to no price difference, why not go 7?
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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by phongn »

Zixinus wrote:I meant that by standard, it has XP as it comes out of the factory (or it has XP on when it gets into its packaging or whatever). It if has XP by default, it should handle Office and most modern (and bloated) software with ease.

You can switch to 7 later.

I don't know about how much better 7 is, but yeah, if there is little to no price difference, why not go 7?
Windows XP does not ship on new laptops except as a VM these days.
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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by Zaune »

Starglider wrote:If it stays in one place you can get a 12" laptop, a docking station and a real monitor that will be vastly better than any laptop display. This is rapidly becoming the business standard (at least at the companies I work with). If you don't want high-end performance, then the only reason to get a 17" laptop is if you want to do 3D gaming or use productivity apps that don't play well with tiny screens, in locations where a monitor and keyboard aren't available.
If it's staying in one place then I wouldn't recommend a laptop at all; they're a lot of hassle to maintain or upgrade and if something critical like the power supply goes kaput you've almost certainly got to write off the whole machine.
However, if Mrs. Chardok does need to carry it around a lot then I'm with Starglider; even a 10-inch netbook's processor and memory is plenty for word processing and general web-surfing, and it's only stuff like creating Powerpoint presentations where she might have trouble with the smaller screen. I wouldn't bother with a docking station, though; almost all laptops at least have a VGA port, and USB hubs can be had for the price of a packet of cigarettes.
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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by Starglider »

Zixinus wrote:Look for one that has XP installed by native and you should be fine. They come nowadays in various sizes, so screen size shouldn't be a big problem.
That is ludicrously bad advice. Even Microsoft has dropped full support for XP (no more bug fixes or service packs), extended support will be terminated in March 2014 after which it will get no critical security updates either. On even vaguely modern hardware, Windows 7 is much better in every way. Finally XP has no DirectX 11, no Aero and effectively no 64-bit support (no one makes XP-64 drivers), which is increasingly important. Almost no one will ship XP on a new machine anyway so at least Chardok can't shoot himself in the foot like that.
Zaune wrote:If it's staying in one place then I wouldn't recommend a laptop at all; they're a lot of hassle to maintain or upgrade
Only computer geeks do that. Normal people ship the whole thing back to the manufacturer if it is under warranty or throw it out if it is out of warranty. At the low end netbooks are cheap enough that it's more cost effective to replace them than fix them, just like a cellphone or tablet.
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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by Zaune »

Starglider wrote:Only computer geeks do that. Normal people ship the whole thing back to the manufacturer if it is under warranty or throw it out if it is out of warranty. At the low end netbooks are cheap enough that it's more cost effective to replace them than fix them, just like a cellphone or tablet.
My advice is based on the supposition that even normal people would like the option of a £50 repair instead of a £200+ replacement if a component craps out the day after the end of the warranty.
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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by Starglider »

Zaune wrote:My advice is based on the supposition that even normal people would like the option of a £50 repair instead of a £200+ replacement if a component craps out the day after the end of the warranty.
Around here you will pay a minimum of 25 GBP just for the labour, probably the full 50 if you want a callout. The only way I can see you getting a 50 GBP repair is if you drive it to a computer shop and the problem is something cheap, like a bad memory stick. Of course, many people have friends / relatives who can be persuaded to fix desktop PCs for free.
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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by Chardok »

Well, the missus does enjoy the convenience of a Lappy, if only for the fact that it doesn't "insist upon itself" (lol, family guy.) Anyway, she hates desktops, as she had to put up with my horrible setup for years, so a lap is necessary, even if all it ever does is move from the bar to the couch/bed. I really appreciate all the input, guys. honestly, a thinkpad crossed my mind because it's made of duranium but it's totes uggo and she'd probably hit me with it upon opening the box. I think I know what I need to get now...I'm going to go with the inspiron 15(N5040). With Work-purchase, it'll end up being about 450.00 bucks. Here's the important bits, I guess, aside from it being not ugly.

Intel®Core™ i3-380M 2.53Ghz / 3M
3GB DDR3
Intel® HD Graphic
8X CD / DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
15.6" High Definition (720p) LED with TrueLife™ Display and Integrated Webcam
Obsidian Black
High Definition Audio 2.0
Dell WirelessTM 1502 802.11b/g/n
6-Cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Inspiron 15



Your suggestions, incidentally, saved me about USD200.00! I was on the verge of purchasing the inspiron 15R with 2nd gen i5 processor, 6GB of RAM and a 640GB HDD, which is waaay more than she needs.
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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by Mr Bean »

Might want to pick up the second life extended battery for her but otherwise it looks okay, like I say 4 gigs is better but this will make a fine office productivity type laptop. I don't see the HD on there so if it's not enough room like into WD's Mybook 2.5inch portable HD, Seagate and the others make decent ones as well. You want one that runs purely off USB power of course not a plug in one.

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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by Chardok »

it's a 500GB HDD, no mention on the model, though. and I've got a SATA to USB HDD kit, so transferring/storing externally isn't an issue. Hell, I've even got a spare 2.5" Western digital HDD around here somewhere. I guess I could bump up the memory to 4GB, it's only 30 bucks extra. Thanks again, Bean!
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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by Zixinus »

That is ludicrously bad advice. Even Microsoft has dropped full support for XP (no more bug fixes or service packs), extended support will be terminated in March 2014 after which it will get no critical security updates either. On even vaguely modern hardware, Windows 7 is much better in every way. Finally XP has no DirectX 11, no Aero and effectively no 64-bit support (no one makes XP-64 drivers), which is increasingly important. Almost no one will ship XP on a new machine anyway so at least Chardok can't shoot himself in the foot like that.
I intented to write that "has AT LEAST XP", meaning that anything up that is OK. I should have made that clear.

Though, from Chardok's OP, I doubt that she'd use DX11 or several of the other features you mentioned.
a thinkpad crossed my mind because it's made of duranium but it's totes uggo and she'd probably hit me with it upon opening the box.
I find this mental image very amusing. :D
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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by Zaune »

Starglider wrote:Around here you will pay a minimum of 25 GBP just for the labour, probably the full 50 if you want a callout. The only way I can see you getting a 50 GBP repair is if you drive it to a computer shop and the problem is something cheap, like a bad memory stick. Of course, many people have friends / relatives who can be persuaded to fix desktop PCs for free.
That's a point, actually; my calculations were based on buying the parts only. That said, however, it's not enormously difficult to swap out a defective PSU or plug in a second internal hard drive.
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Re: A Lappy for Xmas.

Post by Chardok »

LAWL - Patience pays off. I snagged it at the 12 day sale for 358.00 shipped.

thanks again, all.
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