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JohnRogers
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So my laptop is running Vista. Everything in Microsoft Office is the 2003 version. As you can imagine upgrading anything has become a chore or impossible.My wife and I have iPads for web surfing, email and all the useful fun apps we enjoy. We're looking to ditch the old desk tops but feel we need full size keyboards and PC capabilities in a laptop. She edits images and some day I may do video editing again.

 

My current laptop

OS: Vista

Processor: Intel Centrino 2

RAM: 4.0GB

 

What should I be looking for? I don't want to over spend for capabilities we won't need.

 

Thanks in advance for any useful advice.

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Whatever you do, get an Intel processor. An i5 processor is a pretty good value. You'll get Windows 10 with any new computer. Go for 8gb of memory. It will be much better than 4. An SSD is a good idea too. Makes a pretty big difference. If not a SSD, try and find one with a 7200 rpm hard drive. Edited by Mr. JD
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The Acer Predator 21X has a 21" curved 4k display, dual SLI nvidia 1080 GPUs, a fully mechanical keyboard, 64gb of DDR4, eye tracking technology, a mouse touchpad that converts to a number pad when not in use, and clocks in at a scant 17 pounds.

 

And at just under $10 grand, it's a steal.

 

maxresdefault.jpg

 

Overkill is indeed underrated.

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But seriously, how about something like this:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Ideapad-510-GeForce-80SR004QUS/dp/B01FJFN3CC

 

With the i7 it offers a ton of power to handle whatever office style tasks you can throw at it; the dedicated nvidia GPU should be more than enough for some editing and design work. It's standard 15 inch form factor will give you plenty of keyboard space plus a ten key.

 

And frankly, the i7 might be overkill for what you need. You can downgrade this model to the i5 processor and save $150 or so. I don't think you'll notice a huge drop in performance between the two, unless you're getting into some more resource intensive programs.

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Avoid Mac.

Avoid MSI.

 

Given those are the only two brands of laptop I've ever owned, and had troubles with both that I think are unusual... I'd steer clear.

 

I've never had an issue with my MacBook pro but both Mac and MSI tend to be expensive. MSI tend to make gaming laptops so they would be overkill.

 

ASUS are fantastic value, HP tend to be decent as are Dell. Get an Intel processor unless the laptop comes with AMD's Ryzen processor (which is unlikely as they are very new).

 

Without naming your budget it is very difficult to say.

 

$300-$400 will get you an i3 processor.

$400-$600 will get you an i5 processor.

 

You are probably better looking for the best value with the most ram. 4gb is at the lower end these days and ideally you should be looking at 6gb to 16gb.

For video and photo editing you'll want lots of space, so a hard drive of 750gb - 1tb is a must.

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well I just got a dell 2 in 1 laptop for work. 2 weeks into it and it's crapped out. this out be fine for a 12 year old girl watching youtube, but not for work. I mean excel and powerpoint killed this thing.
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well I just got a dell 2 in 1 laptop for work. 2 weeks into it and it's crapped out. this out be fine for a 12 year old girl watching youtube, but not for work. I mean excel and powerpoint killed this thing.

Damn, what model did you get?

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well I just got a dell 2 in 1 laptop for work. 2 weeks into it and it's crapped out. this out be fine for a 12 year old girl watching youtube, but not for work. I mean excel and powerpoint killed this thing.

Damn, what model did you get?

 

John, you still haven't shared your budget. It's very important when buying a laptop.

 

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well I just got a dell 2 in 1 laptop for work. 2 weeks into it and it's crapped out. this out be fine for a 12 year old girl watching youtube, but not for work. I mean excel and powerpoint killed this thing.

Damn, what model did you get?

 

John, you still haven't shared your budget. It's very important when buying a laptop.

Apologies $400-600.

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All good advice above, but get a SSD if you can fit it into your budget. I swapped out the old, tired hard drive from my 5 year old bare bones Dell laptop and it's been like a new machine. To save a little money you can probably get one with less storage. The amount of storage most people get in their laptops these days are just stupidly excessive. You can also get a USB drive cloning kit on Amazon for another $20 or so to make the swap easier. If you can handle a screwdriver, you should be able to handle a drive swap.
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Avoid Mac.

Avoid MSI.

 

Given those are the only two brands of laptop I've ever owned, and had troubles with both that I think are unusual... I'd steer clear.

 

I've never had an issue with my MacBook pro but both Mac and MSI tend to be expensive. MSI tend to make gaming laptops so they would be overkill.

 

ASUS are fantastic value, HP tend to be decent as are Dell. Get an Intel processor unless the laptop comes with AMD's Ryzen processor (which is unlikely as they are very new).

 

Without naming your budget it is very difficult to say.

 

$300-$400 will get you an i3 processor.

$400-$600 will get you an i5 processor.

 

You are probably better looking for the best value with the most ram. 4gb is at the lower end these days and ideally you should be looking at 6gb to 16gb.

For video and photo editing you'll want lots of space, so a hard drive of 750gb - 1tb is a must.

My budget changed so I could spend more. I got a Dell Inspiron 17, Core i7 8550U processor, 16GB memory, 2 TB hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce MXI150 2GB graphic card. Decent to eventually get back to video editing?

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Avoid Mac.

Avoid MSI.

 

Given those are the only two brands of laptop I've ever owned, and had troubles with both that I think are unusual... I'd steer clear.

 

I've never had an issue with my MacBook pro but both Mac and MSI tend to be expensive. MSI tend to make gaming laptops so they would be overkill.

 

ASUS are fantastic value, HP tend to be decent as are Dell. Get an Intel processor unless the laptop comes with AMD's Ryzen processor (which is unlikely as they are very new).

 

Without naming your budget it is very difficult to say.

 

$300-$400 will get you an i3 processor.

$400-$600 will get you an i5 processor.

 

You are probably better looking for the best value with the most ram. 4gb is at the lower end these days and ideally you should be looking at 6gb to 16gb.

For video and photo editing you'll want lots of space, so a hard drive of 750gb - 1tb is a must.

My budget changed so I could spend more. I got a Dell Inspiron 17, Core i7 8550U processor, 16GB memory, 2 TB hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce MXI150 2GB graphic card. Decent to eventually get back to video editing?

 

Absolutely. I’d be wanting to test video editing out ASAP otherwise your not going to get value for all that power just surfing and doing emails.

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Avoid Mac.

Avoid MSI.

 

Given those are the only two brands of laptop I've ever owned, and had troubles with both that I think are unusual... I'd steer clear.

 

I've never had an issue with my MacBook pro but both Mac and MSI tend to be expensive. MSI tend to make gaming laptops so they would be overkill.

 

ASUS are fantastic value, HP tend to be decent as are Dell. Get an Intel processor unless the laptop comes with AMD's Ryzen processor (which is unlikely as they are very new).

 

Without naming your budget it is very difficult to say.

 

$300-$400 will get you an i3 processor.

$400-$600 will get you an i5 processor.

 

You are probably better looking for the best value with the most ram. 4gb is at the lower end these days and ideally you should be looking at 6gb to 16gb.

For video and photo editing you'll want lots of space, so a hard drive of 750gb - 1tb is a must.

My budget changed so I could spend more. I got a Dell Inspiron 17, Core i7 8550U processor, 16GB memory, 2 TB hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce MXI150 2GB graphic card. Decent to eventually get back to video editing?

 

Absolutely. I’d be wanting to test video editing out ASAP otherwise your not going to get value for all that power just surfing and doing emails.

I’m on my iPad now. I opened a tab on Microsoft Edge to log on The Rush Forum and I got a Star Trek style Red Alert for Trojan Horse.

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Avoid Mac.

Avoid MSI.

 

Given those are the only two brands of laptop I've ever owned, and had troubles with both that I think are unusual... I'd steer clear.

 

I've never had an issue with my MacBook pro but both Mac and MSI tend to be expensive. MSI tend to make gaming laptops so they would be overkill.

 

ASUS are fantastic value, HP tend to be decent as are Dell. Get an Intel processor unless the laptop comes with AMD's Ryzen processor (which is unlikely as they are very new).

 

Without naming your budget it is very difficult to say.

 

$300-$400 will get you an i3 processor.

$400-$600 will get you an i5 processor.

 

You are probably better looking for the best value with the most ram. 4gb is at the lower end these days and ideally you should be looking at 6gb to 16gb.

For video and photo editing you'll want lots of space, so a hard drive of 750gb - 1tb is a must.

My budget changed so I could spend more. I got a Dell Inspiron 17, Core i7 8550U processor, 16GB memory, 2 TB hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce MXI150 2GB graphic card. Decent to eventually get back to video editing?

 

Absolutely. I’d be wanting to test video editing out ASAP otherwise your not going to get value for all that power just surfing and doing emails.

I’m on my iPad now. I opened a tab on Microsoft Edge to log on The Rush Forum and I got a Star Trek style Red Alert for Trojan Horse.

Use Chrome or Firefox.

 

 

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Avoid Mac.

Avoid MSI.

 

Given those are the only two brands of laptop I've ever owned, and had troubles with both that I think are unusual... I'd steer clear.

 

I've never had an issue with my MacBook pro but both Mac and MSI tend to be expensive. MSI tend to make gaming laptops so they would be overkill.

 

ASUS are fantastic value, HP tend to be decent as are Dell. Get an Intel processor unless the laptop comes with AMD's Ryzen processor (which is unlikely as they are very new).

 

Without naming your budget it is very difficult to say.

 

$300-$400 will get you an i3 processor.

$400-$600 will get you an i5 processor.

 

You are probably better looking for the best value with the most ram. 4gb is at the lower end these days and ideally you should be looking at 6gb to 16gb.

For video and photo editing you'll want lots of space, so a hard drive of 750gb - 1tb is a must.

My budget changed so I could spend more. I got a Dell Inspiron 17, Core i7 8550U processor, 16GB memory, 2 TB hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce MXI150 2GB graphic card. Decent to eventually get back to video editing?

The specs sound very good but from my experience it is best to read as many reviews as you can on laptops. No matter how good the specs sound, almost every company will occasionally have models that have performance issues (Usually overheating problems.). If a laptop overheats it will not perform well no matter what the specs. Edited by snowdogged
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Bumping this thread- :bump:

 

I'm looking for recommendations for an inexpensive laptop ($600-900) for my elderly parents. They will not be doing gaming; will be doing mostly Facebook and email and photos. They have a large desktop which they keep upstairs (not a lot of room for it downstairs) so I'm trying to find a laptop they can use downstairs. (My dad has open heart surgery pending so trying to consolidate stuff to one floor.) The bigger screen the better due to eyesight, but I realize for that budget they're not gonna get a huge Mac Pro.

 

I appreciate all the suggestions already made in this thread; I just didn't know if there was anything new I should know about. Thanks!

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