Have a question about laptops

[jbreech]

Were looking into going full time next winter and i been looking into buying my first laptop. But what kind ? What is the different between a Thinkpad ,Notebook Chromebook or just a laptop. And then there windows 8 , 8.1 windows 7 and windows 10. Any help would be greatly appreciation.

[Heisenberg]

ASUS

[mlts22]

SSDs are not too expensive. I would have used the dead hard disk as an excuse to upgrade to one of those, and they provide a significant speed improvement. My first encounter with a SSD in a laptop was two years ago... and seeing a machine boot Windows Server 2012 R2, from the PC maker's logo, to the control-alt-delete prompt in four seconds.

[strollin]

was_butnotnow wrote:
Our old ASUS laptop hard drive died last week. (Actually I dropped it) Went to Walmart and got a HP laptop (HP Black Licorice 15.6" 15-F387WM Laptop PC) with touchscreen for $329. I set it all up. Works great and at the right price. And do like Win 10. Also had installed Advanced System Care and Avast and Malwarebytes. And Acronis for backup on my Dell XPS 8300 desktop (which I just upgraded to Win 10 a while back) so put them on the new laptop. Been doing this for a long time and these are the programs I like. Also Use Open Office and Mozilla Thunderbird for email since I have my blogs on a private server.
After I upgraded my desktop to Win 10 and Advanced System Care went from boot time of over 5-10 min to about 1 min.

If your hard drive died, why didn't you simply replace the hard drive instead of buying a new computer? It would have cost a lot less than $329. You could have even upgraded to an ssd instead of an hdd and gotten a decent performance boost and still spent less than your new machine cost.

[trb46]

We spent last January in a South Carolina campground that had pretty decent wifi. I used my Acer Chromebook almost exclusively while we were there. No problems at all. It's fast and has great battery life. I am not a power user, mostly email, web surfing and Facebook. I had a Windows laptop with me, too, but rarely used it..

[was_butnotnow]

Our old ASUS laptop hard drive died last week. (Actually I dropped it) Went to Walmart and got a HP laptop (HP Black Licorice 15.6" 15-F387WM Laptop PC) with touchscreen for $329. I set it all up. Works great and at the right price. And do like Win 10. Also had installed Advanced System Care and Avast and Malwarebytes. And Acronis for backup on my Dell XPS 8300 desktop (which I just upgraded to Win 10 a while back) so put them on the new laptop. Been doing this for a long time and these are the programs I like. Also Use Open Office and Mozilla Thunderbird for email since I have my blogs on a private server.
After I upgraded my desktop to Win 10 and Advanced System Care went from boot time of over 5-10 min to about 1 min.

[wa8yxm]

Laptop: Old term for a computer that could be held on your lap without injury
Notebook: New term for what used to be called a laptop:These computer generate a lot of heat and if you hold them on your lap, without first putting on asbestos trousers. You can get a very nasty burn, several people have, hence the name change. The trouser comment is a joke,

Netbook: Small notebook, generally a smaller screen, less memory et-al.

Chrome book. RUns the Google Chrome operating system instead of Windows

Thinkpad: Specific brand of Notebook/Lapto computers.


Now the operating Windows a,b,c,d 10

Windows 10 is the currently supported version of Windows, Microsoft is illegally dropping support for older versions. So go with 10 if you need windowsw.

If all you need is Internet access, Reading and replying to E-mail, Forum posts, and Researching which Widget to buy..; Chrome books are designed for that and cost less.

I recommend an alternate "Office" application.. Such as Open Office, over the high priced Microsoft product if you go with a windows box.

I also recommend Web Mail over client (Outlook or outlook express) mail For one thing you can access on any computer device, including your smart phone, and it's always synced, for another most web mail providers do a fairly good job of blocking malware before you see it.. (I tried once, got to about the 10th "Are you really really really sure you want to do this" prompt and gave up).

[greenrvgreen]

Yeah, if the OP can swing $300 he will do just fine for what he wants. I have a very high end laptop plus a $200 Dell tablet. I'm still amazed at how much the tablet can do--and it can do everything the OP wants.

[jbreech]

Thanks avery one i am still looking . I still can't make up my mind. But checking on every thing you guys suggested .

[joebedford]

If you have no special applications, buy HP, Acer, Dell, etc.

If you're going to trade every 2-3 years, buy something in the $300 range - it will do everything you want.

We're going to replace DW's laptop but she keeps her machine for a long time and is a bit of a power user. We're looking at a Dell Inspiron 7000: 1TB HD, 8GB ram, W10, ac wifi, 15.4" screen, 6th gen i5 processor, numeric keypad, etc. $799 Oh, NON-touch.

[Tom_M1]

Nextbook tablet at Wamart for $129.99:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Nextbook-Flexx-10.1-2-in-1-Tablet-2-32GB-Intel-Quad-Core-Windows-10/466642...

Edit: Price dropped to $99.98

[tatest]

I've been laptop shopping lately too. The market has changed since I bought my last one a few years ago.

If you are using Windows PCs, you probably want to buy a Windows laptop. If you buy a Windows laptop now, it will most likely be Windows 10, unless you can find a business-class or workstation-class laptop with Windows 7 Professional, still being sold into corporate markets not ready to upgrade (and at premium prices).

Your laptop needs to be capable of doing what you are now doing on your home PC. If you are doing more than browsing the web, you should be looking at similar memory, storage, processor performance, and a display adequate for your vision. When I bought a laptop as desktop replacement (Windows 7 era) I bought a Dell Inspiron 17 with a dual-core hyperthreading i5 processor, 500 GB storage. Same resolution (1600x900) on a 15-inch screen was too small for my old eyes, though my 40-something children do OK at 15 inches. A bonus on 17-inch laptop is almost full-size keyboard with numeric keypad. Some 15-inch will have either/or: if they add the numeric keypad, keyboards have to be smaller. Ultimately you get used to whatever keyboard you are using, size differences an issue only when using more than one, really a pain at three different sizes.

The laptop failed for two tasks: photo cataloging and processing, and flight simulation. It was adequate for video processing, and all my Internet tasks. For the photoprocessing, the screen was too limited with respect color gamut and viewing angles, and the storage was really too small. For flight simulation, the laptop was OK for Flight Simulator 2004 (except for keyboard mapping issues) but the Intel HD Graphics were a total flop on Flight Simulator X (and would be so for almost any games with 3D graphics). Both of these issues can be taken care of with two different kinds of laptops, premium models for the video, gaming laptops for 3d graphics games. I bought an enthusiast-grade desktop ($2000 with 22 inch monitor) for the two tasks the laptop didn't handle. A Windows 7 security upgrade killed the system drive on this one, it has since been replaced by an iMac for my photographic work and I am looking at a rebuild for the flight simulator work.

Chromebook is a web access tool, it runs a Linux-based operating system with a front end from Google. Most Chromebook applications run on Google's cloud servers and display on the Chromebook. Tools that run locally are limited, but if the web is all you do, and you can always be connected, then a Chromebook is fine.

Thinkpad is a brand IBM created for selling laptops to the corporate market. When IBM left the personal computer market, they sold the Thinkpad brand to Lenovo. IBM manufactured some very good laptops, I've had three Thinkpads before my company switched to buying Dell. I have not bought a PC from Lenovo (which also took over IBM's desktop and workstation brands).

I'm not sure brand is important. Besides the three Thinkpads and two Dell Latitudes my company bought for me, my family has been through four Dell laptops and a Sony Viao. I've gotten the most useful service from the Dells, typically 3-5 years of continuous use. That isn't just about hardware, because Windows upgrades and changes of use have outgrown the capability of machines that were still running.

There isn't "just a laptop" because these have to be built for different markets to different price points. We've covered the Chromebook, a web-access device. There have also been crippled Windows PCs targeted to that market (but no longer) and low cost Linux PCs (which are really as standalone capable as Windows, just don't run Windows programs, so you have to get used to the freeware available).

First level, $400-$800 today, is the basic consumer Windows 10 laptop. These will be low-cost screens, slowest processors, modest memory and storage, although all of these capabilities increase with price. At Dell, this is the Inspiron series. For home entertainment potential, most of these still have an optical drive, for playing BluRay and DVD video, and writing CD-ROM and DVD-ROM. These will be built on metal or carbon-reinforced chassis, with plastic (sometimes reinforced) cases, sometimes metal (or looks like metal) trim.

Next category, starting about $800 and up to about $2000, and slim, lightweight "ultra" laptops. These have no optical drive. Some have no rotary drive at all, using only solid-state storage. They have better screen quality, although in smaller sizes, and at the top level, have performance matching high-performance desktop machines, but not multi-processor workstations. Typically the computer is built into a machined light-metal case. Examples: Dell XPS series, MacBook Pro. Some manufacturers label them Ultrabook.

Then there is an ultralightweight laptop/tablet 2-in-1, premium price and limited performance (e.g. Microsoft Surface series). Portability is more important than performance or capacity. The newest MacBook is an example of an ultralight that is not 2-in-1, you can't get rid of the keyboard to use it as a tablet.

There are gaming laptops, $1000-$3000, with fastest mobile processors available, lots of memory and storage (two disk drives is common) and discrete high performance 3-D graphics processors (which might have 10X to 100X the processing power of the main CPU, just to do 3D rendering). The least of these share processors with the top-level "ultrabooks" but are in packages more like the consumer laptop. At the upper end, they are like the original high-end Thinkpads, 7-8 pounds of laptop throwing off 200-400 watts of heat. ASUS is a leader in this market, although the top MacBook Pro is capable and Dell has just introduced an Inspiron 15 Gaming at the lower price points.

Then there business laptops (from Dell, Lenovo, HP) offered in the same price and size ranges, except that they are designed to be remotely managed, are not pre-loaded with entertainment software, and the gaming machines are replaced by engineering workstations, which might have multiple CPUs and the graphics processors are more often tasked as generalized mathematical processors, putting supercomputer power into a (heavy) briefcase. Workstation laptop prices can approach five figures, few people can make use of the capabilities.

[Campfire_Time]

AllegroD wrote:
A laptop/tablet internal wireless card is weak. Because of your internal card being weak,

Please elaborate. I'm completely baffled by this statement. There is nothing wrong with the internal cards on these devices. I've owned many laptops with built in wifi cards, not to mention the dozen or so I've used for work over the years, and we have several tablets. We don't have any problems with any of them.

[AllegroD]

Terms (words mean things):
Laptop and notebook are almost synonymous.
Netbook is a smaller, slower and with less capacity than a laptop.
Tablets have no (physical) keyboard and may come in windows versions, Chrome or other OS versions.
2 in 1s have become popular. They are those that can be converted from notebook to tablet, either by removal from a docking keyboard (may have a hard drive or other add ins in the keyboard) or by folding the keyboard around, such as the HP Envy 360.
I think almost any laptop or tablet will do you, as long as you think hard about pictures. How large are they? How many do you take? Will that increase with traveling more? You don't have to tell us the answers but you do need to decide on storage. Do you edit them? You may need more ram or a higher end CPU if you do a lot of editing. Not so much in just viewing. I suspect you won't need more than 4-8GB RAM, though. If you go Chrome or Surface, you will definitely need external storage. I suggest a small internal HD, SSD if you want it to be faster and external storage for things not used daily. For me, that makes things simpler. External storage does not have to be expensive, if you shop around. On Amazon, you can get get a WD 2TB portable for $70 or a Seagate 4TB portable for $120. For data, music, video or pics, I always think of external drives in pairs. One as primary storage and a second as backup. Plus, I always buy about twice as large as I estimate using in the next year as needs grow.

BTW, you are going to want wireless. If you have not started thinking about it, you need to start. CG wireless is often adequate to non existent. A laptop/tablet internal wireless card is weak. Because of your internal card being weak, you may not be able to use even an adequate CG network, as the access point may to far away from your site. You may want to do a search or start another topis on wireless in a CG. There are additives and alternatives.

[chiefneon]

Howdy!

I personally have not had a laptop in years. Totally use a android tablet now and it meets all my needs along with my smartphone. My wife also uses a tablet iPad but she insist on having a laptop for some of her projects like geology. We just purchased her her first Mac a couple of days ago a new Apple Mac Pro and she likes it.

"Happy Trails"
Chiefneon