[OP]
Member
I need help choosing a laptop. Mostly for Zoom meetings. My desktop has no camera so I borrow my wife's laptop for Zoom. She needs it for work now.
My eyes are bad. I think I need high resolution and at least a 15" screen because I like to enlarge web pages to read them.
I know nothing about computers. My wife does all the computer details. She's used to windows but she's willing to try chromebooks.
Any recommendations? Thanks
"Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t - you’re right."
- Henry Ford
Contributor
If you're otherwise happy with your desktop, it might be better (easier, cheaper,) to get a camera, aka webcam, for it.
Friend of the Creek
Yep, just plug it in via a USB port--the camera will be much better quality, and a fraction of the cost of a new laptop.
Regards,
Tom
Contributor
And you can place the camera anywhere. Too often on a laptop the camera is looking up at you, which gives a bit of a strange image. If you can place the camera about head height, with the camera looking straight at you, you'll look better on Zoom. You can play around with placement to get the look you want.
Mike
Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.
Contributor
Will you use the laptop keyboard? If so make sure the keys are big enough for your fingers. Consider a used one from ebay. They have not really made any big changes in several years. I do not recommend chromebook. our school district had to drop those because too much stuff did not mesh with it. I can not use all the features to write IEPS with chrome. I have to use firefox for them. Chrome works pretty much but a few critical things do not work with chrome. Science and math teachers tell me the same is true for their special apps.
Bill d
Contributor
If it's time to get a new computer ANYWAY, I bought one in November which I really like, although for a home laptop I would have chosen a 15" or greater screen. Mine is 14" but I can zoom in using simple pulling wider action with 2 fingers.
I needed: Lightable keyboard; 500GB min. hard drive SSD; portable and lightish; 5+ hours on battery power alone, decent sound and camera.
If you PM me, I'll tell you what I bought, because I don't want this to be a shill for any company.
Aaron
Young enough to remember doing it;
Old enough to wish I could do it again.
Look at refurbished units if you do not need the latest and greatest.
I have purchased from NewEgg with good results. Laptops and desk tops. There are others as well.
Howard Garner
Contributor
I have bought some from Dell Refurbished (Dell Financial Services). These are lease returns from companies, and are business grade machines. They often have 30-50% off sales when they get an overstock of lease returns.Originally Posted by Howard Garner
John (no connections to Dell, other than I started at Univ. of Texas the same year as Michael Dell...He dropped out after a year and is now worth something like $40 billion, I stayed in school all the way through a PhD and I am not worth $40 Billion)
Member
what features do "business grade" have more than other laptops?I have bought some from Dell Refurbished (Dell Financial Services). These are lease returns from companies, and are business grade machines. They often have 30-50% off sales when they get an overstock of lease returns.
John (no connections to Dell, other than I started at Univ. of Texas the same year as Michael Dell...He dropped out after a year and is now worth something like $40 billion, I stayed in school all the way through a PhD and I am not worth $40 Billion
Contributor
My experience with computers that were in a large business is that they have a lot of bells and whistles such as several USB ports, lots of memory, decent sized disk (although sometimes a hard disk instead of an SSD), fairly fast processor (sometimes an i7), decent resolution screen and reliable keyboard. I'm running on a Lenovo W530 right now that came from a business. It has an i7 (older) and 32 GB of memory. I had to update it to an SSD. It's an old computer but plenty good for me.
I paid $100 for in 2018. The company just wanted to get rid of them. I could have bought 4 or 5 of them if I wanted to.
Mike
[Just looked it up - the W530 was released in 2012 and I bought it in about 2018.]
Last edited by Mike Henderson; 05-27-2020 at 7:02 PM.
Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.
Contributor
If you're willing to consider Chromebooks then also consider a Mac. As the desktop support guy in my house my workload went down about 5x once I convinced my wife to switch. Now everything just works. The hardware has proven to be very robust with the introduction of SSDs; we have 3 MacBook Pros and a MacMini from 2011-2013 that leave nothing to be desired. Happy to not have to do weird dances to get printers to work or backup servers to connect properly and function. I do occasionally run a Windows instance on my Mac using VMWare for the occasional oddball program that won't run on the Mac side, but it's been many months since I needed to use it.
Contributor
I have 3 laptops. An HP that came with (still has) Vista. I have a Chinese Hasee that came with my first fiber laser, came with 32bit Win7 Ulitimate. My newest is another HP, old enough it was a win8 machine, a customer had the drive wiped and Win10 installed, then gave it to me towards payment on account (worst deal I ever got)...
I hate the things. The keyboards suck. The first 2 have no keypads. Can't type for crap because my hand keeps bumping the touch pad, and I don't do 'crab' typing very well. The Vista is the only one I know how to turn OFF the touch pad. Using touchpads suck so I have to connect a mouse. The screens are too small. They're slow, although oddly enough, the Hasee is much faster than either HP. And the Win10 machine, never in my life have I been so disgusted with anything that cost more than $50 new. It is so ridiculously slow I have to wonder how anyone gets anything done using win10. Takes forever to boot. It takes nearly 4 minutes just to load TurboTax. Bump something with my hand or an errant finger while typing and and the screen goes crazy re-arranging task bar icons into large thumbs on the screen, where the hell did TurboTax go, and what did I touch?? I can't stand the thing. Seriously, I'd pay the shipping to give it away to someone except for (a) TurboTax only runs on Win10 these days, and (b) I dont' want to be responsible for driving anyone bat**** crazy!
Seriously- I really don't know how anyone, at least someone like me who does a LOT of typing everyday, can use a laptop in daily use...
========================================
ELEVEN - rotary cutter tool machines
FOUR - CO2 lasers
THREE- make that FOUR now
ONE - vinyl cutter
CASmate, Corel, Gravostyle
Member
I just got a Lenovo flex 15. I like it so far. Has a SSD instead of a hdd. It is a referbished model from MicroCenter. I wanted the SSD because my last laptop the hard drive failed just after a year.
Friend of the Creek
I just bought a new computer this month and am waiting for it to arrive any day.
I am not a laptop fan, except when I travel, and then I only need the basics, to store photos, search the internet with a good wireless card, send emails, etc. So a good laptop choice would be a used laptop off Craigslist for under $400 with an i7 processor. That will be fine.
For my money, put your dough into a decent desktop with a i9 processor and a 1tb SSD hard drive. That will be super fast. Use a network based NAS (Cat5) for either large storage needs or backup. If installing a NAS is too challenging then go with attached storage options like a WD My Book Duo which has either a USB-C or a Thunderbolt interface.
A wireless keyboard and mouse is a nice touch.
I happened to pick Dell, because my IT guy recommended it. The Dell outlet shop has a ton of returned computers for any price range, and I find you can save $200-$1,500 from the list price. The more expensive models have bigger savings. If you're not in a hurry, spend a month and check out the inventory--it changes daily. Another bonus is that the rig is ready to ship and you'll have it by the end of the week. The 24-7 warranty is a nice option, and they'll come out to your house and fix anything, after an online diagnostic check. For $200, its peace of mind for me.
Regards,
Tom
Contributor
Our last several have been Asus, and we never had any trouble with any of them. They each lasted some years, until we just upgraded to faster, and faster ones with more storage. You can buy them direct from Asus online for very reasonable prices. I had used Asus motherboards for a couple of decades, and never had any trouble to amount to anything with them.
They don't have the hard to get rid of bloatware that Dell did-not sure if that is still a problem with Dell.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
