Bought a thing, and I need computer help. Not car related.

"AMGtech - now with more recalls!" (amgtech)
11/15/2014 at 12:20 • Filed to: help

Bought the first Assassins Creed off of the PSN. Never played any of them before. I'm excited to start playing.

Now the help part. So the wife's laptop is starting to die. We're going to do what we can to limp it along, but it's getting old and is missing a couple unimportant keys from when our daughter was younger and got hold of it. We're not really computer people. So I'm wondering if anyone here has any suggestions on brands, trim[?] levels, places to buy, etc. It's mostly used for internet things, storing pictures, and paying bills. We don't use it for gaming, but do occasionally use it for streaming shows, mostly doctor who. The cheaper the better, but I still want decent and reliable.

Thanks much oppo!

DISCUSSION (15)

Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
11/15/2014 at 12:21

Stay away from HP, their cooling system is horrible.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy
11/15/2014 at 12:26

Kinja'd!!!

Good to know, thanks. Have a picture of this thing for your time.

Rico > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
11/15/2014 at 12:30

What's your maximum budget? Brands I would suggest would be Dell or Asus. As zippy said HPs are not that reliable.

Montalvo > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
11/15/2014 at 12:38

Acer, Samsung, Asus, Dell. The best place to buy is from a place like Micro Center where they have awesome deals on pretty much anything. For just usual internet browing and stuff a computer with an i5 should be perfect. Do not go towards AMD, unless you are a bit of a masochist. They don't support their products as well as Intel. I strongly recommend a Samsung or Asus, Dell has good stuff too but go wrong often although Dell has some of the best warranty policies out there. I think a proper price range for this would be around $600~800. That will largely depend on the Hard drive space and RAM.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > Rico
11/15/2014 at 12:44

$500 would be fantastic, but less than $1k should be fine.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > Montalvo
11/15/2014 at 12:46

That's very helpful, thank you. Any ideas how much ram we should look for? Any other things that can be measured and have specifications?

Montalvo > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
11/15/2014 at 12:55

Hard drive space is going to depend on how many photos and stuff you have but that can be sorted later with an external hard drive like this , RAM should be no less than 4GB, the sweet spot for laptops is 6~8 GB, it will help when you have lots of tabs or things running at once. Also keeps it a little bit more lively when it gets close to the end of its life. The other biggest thing I can think of is screen size as that determines the size of the laptop and generally what is inside of it. How mobile do you want the laptop to be? I found that 15" is great if you are on the move often with 17"+ being nice for straight desktop use. Since this isn't for gaming you don't need to get a laptop with a discrete graphics card so anything that says Intel graphics on it or something close to that will be fine.

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
11/15/2014 at 13:01

Have you considered a tablet? If all you're doing is internet browsing and streaming, a tablet would be a cheaper alternative. You could then pair it with a chromecast to stream content to your TV.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest.
11/15/2014 at 14:26

Well we have two galaxy tabs already, but my wife uses excel a lot also and likes being able to use the keyboard and sometimes mouse. I should have been a bit more specific, she uses it for businessy things too. Lots of email and communicating with customers, but nothing that requires special software or anything.

And we have a Wii and PS3 that we use Netflix and Hulu on. Streaming from the laptop is mostly just done from the BBC website for doctor who or top gear or whatever.

AASHOUR6 > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
11/15/2014 at 14:29

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MacBook-…

You cant go wrong. Under 1000 but the downside is 128 GB but the upside is that it has an SSD. Great laptop. my sister has one and i have a pro retina

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
11/15/2014 at 14:34

Still, you can get keyboards and mice for tablets. Maybe a Surface RT?

JGrabowMSt > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
11/15/2014 at 14:35

[username] @ gmail

I work at a computer shop. Shoot me an email.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > Montalvo
11/15/2014 at 14:38

We havean external hard drive already, so that's good. It's mostly used as a desktop but does move around on occasion, currently we have a 17".

Have a picture of a thing I wouldn't kick out of the garage.

Kinja'd!!!

Rico > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
11/15/2014 at 16:57

Hey I'm on my phone but this seems like a good option:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00NGK…

Asus, $550, Core i5 8 GB ram and 1 TB hard drive

NotUnlessRoundIsFunny > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
11/23/2014 at 03:45

I would seriously go see what Costco has to offer in your price range, and stay away from HP.

Costco has good prices, a decent return policy, and they give you free domestic tech support for two years. If the thing sucks quickly, you can return it; if suckage creeps in later, at least you can get help with it.