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Time for a New Laptop
03.28.14 | chickensoup

Posted on 03/28/2014 2:03:22 PM PDT by Chickensoup

Time for a new laptop. The Sony Vaio is getting tired. Am looking for a reasonably priced laptop with some power to it. It is a desktop replacement so it cannot be one of those sissy teenyweenies.

Currently have a 4gb ram, 2.20ghrtz 64 bit system running my beloved Windows 7 with word and outlook 2003.

Looking for something as big, perhaps a little lighter and certainly faster, that has a disc drive, and ports for my trackball.

I refuse to consider Dell.

Yes I know, Applehead, they are wonderful but no thanks.

Any recommendations?


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: laptop
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To: Slump Tester

No, I’m saying buy something with an solid state drive. No moving parts to fail, just ram. They’ll make even an old turd computer from 7 years ago (Assuming it’s SATA)scream.
Right now Newegg has a 60Gb on sale for $50. That’s plenty of size for a boot drive, and you can always use a cheap USB drive for additional storage.

__________________-

Interesting. Daunting but interesting.


61 posted on 03/28/2014 2:37:59 PM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian fascism is on the move.)
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To: tumblindice; Chickensoup

I’m on a Toshiba laptop too. I have no complaints.


62 posted on 03/28/2014 2:38:12 PM PDT by bigheadfred
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To: Abathar

I am on my second Toshiba. They are great and a good price.


63 posted on 03/28/2014 2:41:11 PM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose o f a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
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To: KoRn

Having been a Vista survivor, I have no room in my life for Win8.


64 posted on 03/28/2014 2:41:25 PM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian fascism is on the move.)
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To: Chickensoup

SSD=solid state drive, not a spinning hard drive

comprende?


65 posted on 03/28/2014 2:42:36 PM PDT by truth_seeker
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To: usconservative

I think he’s trying to tell you to buy a Chromebook. ;-)

Cheap, but they don’t run Windows (if that’s what you need.)
______________

That’s google, isn’t it. Government Computing? No thanks.


66 posted on 03/28/2014 2:42:38 PM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian fascism is on the move.)
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To: Chickensoup

If you are into a larger laptop, check out the Toshiba Qosmio line for higher end machines.


67 posted on 03/28/2014 2:46:00 PM PDT by Truth29
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To: Cyber Liberty

They are strictly a printer company these days, and not very good at it, at that.

_______________

When I look at the quality of my old HP printers and what is available on the market today I cry. I have a 7 year old printer fax that has the receiving part broken. I am seriously considering having it repaired instead of buying one of those cheap black things.


68 posted on 03/28/2014 2:46:09 PM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian fascism is on the move.)
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To: Chickensoup

I would avoid Samsung.

Bought a Win7 i7 17” model.

It died one month after the warranty. Took it to a local repair shop who contacted Samsung to get a replacement motherboard. Samsung apparently didn’t make replacement motherboards.

So, I have an $800 door stop.


69 posted on 03/28/2014 2:46:46 PM PDT by TomGuy
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To: fwdude

What’s wrong with the lap you have? Can’t you get the top resurfaced?

________________-

No, tickles too much.


70 posted on 03/28/2014 2:47:24 PM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian fascism is on the move.)
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To: Chickensoup

As long as we are making all your decision for you — here you go.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/ultrabook-14-laptop-4gb-memory-256gb-solid-state-drive-black/1305962987.p?id=mp1305962987&skuId=1305962987&st=categoryid$abcat0502000&cp=1&lp=1#tab=buyingOptions

Asus, check
Solid State Drive, check (but if you start to store a ton of music and video you will need to get a portable hard drive to take the storage that the 256 Gig drive on this won’t handle)
Windows 7 instead of 8, check

Price 820.00 and if you want you can go to a store and see it.


71 posted on 03/28/2014 2:48:28 PM PDT by KC Burke (Officially since Memorial Day they are the Gimmie-crat Party.ha)
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To: Chickensoup
We see just about every brand and model out there where I work. We get boxes of client PC's and laptops in for repair all the time and dozens at a time. I've seen it all pretty much over the last 25 years.

I can say, most of the mainstream stuff is all pretty decent (as far as laptops go)... and I'm talking about Lenovo, Dell, IBM, HP and Toshiba. It's hard to go wrong with any of them as long as you get at least their mid-range stuff and avoid the budget ones... those tend to fall apart pretty easily. I've never been a Sony fan because they are just not quite as physically durable as other mainstream stuff. They tend to get real loose hinges and parts start falling off of them, etc. Mind you, I'm talking about laptops that get heavy use in business applications. If I had to buy one for myself, it would be a higher-end Lenovo. Toshiba has a very good reputation, but they are definitely not what they used to be.

I might add that if you are looking for a desktop replacement that is also portable (why else would anyone want a laptop, right?), look into spending a couple hundred extra on a docking station so you can use desktop peripherals like keyboards, monitors, wired network connection, speakers, etc... When you want a laptop, you just pick it up and leave everything else behind, but when you are working at home, you have all the convenience of a desktop and all you have to do is drop it in the dock.

It's just my 2 cents, but it's backed with a lot of actual hands on with the stuff so take it for what it's worth

72 posted on 03/28/2014 2:48:44 PM PDT by FunkyZero (... I've got a Grand Piano to prop up my mortal remains)
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To: Jhadur

My advice: get a Mac and don’t look back. Not intended as a platform flame. My IIgs from 1985 or so still boots, as does every other Apple product I’ve purchased since. You can run your beloved Windows 7 in Bootcamp or inside Parallels Desktop.

_______________

Ok. Who let him in the room? Sir, drop your Apple, put your hands up and spread your legs. Where’s your dog?


73 posted on 03/28/2014 2:49:03 PM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian fascism is on the move.)
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To: Paladin2

Build a new desktop.

_____________

No, used to go to Tiger direct but they don’t seem to build PCs George is very nice there.


74 posted on 03/28/2014 2:52:15 PM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian fascism is on the move.)
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To: Chickensoup

Asus vote here. I have had several of their products over the years with no grief. I currently have one of their high end video cards installed and abuse it often. Other than the need for feeding it human spleen as an offering occasionally, it has been as solid as their other stuff for me.


75 posted on 03/28/2014 2:52:49 PM PDT by Norm Lenhart (I)
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To: Slump Tester
I think you missed the ;-) at the end.

Totally get ya on the SSD drive. I have an AMD FX-8350 on an MSI M5A97 R2.0 motherboard with 32gb of memory and dual Samsung 840 EVO SSD boot drives. (1 Windows, 1 Linux.)

Difference between booting this machine with HDD vs. SSD:

Western Digital Blue 500gb 64mb Cache SATA 3: 22 Seconds to Login Prompt in Windows.

Samsung 840 EVO SSD: 11 seconds to Login Prompt in Windows.

Database operations that used to take 2-3 minutes on SATA 3 take less than 15-20 seconds on SSD.

Oh yeah, if you can find a reasonable laptop with a big enough SSD drive at a reasonable price, I'd say go for it. Better make the recovery disk for it though because it'll be needed when that SSD drive fails. (ALL Laptop drives fail sooner or later. My experience has been sooner....)

I prefer Samsung SSD drives myself. Reliability seems to be good, and they have the best performance around.

76 posted on 03/28/2014 2:53:01 PM PDT by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: GeronL

Toshiba Satellites are great unless you like a working battery or need the fan cleaned
_______________

My son had one. He murdered it.


77 posted on 03/28/2014 2:54:08 PM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian fascism is on the move.)
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To: Edward Teach

Proof positive: You are not a human! Yer a Pirate. Arrrr.

:^)


78 posted on 03/28/2014 2:54:45 PM PDT by Cyber Liberty (H.L. Mencken: "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.")
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To: Chickensoup

I have read many favorable comments by owners of Fujitsu computers, which seem to have a reputation for longevity. My own Lenovo is nearly three years old and has worked fine.


79 posted on 03/28/2014 2:55:05 PM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: Chickensoup

I have an Asus Transformer, used daily for the last 3 years, I was satisfied enough that I bought an Asus laptop. No problems so far.


80 posted on 03/28/2014 2:55:24 PM PDT by dangerdoc
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