Thinking About a New Laptop

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gatorman
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Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by gatorman »

The motherboard in the Dell Latitude laptop I've had since '04 bit the dust. My wife's Dell Inspiron also bit the dust so we are sans laptops. I am thinking of replacing mine with a Lenovo Thinkpad. I won't buy another Dell.
I need a VGA output so I don't have to buy a dongle for it as I would probably promptly lose it. I don't do any heavy computing. I'd probably use it for photo storage/processing, wordprocessing, some spreadsheet work and for presentations as well as e-mail and net surfing. I'd probably just get open office and I'd buy lightroom for my photos.
The particular model I'm thinking of buying is the T440S with the base processor(2.3GHz Intel Core i5), 8GB RAM and 256 GB SS HD. Total cost is ~$1340. Durability is an important consideration and Lenovo advertises building to military specifications.
But, before I pull the trigger, I'd appreciate any thoughts you might have as to any superior alternatives.
Thanks,
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blastoff
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by blastoff »

In my experience you can do very well at the Dell Outlet store if you get a refurbished unit (same as new to my eye) combined with a coupon, which are frequently available. Many of the latitude laptops are well made (also to military spec), come with warranties included in the price, and have business qualities (VGA output etc).

A year ago I paid $560 for a refurbished dell Latitude, 256 SSD, 8BG Ram, core i5 3rd gen, 3 year warranty, and windows 7 without 200 pre-installed things on it. I wasn't looking for a dell, but I was looking for a well built computer that was small with SSD and this was a terrific value. It would have been ~$2000 new at the time I got it.

I had a Thinkpad before that. I was very happy with it, but MOBO got fried after 5.5 years so now it is collecting dust.

You couldn't pay me to own an inspiron, but I think the latitude's can be nice, if a bit bland. Just my two cents - I wouldn't discount Dell irrationally, and all Dell's aren't created equal. FYI - 10 years is amazing.

I think your T440S is a great choice - I just think you could potentially save money by considering other things. Lenovo also has an outlet store and deals...
autonomy
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by autonomy »

You mean 2.6GHz i5?

Shows up as $1209.60 for me through http://shop.lenovo.com/barnesnoblegold/ ... ies/t440s/ with an extended rear battery (extra $5). You should be able to sign up for an account and get the discount too.

Assuming a non-touch-screen version. Touchscreen is $1,290.60.

I don't trust Dells - we use them for work and they just aren't as well made. Hinges are wobbly, machines just not as fast as they should be given their high-spec Latitude innards, random blue screens, network issues... The last 4 laptops I bought were 3 Lenovos (2 Thinkpads, one of them is 7 years old now), and an HP. The HP died within 2 years and was replaced by an IdeaPad, which my mom hasn't managed to kill yet. Thinkpads are very solid machines, though they come with their own quirks (screen door effect on the Carbon X1, for example).

Keep in mind, that if you intend to keep your laptop for 6+ years, parts WILL go bad. The screen is likely to fade, the battery will be almost unusable, that kind of stuff. Thinkpads will get there though, Dells - not so sure.
Last edited by autonomy on Thu Mar 27, 2014 3:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by rob »

I have loved the build of Lenovo's in the past but the new ones (since IBM sold them) have been less than bullet proof...... They are still quite decent. I have had HP elitebooks for work that I love and have been trouble free apart from hard drives - which you avoiding with a SSD which is well worth the price. In the past I had a lot of dell's also... and they were so so.
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wesef
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by wesef »

Since you didn't prohibit outright I'll be first to say it: the MacBook Air is great. You'd have to buy a VGA dongle, but at the price and specs you are considering, it is a fantastic computer and very durable. Open Office and LR are both available for Mac.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by blastoff »

Agreed about the air. It is outstanding, and a terrific value in my opinion.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by mervinj7 »

I second the Macbook Air option. I primarily use a Macbook Pro at work (grad student in electrical engineering) and it's awesome but I love taking my wife's Air for trips. I've also used several Lenovo's in the past and it's just not the same.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by gatorman »

wesef wrote:Since you didn't prohibit outright I'll be first to say it: the MacBook Air is great. You'd have to buy a VGA dongle, but at the price and specs you are considering, it is a fantastic computer and very durable. Open Office and LR are both available for Mac.
The photos I'm going to move onto the new laptop were saved using Nikon's software on a Windows based machine. My computer guy tells me they won't transfer over to an Apple machine, so I was thinking of sticking with a Windows OS. I don't know enough about it to tell if he is right or wrong, but I do want to save all my photos (~6,000 20 mbte files) and transfer them to the new machine with no issues. That's the reason I didn't mention Apple.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by climber2020 »

gatorman wrote:The photos I'm going to move onto the new laptop were saved using Nikon's software on a Windows based machine. My computer guy tells me they won't transfer over to an Apple machine, so I was thinking of sticking with a Windows OS. I don't know enough about it to tell if he is right or wrong, but I do want to save all my photos (~6,000 20 mbte files) and transfer them to the new machine with no issues. That's the reason I didn't mention Apple.
gatorman
I had zero issues transferring all my photos when I made the switch from PC to mac. I can't imagine that would be a problem that couldn't be easily solved with all the resources available today.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by SpaceMonkey »

Photos are photos. RAW, PNG, JPG, etc. are all pretty much universal file types readable by basically anything. Possibly your computer guy meant that the Nikon software you use to organize these files on your Windows computer won't work on a Mac, and he might be right. But you could almost certainly move the photo files themselves to iPhoto or whatever else you would use on a Mac.

That said, I don't think there is any particularly compelling reason to switch to a Mac if you aren't already a fan of Apple software.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by gatorman »

climber2020 wrote:
gatorman wrote:The photos I'm going to move onto the new laptop were saved using Nikon's software on a Windows based machine. My computer guy tells me they won't transfer over to an Apple machine, so I was thinking of sticking with a Windows OS. I don't know enough about it to tell if he is right or wrong, but I do want to save all my photos (~6,000 20 mbte files) and transfer them to the new machine with no issues. That's the reason I didn't mention Apple.
gatorman
I had zero issues transferring all my photos when I made the switch from PC to mac. I can't imagine that would be a problem that couldn't be easily solved with all the resources available today.
I appreciate you telling me that. What program did you use to store the photos on your Windows based machine? I'm using Nikon Capture NX2.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by frugaltype »

My thinkpads are very reliable. The HP laptops were not so much - the hinges and USB ports seemed to be weak points consistently from HP laptop to HP laptop.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by gatorman »

SpaceMonkey wrote:Photos are photos. RAW, PNG, JPG, etc. are all pretty much universal file types readable by basically anything. Possibly your computer guy meant that the Nikon software you use to organize these files on your Windows computer won't work on a Mac, and he might be right. But you could almost certainly move the photo files themselves to iPhoto or whatever else you would use on a Mac.

That said, I don't think there is any particularly compelling reason to switch to a Mac if you aren't already a fan of Apple software.
I have a Mac mini we use as a desktop. I think it is an ok computer, but I'm not madly in love with it as are some. I don't find its organization and operation to be particularly "intuitve" as some have claimed. Perhaps that is because I'm used to using Windows based machines and didn't start out on an Apple. I'm mainly interested in something that will get the job done, has a small learning curve and is durable.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by happyisland »

I have a 420S I bought about 3 years ago and the thing is a tank. It's like the Volvo of computers: boxy, built well, and probably will last forever. I use it with ubuntu, libre office, etc, and it works fine. That said, it's a bit heavy for its screen size, and the battery life is only so-so (even though I have an extra battery in the ultrabay, it only lasts for about a movie and a half on a flight).
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by bradypas »

I have used Inspiron's for years and they are great. Current one I have is going strong on year 6.

Have you thought about a desktop computer? You hear people saying they are useless, but my next computer will be a desktop. Hook it up to a 23" monitor with wireless keyboard and mouse for at-home computing. You'll get A LOT more bang for your buck this way. With the quality of tablets (I have the Nexus 7) and what they can do, it seems like laptops aren't that useful anymore. Unless you need one for work (which hopefully your work provides you one), why would you need it for personal use? When you're at home, use the desktop. If you want to do something mobile, use the tablet. I can type, browse, edit, etc. on a tablet almost as easy as a laptop, without lugging around the laptop.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by abuss368 »

I am so done with Windows. We have more Apple products anymore than Windows. They are so simple and they just work.

The next laptop will be an Apple.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by climber2020 »

gatorman wrote:
climber2020 wrote:
gatorman wrote:The photos I'm going to move onto the new laptop were saved using Nikon's software on a Windows based machine. My computer guy tells me they won't transfer over to an Apple machine, so I was thinking of sticking with a Windows OS. I don't know enough about it to tell if he is right or wrong, but I do want to save all my photos (~6,000 20 mbte files) and transfer them to the new machine with no issues. That's the reason I didn't mention Apple.
gatorman
I had zero issues transferring all my photos when I made the switch from PC to mac. I can't imagine that would be a problem that couldn't be easily solved with all the resources available today.
I appreciate you telling me that. What program did you use to store the photos on your Windows based machine? I'm using Nikon Capture NX2.
I didn't really. I made a photos folder and organized them into subfolders by year, month, and major events. I didn't shoot raw back then and never edited anything, so my collection was much smaller and more manageable.

When I got my MacBook years ago, I imported everything into iPhoto. Now I use Lightroom to process my raw files and then move the final jpegs to iPhoto for storage.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by Ged »

gatorman wrote: I appreciate you telling me that. What program did you use to store the photos on your Windows based machine? I'm using Nikon Capture NX2.
I believe there is a version of NX2 for Macs. However that doesn't mean the internal data storage format is the same so you may have to do some further research on the topic.

Ah, here it is.

https://support.nikonusa.com/app/answer ... a_id/18818

Personally I wouldn't mess with a Mac. The software catalog just isn't there, and my experience with Mac laptops is that they are a giant pain to upgrade or otherwise modify. Plus Apple does funky things like drop support for an old system software version as soon as the next one comes out.

Get a Lenovo. The one I most recently bought has a built in color calibration system which makes it wonderful for a photographer.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by cfs »

Good conversation.

I need to purchase a laptop prior to retiring, and I will follow this conversation for ideas. Keep those ideas coming.

Thanks for reading.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by Spirit Rider »

gatorman wrote:The motherboard in the Dell Latitude laptop I've had since '04 bit the dust. My wife's Dell Inspiron also bit the dust so we are sans laptops. I am thinking of replacing mine with a Lenovo Thinkpad. I won't buy another Dell.
So your Dell lasted 10 years and you won't buy another. Seems a little misguided. Anytime a PC of any kind lasts more than five years, you should consider it a great run.

I have had both Dell and Lenovo products. While my current laptop is a ThinkPad and I now prefer it to Dells. I wouldn't arbitrarily discount Dell.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by pa7VQbb1kTkj1eLn3spK »

Lenovo W530 or W540
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by ryuns »

Macbook Air is a great computer and it's also a great way to drop a thousand dollars. Just like the OP doesn't need that $1300 he originally mentioned, most people just don't need that much (or that little?) computer.

I'd advocate something far cheaper that meets your demands. I also wouldn't go super low end, because you start getting cheap build quality. If portability was absolutely paramount, then maybe, but if a 4 pound computer is okay, I'd rather save the money, while not having to use USB splitter and adapters for everything.
rob wrote:I have loved the build of Lenovo's in the past but the new ones (since IBM sold them) have been less than bullet proof...... They are still quite decent. I have had HP elitebooks for work that I love and have been trouble free apart from hard drives - which you avoiding with a SSD which is well worth the price. In the past I had a lot of dell's also... and they were so so.
My approach for my most recent computer was a certified refurb of an HP elitebook. Pretty impressive. Never expected a computer at that pricepoint to handle a high-def casting from Chrome. Would have to spend a little more for an SSD though. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=4936
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by Norbert Schlenker »

Well, it's a rare person that needs an i5 for the jobs you seem to want to do, but if that's what you want, that's what you want. But why pay $1340 when you can pay $803?
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by buckstar »

I would also highly recommend a Macbook Air, there is rumored to be a new version out soon with the 'retina' displays that are offered on the MacBook Pros. The displays are stunning, and the laptops are well made and very light.

The Macbook Airs can be configured to run Windows natively using Apple supplied 'bootcamp' software. I recently bought one for my father who uses customized Windows only software for work and he loves it.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by poker27 »

Coming from somebody who sells computers for a living. I prefer think pads or HP Elitebooks. Consumer and business machines are world a parts, so don't just walk into a bestbuy and dismiss a brand for being crap in the showroom.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by kenner »

Go Gators! Hope they win it all this year. They play UCLA in about one-half hour as I write this.

The laptop you have described should be way more than capable of handling the tasks you require. I just bought a $450 Toshiba that could also easily handle those same tasks (15.6-inch screen, 500 GBs, Core i3 CPU, 4GBs RAM, Win 7 [hated Win 8]). The Toshiba also has the most beautiful display I have ever seen on a laptop. I'll eventually add 4 more GBs RAM, but it really is not mandatory.

If you really want more power, go for it. But you could probably save some money if you want to.

Also, FWIW, recent research indicates that ASUS and Toshiba are the most reliable laptops. Lenovo is middle-of the-pack. I had a top-of-the-line Thinkpad that totally died after 15 months of moderate use (of course, that could be an anomaly).

Best wishes.

Ken

I guess I should add that Apple is almost universally recognized as the best in laptops.
Last edited by kenner on Thu Mar 27, 2014 8:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by Ged »

kenner wrote: Also, FWIW, recent research indicates that ASUS and Toshiba are the most reliable laptops. Lenovo is middle-of the-pack.
The problem with this sort of research is they never break it down by model or even type. There is a lot of difference between the low end Lenovo machine and the higher end model, just as there is between the consumer and business model Dell.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by kenner »

Ged wrote:
kenner wrote: Also, FWIW, recent research indicates that ASUS and Toshiba are the most reliable laptops. Lenovo is middle-of the-pack.
The problem with this sort of research is they never break it down by model or even type. There is a lot of difference between the low end Lenovo machine and the higher end model, just as there is between the consumer and business model Dell.
Good point Ged.

I was under the impression that Lenovo Thinkpads were pretty much top-of-the-line. That's why I bought one, but it turned out to be a waste; again, could have been a fluke.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by jackpullo997 »

Absolutely insane to be using a 10 year old laptop.
You can get a beast of a laptop for $350.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by KyleAAA »

If you're going to splurge on a sSD, you probably don't need 8gb of RAM. Lenovos are solid.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by BigFoot48 »

I bought a new laptop about a month ago from Costco. I wanted a lighted keyboard and this Acer Aspire V-573P Intel i5 12GB 1TB 15.6" screen for $699 fit my requirements. It also has a touchscreen that I don't really use and is running Win8.1, which I'm starting to like.

The primary thing I don't like about it, and many current laptops, is the one-piece touch pad where the mouse button areas do double duty as part of the touchpad. I have trouble not moving off small areas I want to click, like right-clicking on words to correct spelling. I would much prefer a touchpad with separate click areas. That said, I will probably keep this and learn how to do it.

This replaces a 17.3" HP laptop I also bought at Costco 3 years ago. It was fine, except big and didn't have a lighted keyboard. It also cost $1,300 and I will never again buy a laptop that expensive - there's just no reason to.

I do 98% of my computer work on my laptop these days, and just turn on the desktop to do backups and occasional scanning jobs.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by wesef »

With respect to the Nikon software, you may be mixing issues. Your edits to RAW files in the Nikon software should carry from the Windows version of that software to the Mac version. However, the edits will NOT carry to Lightroom, Aperture, or any other image editing software.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by gatorman »

KyleAAA wrote:If you're going to splurge on a sSD, you probably don't need 8gb of RAM. Lenovos are solid.
The extra 4Gb is only an $80 upgrade, so I thought I'd get it just because it might come in handy in the future as software demand for memory only seems to go up as time passes.
gatorman
Last edited by gatorman on Fri Mar 28, 2014 9:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by gatorman »

Norbert Schlenker wrote:Well, it's a rare person that needs an i5 for the jobs you seem to want to do, but if that's what you want, that's what you want. But why pay $1340 when you can pay $803?
Your link doesn't seem to be working. The processor I'm going to get is the lowest performance processor (at least in terms of clock rate) they offer in that particular model. It probably is overkill for what I want to do, but they don't offer anything with lesser specs, so I'm stuck with it.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by gatorman »

jackpullo997 wrote:Absolutely insane to be using a 10 year old laptop.
You can get a beast of a laptop for $350.
I know, but despite its many flaws it worked well enough to meet my needs, so I kept it and didn't worry about its inferiority to newer models as it did all I needed to do, so wasn't functionally obsolescent for my purposes.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by Angelus359 »

I managed to buy a HP Envy j000 with an i7 4700mq, 16GB of ram, 1TB hybrid drive, and a geforce 740m, with 10 hours of battery for about 800 last year (less than 6 months ago), including coupons and cashback from ebates. I bought straight from the manufacturer.

It came with an empty msata slot. I wanted to add bluetooth as well.

I swapped the wifi module for a wifi module with bluetooth (I use a bluetooth mouse) for 13$, and added a 98$ plextor msata SSD, then moved my operating system to the SSD.

I waited to buy the warranty a week, when it gave me a popup (HP preinstalled software) asking me to register, which tried to upsell me a warranty. Using coupons, ebates, and an instant-off discount for purchasing using their attempted upsell method, I got a 3 year accidental damage warranty for 128$ including tax.

I think I won that game :P
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by Jerrybaby »

This is my fifth laptop, and first Macbook Pro. Quality is like night and day.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by Dyloot »

You've already said no Dell, but I'd recommend the new Dell Latitude 7000 series. They're light, powerful, and very well made.

I prefer the E7440 with the i7, 8GB of memory, and a 256GB HD. That can cost north of $1600. Savings can be had with an i3 or i5 CPU and 4GB of memory.

I will add that these companies are using mostly the same guts. I find the same RAM brands and types in Macbook pros that I do in Dells. I'm sure most (all) of these American-based companies are buying the OEM parts from the same vendors and having them all assembled by company's like Foxconn. Most of the differences will be found in the case design and material and mainboard design, but the CPUs, chipsets, and memory... mostly the same stuff.

I'll end by saying you should buy whatever you like. There are few things better in this world than a brand new laptop that YOU love. :D
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by rob »

Jerrybaby wrote:This is my fifth laptop, and first Macbook Pro. Quality is like night and day.
Is the apple really that bad :-)

I've used both extensively [even had a hackintosh for a bit] and find the religous wars funny...... They are far more similar than different. Depending on the tasks you need they become more similar when running the same type of apps. The hardware is the same; more dollars gets better stuff as usual. Both have top of the line stuff if you want to spend a lot of real dollars but windows tends to have cheaper options as they don't try to control the hardware as much as apple. Some tasks are easier on some platforms and some are harder - it's not a one way street.

As to transfering photos - It's nonsense that there are windows picture formats for what you will see.... both can use all the formats around with very small exceptions that you will never see. You might not be able to run your camera manafacturer supplied software but lots of options from iphoto thru lightroom and photoshop/bridge. If you want to swap platforms than inventory what software you use and find the equal functionality and ensure there is a transfer process.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by tuningfork »

I had a number of laptops at work over the years. Most were IBM Thinkpads which were always wonderful. I never had a Lenovo Thinkpad but I wouldn't hesitate to get one if the specs and price were right.

My last two work laptops were both Dell, one sucked and one was very good. The sucky laptop was a Dell Latitude D630: occasional lockups and bluescreens, crap shoot whether it would wake up after suspend, random problems connecting to wifi, and various other problems. My next Dell was a Dell Precision mobile workstation with 16" display (sorry, can't recall the model number). It was rock solid, never any issues. Only thing I did not like: it's big and heavy. Not good for traveling, but ok to carry short distances to meetings. I imagine it was pricey too, but it was issued to me at work so I didn't care about price. :happy
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by Angelus359 »

Jerrybaby wrote:This is my fifth laptop, and first Macbook Pro. Quality is like night and day.
The quality is very, very similar to the quality of my 800$ HP Envy, which I already specced out.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by KyleAAA »

I like the Macbook Airs. The Pros are too expensive for what you get, but the Airs are a decent value. If you're not the type to constantly handle your laptop roughly you can probably save a lot of money getting identical specs with cheaper body materials somewhere else. Brushed metal looks nice, but it's mostly a waste of money.
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by Epsilon Delta »

As I see it Photo programs don't store the photos. Storing photos is the job of the file system, which is part of the OS.

What the photo program does is manage information about the photos. Tags for events, locations and names of the people in the photos. Information on rotation, cropping and color correction. List of photos and special effects for slide shows. The photo programs store these in some sort of database.

If you spend much time organizing your album you could have a lot invested in the database so a conversion path would definitely be of interest.
sarahjane
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by sarahjane »

Give the HP Chromebook 14 a try. It's the future (I'm nor a Google shill!)
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Blues
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by Blues »

sarahjane wrote:Give the HP Chromebook 14 a try. It's the future (I'm nor a Google shill!)
While I opted for the Acer C720P a few days ago, I must concur and say that I am more than pleased with the Chromebook as a stand-in to replace most of what I have been using my older XP setup for. While there are some things it won't do, they are the exception rather than the rule when it comes to what I want a computer for these days.

The freedom from the constant updates and conflicts deriving from multiple layers of security software is very liberating indeed. I have been quite impressed with this inexpensive (but not cheap) computer. I highly recommend it based upon my limited experience of only a handful of days. (And thanks to lazyday who helped me get over the hurdle and finally decide to invest in a Chromebook after having been intrigued by the idea for some time.)
Angelus359
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by Angelus359 »

Blues wrote:
sarahjane wrote:Give the HP Chromebook 14 a try. It's the future (I'm nor a Google shill!)
While I opted for the Acer C720P a few days ago, I must concur and say that I am more than pleased with the Chromebook as a stand-in to replace most of what I have been using my older XP setup for. While there are some things it won't do, they are the exception rather than the rule when it comes to what I want a computer for these days.

The freedom from the constant updates and conflicts deriving from multiple layers of security software is very liberating indeed. I have been quite impressed with this inexpensive (but not cheap) computer. I highly recommend it based upon my limited experience of only a handful of days. (And thanks to lazyday who helped me get over the hurdle and finally decide to invest in a Chromebook after having been intrigued by the idea for some time.)
Getting something you can ignore seems appropriate for this forum
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munemaker
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Re: Thinking About a New Laptop

Post by munemaker »

sarahjane wrote:Give the HP Chromebook 14 a try. It's the future (I'm nor a Google shill!)
I have many years of experience with desktop and laptop PCs, and also with Microsoft office (at home and at work). At home, I currently have a Toshiba 15" Satellite (guessing maybe 5 or 6 years old) that still works great, and we have a HP desktop with a huge hard drive.

After reading about forum members' experiences with Chromebooks, I decided to buy one just to fool around with. Based on comments on this forum and some online research, I decided on the Toshiba Chromebook 2...the version with the HD display and 4 Gb of RAM for $300 (free shipping & no tax). I played with it all weekend, and I am very impressed with the simplicity and performance. The display is beautiful and the sound is very good. The 4 Gb or RAM goes a long way when you are running a simple OS; same with the internal 16 Gb SSD (only 8 Gb reserved for the OS). I added a 256 Gb of SD XC card for more local storage, but it probably was not necessary. The difference in weight between my old 15" laptop and the Chromebook 2 is dramatic. The other things I appreciate is you don't need to backup your disc, run virus scan or update Windows every couple days.

Regarding software, I did some work on Google Docs, and I picked up on it quickly. I have yet tried Google Sheets.

Chromebooks are elegant in their simplicity. I think most people would be pleasantly surprised with the Chromebooks. This is going to be my primary computer going forward.
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