Calling all Geeks

Looking at getting a new laptop I have an older Dell that has served me well but it is getting very slow and sometimes it will not let me send emails from my Gmail account, I do not have this problem when I use the same account on my phone. I try to store all my pics on Google Photos but still have some on my computer as well so I would like something with decent memory. I also like to watch videos on my laptop like In-DepthOutdoors & Midwest Whitetail so I like a large screen, what are the better brands and how much can I expect to spend?

lots of options out there. for what you describe most entry level laptops will work fine. newegg is a good website and they have great customer service and i believe an excellent return policy. I havent looked at laptops in a while but i think you could find something that will work for you for between 300 and 500. My laptop cost me 650 3 years ago and its meant to handle way more than what you are asking a computer to do. If you dont move around a lot a desktop computer will get you a lot more power and stability for less money

Do you travel with your laptop or just use it around the house?

As you mentioned if you wanted a larger screen and some decent storage (not memory as you mentioned)

For a 15inch screen on a laptop gets you also the 10key num pad on the side.
This is a good priced laptop for what you mentioned:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-inspiron-15-6-laptop-intel-core-i3-6gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-black/5835851.p?skuId=5835851

Here is another one.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-15-6-laptop-amd-a12-series-8gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-platinum-gray/5828300.p?skuId=5828300

I am not pushing you to buy something from bestbuy but I do look there for laptops as they usually have some good prices, then I go shopping from there once you have the model your looking for.

Newegg has some good prices as well and yes, even some walmarts that have laptops do offer some good mid to low end laptops that will suite your needs.

While your waiting for the right deal on a new laptop, why not clean up the one you have.

You’re probably chocked full of malware, run Spybot and Adaware to clean that stuff out.

Turn off all the stuff in MSConfig that you don’t use so it won’t load and run every time you turn it on.

Delete large files that you don’t need. Store large files like videos on an external device like a thumbdrive or USB external hard drive.

Empty the trash can.

DeFragment the hard drive after you purge as much as you can to improve it’s efficiency.

Most often I purchase computers from either Best Buy, http://www.newegg.com, or Micro Center. They all seem to have good prices. I’ve had the best luck with Acer brand laptops and that’s what I recommend. I recently purchased my first laptop (I had an old desktop at home for years) from Micro Center for my personal use.

For the Processor Type, I recommend an Intel Core i5 or i7. I don’t recommend the Intel Pentium, Celeron or AMD brand processors. Desktops and laptops vary in what are considered good Processor Speeds. For laptops I recommend anything above 2.3 GHz. Many of the laptops I’ve purchased for work over the years are 2.53 GHz. For the System Memory (RAM) I recommend getting 4 GB or higher. Some people recommend nothing less than 8 GB. And for Hard Drive Size I think anything from 320GB to 2TB on up is good. 500BG seems to be average and I personally chose a 1TB since I save lots of photos and documents.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6R454D3957
I purchased this one from Newegg for my work in April and it was about $380.

http://www.microcenter.com/product/474200/aspire_e5-575-72l3_156_laptop_computer_-_obsidian_black
This one is similar to the one I purchased for my personal use recently (about $500) and it has a more memory and better processor type and speed. I don’t want to have to upgrade for a while.

Happy computing!

I agree with what Sharon said. We bought our most recent from Dell about a year ago and it has been a reliable system. For work they issued a Toshiba Protege which has not given any problems either. It does not have a built Blue Ray/DVD player, guess the boss wants us working not watching movies.

Bought a cheap Asus last year mainly for business use. QuickBooks, some online stuff here and there emails and has served me well.

Is it windows 10? That gets frustrating as ell at times with the windows and tiles and all that crap. But again it was cheap, think $350 or so.

buy a chromebook. all the google ms stuff is integrated into it. it auto updates. it runs fine on old hardware which they all use. $200.

I’d redirect money away from a larger screen, and put it towards better performance.

With as easy as it is to cast a video to your TV, there is really no reason to watch videos on a laptop.

jwellsy wrote:

While your waiting for the right deal on a new laptop, why not clean up the one you have.

You’re probably chocked full of malware, run Spybot and Adaware to clean that stuff out.

Turn off all the stuff in MSConfig that you don’t use so it won’t load and run every time you turn it on.

Delete large files that you don’t need. Store large files like videos on an external device like a thumbdrive or USB external hard drive.

Empty the trash can.

DeFragment the hard drive after you purge as much as you can to improve it’s efficiency.

Yup I have done all that more than once, this laptop is over 5 years it has served me well but time for a new one.

Sharon wrote:

Most often I purchase computers from either Best Buy, http://www.newegg.com, or Micro Center. They all seem to have good prices. I’ve had the best luck with Acer brand laptops and that’s what I recommend. I recently purchased my first laptop (I had an old desktop at home for years) from Micro Center for my personal use.

For the Processor Type, I recommend an Intel Core i5 or i7. I don’t recommend the Intel Pentium, Celeron or AMD brand processors. Desktops and laptops vary in what are considered good Processor Speeds. For laptops I recommend anything above 2.3 GHz. Many of the laptops I’ve purchased for work over the years are 2.53 GHz. For the System Memory (RAM) I recommend getting 4 GB or higher. Some people recommend nothing less than 8 GB. And for Hard Drive Size I think anything from 320GB to 2TB on up is good. 500BG seems to be average and I personally chose a 1TB since I save lots of photos and documents.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6R454D3957
I purchased this one from Newegg for my work in April and it was about $380.

http://www.microcenter.com/product/474200/aspire_e5-575-72l3_156_laptop_computer_-_obsidian_black
This one is similar to the one I purchased for my personal use recently (about $500) and it has a more memory and better processor type and speed. I don’t want to have to upgrade for a while.

Happy computing!

Thanks for the reply Sharon this is the kind of info I was looking for and thanks to everyone for all the replies. I ended up ordering another Dell similar to the one I have now, Dell is running a sale right now “Black Friday in July Deals” This one was on sale $200 off I got it for $550 and free shipping.

7th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7200U Processor (3MB Cache, up to 3.10 GHz)
Windows 10 Home-HE (64bit) English
8GB Dual Channel DDR4 2400MHz (8GBx1),up to 32GB (additional memory sold separately)
1TB 5400 rpm SATA Hard Drive
Intel(R) HD Graphics
17.3-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) Anti-Glare LED-Backlit Display

Only 5 years old, save any files you want to keep on a USB thumb drive and try Linux Mint. It is a free operating system and works very well on some computers.

You can download the ISO from https://linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=217 as your computer only being 5 years old, it should run the latest Linux Mint Cinnamon version fairly well.

You will need a program like ISOBurn http://isoburn.org/ and it is free to write the Linux Mint ISO to a USB thumb drive or DVD. Then when you reboot use BIOS to boot the the USB or DVD first and see how well it works for you. I prefer to use the USB thumb drive as they are much faster than trying to boot to DVD.

I do use Linux Mint 18 and it will be updated until April 2021. You don’t need to defrag, I don’t have an anti virus program installed and rarely have any issues. I got sick of the touchscreen friendly smartphone looking Windows OS after Windows 8 was released.

I don’t ice fish and got bored waiting for the ice to clear a few winters ago. I installed Linux Mint 17 on an older computer that came with XP and it was like a new machine. Linux Mint is great if you just use computers for email and web browsing and there are still some things I need a Windows computer for so I have a laptop that is dual boot with Windows 7 and Linux Mint

Steve Plantz wrote:

This one was on sale $200 off I got it for $550 and free shipping.

Awesome deal! Sounds like a good system, and yiu should be happy with that for a long time.

Thanks again Sharon you gave me the info I need to know what to look for.