Do I need a new laptop/tablet?

[CR_CRUISER]

The wife announced that she would like to get me a new laptop for Christmas. I am using a 5 year old Toshiba Satellite right now and it does everything that I need. It does have a few drawbacks though. It is brutally heavy and the battery is marginal to the point that I can only watch a 90 minute movie before recharging.

I use it mostly for a portable workstation for my business but I do take it with me on holidays. We are going on a Panama cruise this spring and she thinks that it will be too heavy and awkward to lug around with us. She has the same laptop as well as a Microsoft Surface tablet and can't decide which one is better.

A nice new tablet sounds inviting but without a DVD drive it limits me on some of my work projects. Is the battery life much better with a tablet? Is there such a thing as a portable DVD drive? I also need a proper keyboard as my calloused finger tips don't do well with a touch screen.

Decisions, decisions.

[NRALIFR]

I just bought this from Tiger Direct with Win7Pro on it. Ordered Monday night, it was delivered Wednesday evening, and I didn't even pay for premium shipping. I like it a lot, I'm using it now.

:):)

[strollin]

camping man wrote:
I have a 5 year old Toshiba, and replaced the fan, keyboard,couple batts., and two screen light bulbs, one last week. This thing lives by a thread, but i don't feel like pulling everything off it, so it just keeps chugging along until the next part fails. If I was you, I get a new one, it's at the age it will start failing.

Your experience with your laptop doesn't predict what may happen with CR CRUZER's. For instance, I have a 6 1/2 year old Dell Inspiron laptop that is used for many hours everyday and has never had anything replaced on it. Dell Inspiron's are consumer grade laptops and aren't considered particularly reliable but mine just keeps chugging along.

It's hard to predict when a laptop (or any computer) will fail but as it gets older the odds increase that a failure will occur.

About 6 months ago, I was having some issues with my 3 1/2 year old work laptop. I contacted our IT dept to have someone take a look at it but they just told me that since it was more than 3 years old to just order a new one because it wasn't worth their time to even look at it. I'm sure that laptop was scrapped when all it probably needed was an OS refresh. Seems a waste but I ended up with a nicer laptop so didn't complain.

[glazier]

guidry wrote:
A little more pricey but a MacBook Pro is what I went to. Small learning curve but Wow, what a nice change! I'll never go back to Microsoft again. I use it for my part time business and vacations. Love it.

I have a MacBook Pro, and just recently bought an IMac for our business. We love Apple products, but they are a little different than PC operating systems. If our new IMac works out at my shop we may never go back to Microsoft either.

[camping_man]

I have a 5 year old Toshiba, and replaced the fan, keyboard,couple batts., and two screen light bulbs, one last week. This thing lives by a thread, but i don't feel like pulling everything off it, so it just keeps chugging along until the next part fails. If I was you, I get a new one, it's at the age it will start failing.

[strollin]

ReadyToGo wrote:
If you get an external DVD (which I have), you will find that they require 2 USB connections. In planning for the future, be sure you get anything with at least 3 if not 4 USB slot. Do not confuse the HDMI slot as an USB slot.
Why so many? Well in todays environment, a mouse, maybe a printer, an extra hard drive, and the many devices with rechargeable batteries. What do I have that needs recharging?, Camera, mp3 players, Kindle, Tablet (not Apple's) and others might have more things. Either have a lot of plugs that take a USB connection or use your computer for recharging.

There are "ultra portable" DVD drives that can be powered from a single USB port. I have one but have only used it a handful of times, if I had to do it over again, I probably wouldn't buy it.

If you plan on using a laptop in a portable environment then you probably aren't going to hang a bunch of USB peripherals on it. If you need to attach a bunch of peripherals and essentially use the laptop as a desktop replacement then you can always get a dock or a powered USB hub for it.

I have a dock for my Surface Pro 3. I place it in the dock and I now have access to external display, mouse, keyboard, wired LAN, external storage, etc... In the dock, the Surface makes a decent desktop replacement.

[KA4EBU]

sorry double post.

[KA4EBU]

Keep your Toshiba. I used mine with windows, Firefox and avast. After more problems I switched the Toshiba to ubuntu, Firefox and love it.

[ReadyToGo]

If you get an external DVD (which I have), you will find that they require 2 USB connections. In planning for the future, be sure you get anything with at least 3 if not 4 USB slot. Do not confuse the HDMI slot as an USB slot.
Why so many? Well in todays environment, a mouse, maybe a printer, an extra hard drive, and the many devices with rechargeable batteries. What do I have that needs recharging?, Camera, mp3 players, Kindle, Tablet (not Apple's) and others might have more things. Either have a lot of plugs that take a USB connection or use your computer for recharging.

[1775]

Several years ago the trend was toward smaller laptops and netbooks. Then tablets became popular and suddenly laptops started getting bigger. Laptops are becoming desktop alternatives and what I see now when I look are laptops that are ridiculous to try to carry around and the prices are upwards of a thousand and more. Many laptops now don't come with DVD drives (some still do) as they are seen as unnecessary with downloaded software and streaming video. If your current laptop does what you need it to do then hold onto it for awhile longer. If your battery does not hold a charge for as long as it once did, look into replacing the battery. Also make sure that your accounting software will run on Win 8.

[ken_burke]

CR CRUISER wrote:
After doing some research, I've found out that my accounting program won't work on a tablet or on a Mac based system. Now I have to figure out if my mapping and charting programs are compatable. If not, then I'll stick with what I've got.

No. Do not "stick" with what you have got. You deserve better. Given the age of your old computer, you Need a faster, lighter, better resolution screen than the old computer.
ken

[ken_burke]

CR CRUISER wrote:
The wife announced that she would like to get me a new laptop for Christmas. I am using a 5 year old Toshiba Satellite right now and it does everything that I need. It does have a few drawbacks though. It is brutally heavy and the battery is marginal to the point that I can only watch a 90 minute movie before recharging.

I use it mostly for a portable workstation for my business but I do take it with me on holidays. We are going on a Panama cruise this spring and she thinks that it will be too heavy and awkward to lug around with us. She has the same laptop as well as a Microsoft Surface tablet and can't decide which one is better.

A nice new tablet sounds inviting but without a DVD drive it limits me on some of my work projects. Is the battery life much better with a tablet? Is there such a thing as a portable DVD drive? I also need a proper keyboard as my calloused finger tips don't do well with a touch screen.

Decisions, decisions.

. .
I have had the same questions for the past year. I have concluded that I need a small laptop with good speed and a DVD player. The laptop these days may be easier to use, not as expensive as a tablet, will be faster than a tablet, and you can get the screen size you want.
ken

[SkiMore]

If you go for a tablet do NOT get win8 RT. Win8 isn't bad, but win8 RT is something totally different and doesn't run any of your old software.

I just got win8 tablet and I can tell you that without a keyboard and mouse windows is weird. I haven't used it enough to get used to it.

If you need a DVD drive often then you should probably have a laptop with one built in. The external ones are small, but it is extra weight and cables. In the end it will be bigger than a laptop with the built in DVD.

If your old laptop is running winXP you should consider getting a new machine because microsoft has stopped supporting it and you are more vulnerable to viruses and malware. You maybe able to upgrade the OS, but new laptops can be bought for only a couple of hundred more than the upgrade will cost. If the old machine is running vista or win7 the OS is still supported.

You should find out if your software will install on win8 and if you will need to buy an upgrade.

[thestoloffs]

kaydeejay wrote:
Just be aware that some of the newer tablets do not have a USB port.

There are always options, even with a tablet with minimal ports.

DW & I have two ASUS VivoTab Smart tablets which have only a mini-USB OTG (USB On The Go) port and a mini-HDMI video port.

Even with only that limited single USB port, I can still run all my necessary peripherals -- HP OfficeJet 100 printer, Neat Mobile scanner, Seagate portable 1 TB hard drive, and ASUS DVD drive.

The secret is to have a USB OTG to USB adapter & a AC powered 4-port USB hub. The hub supplies 2.0W of power (4 x 500mw - USB standard) to all peripherals without requiring power from the computer, which a USB OTG port can't supply.

My DVD drive requires 2 USB ports -- 1 for data transfer and 1 for power, but it works fine.

And, since it runs Windows 8.1, it runs all my software as well.

So, choose whatever computer style that works for you -- unless your peripheral needs are very unique, there's always a way to make them work.

[Belgique]

Anyone able to point to a checklist of what to look for in a new laptop? E.g., memory, disk size, processors? Ideally one that gives options for how one will use the LT?