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Laptop advice

PostPosted: 01 Nov 2014 20:29
by tesseract
Following on from Bendy's PC question, another one for the techy whizzs....

I need a new laptop, under £400, don't care about weight as it'll mainly be around the house. Main uses will be work stuff (so need windows, and MS office), watching videos, and my boy will want to play games, mainly Minecraft :roll:

I'm thinking new, rather than fleabay, so I'll get a few years from it.

Any suggestions?

Re: Laptop advice

PostPosted: 05 Nov 2014 15:33
by didds
you should find a plethora of options available to you at that entry-level pricepoint.
e.g.
http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Computer/cat/Laptops

If its really for a non-portable use, get the biggest screen you can for your money as well. [1]

I'd say check that whatever you buy had >= 4 Gb RAM (assuming Win 8) , and if you think you'll need it, a DVD drive (watching DVDs in bed? :-), maybe DVDRW if you are likely to burn data onto DVDs.
If its win 8 (probably will be) and you can;t cope with it, install classic shell - it will act/look a bit more like Win 7 then
www.classicshell.net/

Whether you will get MS Office however included in that budget is a very debatable point.

If you have a student in the house with an academic email address you may have some joy getting a cut-price copy
e,g.
http://www.software4students.co.uk/t/ca ... oft-office

Otherwise maybe consider one of the freeware alternatives
e.g.
https://www.openoffice.org/
http://www.libreoffice.org/

Without MS office, you won't have Outlook, so you will need an alternative email client (or use webmail if available for your email address)
eg
https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/thunderbird/


[1] if it really isn't for portable use at all then do consider a desktop and flat screen monitor - you'll get far more bang for your buck.

didds

Re: Laptop advice

PostPosted: 05 Nov 2014 16:29
by tesseract
Thanks Didds

I would prefer a desktop, but my WAT has decided she wants rid of the computer table as it's an "eyesore" :roll: (even though it's the same glass and chrome style as the rest of our furniture). Hence downgrade to a laptop... well actually even a crappy new laptop will be better than my current PC

Re: Laptop advice

PostPosted: 05 Nov 2014 17:54
by Kevy427
Office 365 £7.99 per month which can be installed on five PC's/Mac's/Tablets. I've got it for my fleet of machines and have also installed on my Mum and Dad's devices