Laptop thoughts

[vickster]

Thinking of taking advantage of Black Friday deals and getting a new laptop. My current one is a few years old and rather slow and clunky. I'm working as a freelancer so a decent machine is required. Will be buying from John Lewis (warranty, service, family member discount) and have identified these as possibles. Need a 15.6" screen I think, although I might look at 13.3" ones, but I'd probably need a separate monitor going forwards. Will just be used for Internet, MS office (quite a lot of PowerPoint)

This was the first I looked at but reviews suggest poor battery life

http://www.johnlewis.com/lenovo-z51-laptop-intel-core-i7-8gb-ram-1tb-8gb-sshd-15-6-black/p2279114

Then I saw this, but again reviews seem less than glowing

http://www.johnlewis.com/acer-aspir...8gb-ram-1tb-15-6-grey/p2297320?navAction=jump

I did consider a MacBook as I have other Apple devices but the significant hike in cost has put me off that idea for now

I'm struggling to assess what makes a laptop better than another at the same price point!

 

[Levo-Lon]

Nice thing abot JL is the staff are in it for the long term, good advisers..
See what they say. You cant beat the 5 yr waranty..

 

[ColinJ]

It sounds like your performance needs are minimal so pretty much any old spec would do in terms of speed. I would be concentrating on long battery life, portability (low weight and smaller rather than bigger), keyboard quality, screen quality (clear text, good viewing angles and minimal screen reflections), trackpad usability, and a decent SSD (Solid State Drive).

 

[Spoked Wheels]

Laptos have come a long way since my first one.

The thing to bear in mind is that web browsing, MS word or even power point aren't very demanding so any reasonably specified laptop would do a good job. When you are dealing with photo editing and video editing then you require substantial more power and then graphics cards need to be top priority. ... a mac comes handy then.

Windows is so resource demanding that you need more power than on any other platform.

 

[Smurfy]

My criteria is 'does it work well with linux straight out of the box'? It saves buying new machines so often, as the year on year reductions in performance seem to be much smaller than for windoze.

 

[steve50]

Stay away from Acer, very thin and very brittle plastics. I have come across almost new Acer laptops with badly broken lids, a combination of stiff hinges and very thin plastic. It is also worth noting the bigger the processor and ram the more heat is going to be generated so good cooling is a must.
Look at the base of any potential purchase to see how much ventilation there is, a laptop cooling pad like this, https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=l...cooling+pad&tbm=shop&spd=17221974934775560217 is a good investment to extend the life of any laptop.
Lenovo are a good laptop with a proven track record.

 

[vickster]

Nice thing abot JL is the staff are in it for the long term, good advisers..
See what they say. You cant beat the 5 yr waranty..

3 years on laptops but better than most!

 

[vickster]

My criteria is 'does it work well with linux straight out of the box'? It saves buying new machines so often, as the year on year reductions in performance seem to be much smaller than for windoze.

I don't even know what that means. I will need to be able to work on MS office documents from numerous sources

I think I'll wait until the new year. Too busy today especially as my poor brother is having to do his Black Friday store stint in Oxford Street today rather than the safety of head office

 

[steve50]

Linux, a free operating system that can be downloaded from the net, https://www.linux.com/
I have it installed alongside windows on my laptop as it does have some great tools for diagnostics and data recovery.

 

[Spoked Wheels]

Stay away from Acer, very thin and very brittle plastics. I have come across almost new Acer laptops with badly broken lids, a combination of stiff hinges and very thin plastic. It is also worth noting the bigger the processor and ram the more heat is going to be generated so good cooling is a must.
Look at the base of any potential purchase to see how much ventilation there is, a laptop cooling pad like this, https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=l...cooling+pad&tbm=shop&spd=17221974934775560217 is a good investment to extend the life of any laptop.
Lenovo are a good laptop with a proven track record.

My wife has an Acer laptop and I'd have to agree with the above regarding the quality of the build.

A laptop cooling pad is not a bad idea but the source of the problem is dust and fluffy stuff that gets in. Every laptop and PC that I have opened because of an overheating problem is always covered in rubbish that makes the fan slow down and the processor hotter.

 

[vickster]

Yes my current HP with AMD processor gets hot and whirrs away like crazy!

I shall go back to Intel

 

[vickster]

Linux, a free operating system that can be downloaded from the net, https://www.linux.com/
I have it installed alongside windows on my laptop as it does have some great tools for diagnostics and data recovery.

Which i would never use I am not IT techy in any way!

 

[Spoked Wheels]

Yes my current HP with AMD processor gets hot and whirrs away like crazy!

I shall go back to Intel

In my experience AMD tend to run hotter than Intel.

 

[steve50]

My wife has an Acer laptop and I'd have to agree with the above regarding the quality of the build.

A laptop cooling pad is not a bad idea but the source of the problem is dust and fluffy stuff that gets in. Every laptop and PC that I have opened because an overheating problem is always covered in rubbish that makes the fan slow down and the processor hotter.

Agreed but not many laptop users will know this or have the knowledge to strip the laptop down to clean out the collection of dust and debris, it would probably help if the manufacturers and the computer shops advised the buyer to take the laptop in for a service and clean every twelve to eighteen months but they won't as this would potentially extend the working life of the laptops and therefore reduce the sales of new laptops.
I always advise people to use their laptops on a hard surface ie; an upturned tray or worktop to allow free circulation of air through the cooling system of the laptop, using a laptop on soft furnishings or on the floor will shorten the life of the unit quite dramatically.

 

[steve50]

In my experience AMD tend to run hotter than Intel.

..and AMD gpu's fail more than intel as well.