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ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
OTOH, my 2.5 year old Lenovo Ideapad has been fine. I'm perfectly happy with it, though I wish I'd bought one with a touchscreen.
But here I am (as usual) typing on my ancient Dell D430 ... Everything about it is inferior to the Lenovo, except that it has a wonderful keyboard! The Lenovo has functional-but-dead-feeling membrane keyswitches and it has a few annoying key layout issues which keep catching me out.
 

si_c

Guru
Location
Wirral
A bit expensive, but take a look at the Razer Blade stealth.

Also worth looking for if it's a pro machine is Thunderbolt 3 to allow for docking to external GPUs and/or monitors and keyboards etc. That makes a huge quality of life improvement for a work machine.
 

cyberknight

As long as I breathe, I attack.
had a HP laptop for a few years now and its been great, the RTB warranty was excellent when the battery connection inside got broke ,which i blame the kids for as the did like to drop it .
 
OP
OP
ozboz

ozboz

Guru
Location
Richmond ,Surrey
had a HP laptop for a few years now and its been great, the RTB warranty was excellent when the battery connection inside got broke ,which i blame the kids for as the did like to drop it .

I am looking at an HP , I’m thinking of buying direct from HP shop online it seems to have a good extended warranty and cheap, SSD does seem the way to go,


My only advice...

Get a SSD.
Get lots of RAM.
Get a big screen and a decent keyboard.
Forget the touchpad. Use a mouse.
Forget the expensive software bundle. Buy the last version of Microsoft Office for under £10 on Ebay.

That’s good advice, but I’ve noticed these laptops have no cd drive so how do you load it on to computer ?
 

AndyRM

XOXO
Location
North Shields
I am looking at an HP , I’m thinking of buying direct from HP shop online it seems to have a good extended warranty and cheap, SSD does seem the way to go,




That’s good advice, but I’ve noticed these laptops have no cd drive so how do you load it on to computer ?

You can download it from the Microsoft website.

As an alternative, you could use Open Office, which is compatible and even better, free.
 

slowmotion

Quite dreadful
Location
lost somewhere
I am looking at an HP , I’m thinking of buying direct from HP shop online it seems to have a good extended warranty and cheap, SSD does seem the way to go,




That’s good advice, but I’ve noticed these laptops have no cd drive so how do you load it on to computer ?
The people on Ebay give you (a) the internet address of a download site and (b) a product key. You just go to the site and follow the instructions. There's no CD to load. I've bought three versions of Microsoft Office and they all worked perfectly.

BTW, once you've tried a SSD, you'll never go back to a conventional hard drive.
 
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Nigeyy

Legendary Member
Funny thing is I've used both but I have the reverse experience! I found Apple to have annoying traits of just doing things differently not because it worked any better (actually sometimes worse) but just for the sake of being proprietary and being "Apple". Add in the extra cost for just the name as well and I'd argue you can usually get better deals for non-Apple products. Mind you, at least you look stylish while you have a lighter wallet and get frustrated :smile:

Having said that, clearly MacOS, Win and Linux flavours are capable OSs as they have all been around for quite a time. I think much depends on what you get used to. But personally I wouldn't baulk at any of them if you have a preference for any, each have their own strengths and weaknesses.

This isn't particularly helpful, but... get another MacBook. I use both Windows and Apple set ups, and Apple is better in every way.
 

Nigeyy

Legendary Member
Completely agree; installing an SSD is a very quick, easy and cheap way to speed up any laptop. The only downside is they are more prone to failure, so you must make sure you have things backed up (as you should anyway even with a mechanical drive). Another quick and cheap option is simply to install a bit more RAM too. I think any laptop now should have a minimum of 8GB RAM though some people would argue even more than that....

BTW, once you've tried a SSD, you'll never go back to a conventional hard drive.
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
@Nigeyy - I have had the opposite experience; I have had mechanical drives fail, and I have known several people lose theirs too. One colleague lost a year's worth of work when his HDD failed - it didn't go down well when he had to explain to senior management that he didn't have a backup... :eek: Yes, whatever drive you use - make regular backups!

PS It seems a bit odd posting the quote that you are replying to after your reply. I was wondering what you had the reverse experience to, and what you completely agreed with! :whistle:
 

Nigeyy

Legendary Member
Yeah, any drive will fail eventually, and I've had colleagues had their SSDs fail as well. I think this is interesting: https://therevisionist.org/reviews/ssd-vs-hdd-one-reliable/ I think in a nutshell, HDDs tend to be more reliable for many read/writes but offer poorer performance and aren't as resistant to being dropped or exposed to heat. My primary motive for a drive is performance which SSDs win hands down. However, when I was agreeing to the post (with the quote), I was agreeing to the inference that putting an SSD in is one of the best and cheapest ways to improve performance and it's hard to move back to a laggy dreadfully slow HDD in comparison. All my laptops have SSDs for this reason!

What was my reverse experience? The statement of MacOS being "better in every way" (with the quote). I just can't agree with that statement :smile: To each their own!

@Nigeyy - I have had the opposite experience; I have had mechanical drives fail, and I have known several people lose theirs too. One colleague lost a year's worth of work when his HDD failed - it didn't go down well when he had to explain to senior management that he didn't have a backup... :eek: Yes, whatever drive you use - make regular backups!

PS It seems a bit odd posting the quote that you are replying to after your reply. I was wondering what you had the reverse experience to, and what you completely agreed with! :whistle:
 
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