Need New Laptop--Reccomendation?

Hey all,

After many years, my laptop has finally given up. I need a new one! Currently, my "s" key doesn't work, so I need to copy and paste any letter s, resulting in poor use of punctuation in this thread (forgive me).

Here is what I use my computer for:

-Browse the internet, blogging, forums, etc.
-Type up Word documents and Powerpoint presentations (need Microsoft Office)
-Occasional Youtube
-Access to journals and research material.

No gaming or heavy duty work. Prefer Microsoft Os. Looking into Chromebook, but need Ms office. Willing to learn, to a reasonable extent.

Thoughts?

Budget under $600.

Current:

HP Elitebook, 6930p.

Considering: HP Spectre 13t

(I know I spelled "recommendation" wrong in the title, can not edit.).

 

My ASUS has been running non stop for 3+ years now...

 

My chromebook is perfect for me but I can't get Microsoft Office. But you probably could get a similar app. Otherwise, it's super fast and pretty cheap...maybe less than $300 for mine.

 

I've found Toshiba laptops run really well.
Avoid Dell like AIDS.

HP are pretty good too.

 

Asus. Best bang for buck.

 

i've had an HP for the last 5 years or so. still works pretty good, except for the fact that videos lag pretty bad.

 

i have had a cheap toshiba for a few years .. less than $200 when i bought it. Quad core i3 processor. It came with windows 7 then one day out of nowhere something happened where it would only boot to a black screen so i zapped the partition table and installed linux on it and have had no trouble with it since.

It doesn't have MS office, it does have an opensource office programs that can open and edit MS office files tho. Pretty sure MS office can be installed on a linux system using WINE and the ms windows compatibility layer..not sure how difficult that would be i haven't done it because LibreOffice is good enough for me .. most of the time i use text editors like gedit and kate but can also work with formatted documents and spreadsheets when i need to

For $600 you can get a pretty nice laptop today. I would rather have more memory, than a bigger hard drive, and would actually probably rather have less memory that's faster, than more of the slower stuff. I use over 1GB of memory, but u want enough so that u aren't paging constantly because that slows it down considerably. I've always kinda been an AMD fan myself when it comes to processors, but I do believe the fastest intel chips perform a hair better than the fastest AMD chips and do a little better as far as power consumption

Go with an SSD if you can (solid state memory, instead of mechanical disk hard drive), i believe i've seen laptops in your price range with SSD's, though you will get less Gibabytes than you would with a regular hard drive for the same price .. determine how many gigabytes you realistically use though .. because having a 4 terabyte hard drive will do you no good, and is really a waste of money if you can't even fill up 500GB.

If you need a lot of storage, you could go with SSD and put all the big files and stuff like movies and stuff on an external drive.

 

I was not happy with my Toshiba, overheats too easily, even with cooling pad, so I finally got rid of it. Battery life on mine and others I have seen (that Friends own) was terrible too.

HP seemed okay but when I forgot my cord back in the states a few months ago, I had a hell of a time finding a replacement in Bogota. Apparently they have dozens of different cords and my cord was rare and hard to find despite being a new model. Apparently having a universal cord is lost on HP....

I am pretty happy with my new Acer.

Dell gets a lot of flak but when I had one, it took a beating and still lasted 6 or more years.

Google Chromebook is, in large part, dependent on having constant internet Access. There is not much you can do offline. You might want to look into getting different chromebooks, I hear the Samsung versión is solid and more versitile and able to do more offline, if that is your aim..

For your needs you do not need to Budget 600 dollars. You can almost cut that Budget in half, or at least by 33 percent and still get everything you need.

 

I'm also wondering why people should avoid Dell computers, especially if they're not planning to do anything out of the ordinary on it (like YouFreeMe).

 

I bought a Dell couple years back and have regretted it since. We have an old Toshiba that just wont die. It's actually missing a ;large part of its plastic case. My next laptop will be another Toshiba.

 

Your post would be more useful if you would tell what's so regrettable about your Dell

 

It's the slowest machine I've ever owned, the touch pad often operates on it's own (ghost movement and clicking), and the wireless card died within the first year, forcing me to buy a dongle to replace it. That's just the more prominent issues,. There are also the times when it has crashed for no apparent reason. We've had the Toshiba for nearly five years, I believe, and it just keeps on working. I would offer a picture to show its external wear, but that would require too much effort.

 

..its amazing how much faster a computer can be when you get rid of all that crap they put on it.

 

What the heck? Here's a picture of that Toshiba I mentioned...It's been one of the most reliable machines I've ever owned. My son now uses it.

 

I plan on buying new laptops this Christmas for my son and daughter, You can bet they will be Toshiba, Dell...never again.

 

I would still research some review/comparison sites in advance, Scrub! Wouldn't go solely on a brand's name if you base it on the experience of 2 laptops, one Dell, one Toshiba. Just to be sure :cheers2:

 

Like what?

 

all the bloatware and crap than companies put on "comsumer" PCs, a lot of programs might be set up to load during startup and then run in the background. this slows down the startup when it has to be loaded from disk. de-crappifying things by uninstalling bloatware can help startup speed and general performance including memory usage.

 

i think your lap is just fine the way it is