Buying a Laptop, any Tips?

[Andrew Joiner]

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

[David Bassett]

If you're otherwise happy with your desktop, it might be better (easier, cheaper,) to get a camera, aka webcam, for it.

[Thomas McCurnin]

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.

[Mike Henderson]

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

[Bill Dufour]

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

[Aaron Rosenthal]

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

[Howard Garner]

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

[John Stankus]

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

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 )

[Greg Parrish]

I just bought a new Logitech webcam and my work computer doesn’t let me use it. Be happy to sell it for what I paid. It’s a C920s Pro HD model.

[Curt Harms]

I have a couple Thinkpads which are supposed to have pretty good ergonomics. If I were using it in one place, I'd have at least one real monitor -- 25"+, a mechanical keyboard and a different pointing device. Sounds a lot like a desktop, huh? Of course the advantage of the laptop is you can take it with you. If it were me though and was happy with my current machine I'd investigate a web cam.

[Chuck Wintle]

I just bought a new Logitech webcam and my work computer doesn’t let me use it. Be happy to sell it for what I paid. It’s a C920s Pro HD model.

That makes no sense as it should work with the correct divers?

[Chuck Wintle]

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 )

what features do "business grade" have more than other laptops?

[Andrew Joiner]

Thanks. I'm happy with my current desktop. However it's 15 years old and I'd like a laptop for a spare and the portability.

Lightable keyboard sounds great. I have to point a clip on lamp at my keyboard. Good sound and camera is a plus.
. I really don't care much about weight or battery life.
Any more laptop ideas? I'd prefer windows unless chromebook has advantages.

[Greg Parrish]

Have to have admin privileges to select it over default built in laptop camera, which I don’t. My fault as I didn’t think to ask first. Not a big deal. Nothing wrong with camera but I don’t have another use for it.

[Mike Henderson]

what features do "business grade" have more than other laptops?

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.]