"Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
04/27/2019 at 13:22 • Filed to: Not a car
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"Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
04/27/2019 at 13:22 • Filed to: Not a car | 0
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I’m looking to buy a ubiquitous PC laptop today. Your recommendations are highly solicited. Budget is currently low: under $600, and I have to buy Office and antivirus software... male prostitution is sadly now an oversaturated market. I don’t game and I don’t run any exhaustive programs so I just need something reliable and intuitive (hmm, the Toyota guy wants the Corolla of laptops? You don’t say).
Other than monies, a desktop is not in the cards because my office doubles as a guest room and we have many people slated to visit this summer, and I would need to use it daily for work so it’s gotta be convenient to hop around. I don’t know what it is but all my laptops die within 3 years on me... I can stomach the expense if I just replace them *before* they die next time.
Number pad is a must. I don’t want or like touchscreens.
.... I mean if you knew a killer dealer on a desktop don’t hesitate to share either...
Thanks.
Monkey B
> Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
04/27/2019 at 13:28 |
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Dell have always been a reliable machine for me. The only PC maker I’d buy from today from my experiences.
CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever
> Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
04/27/2019 at 13:29 |
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Corolla of laptops?
This is literally the one you should buy. Just get a $10 USB num pad. They are better anyway as you get more keyboard real estate.
https://deals.dell.com/en-ca/productdetail/2ce2
BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind
> Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
04/27/2019 at 13:30 |
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I just buy literally the cheapest one that I can find as long as it has the minimum specs that I need. I’d say 8gb memory and whatever hard drive size ya need. Here: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-15-6-laptop-amd-a12-series-8gb-memory-amd-radeon-r7-128gb-solid-state-drive-matte-silver-imr-black-imr/6319977.p?skuId=6319977
Unless you’re doing gaming or whatever, this is probably fine. They all die in 3-4 years anyway.
ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)
> Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
04/27/2019 at 13:32 |
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Do not buy McAfee or Kaspersky or the like. They are just as bad as having a virus.
I use Avast on my Surface Pro 3 and have never had any issues.
lone_liberal
> Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
04/27/2019 at 13:34 |
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Really, when you just want a bare bones machine they're pretty interchangeable. Stick with a mainstream brand and maybe buy from Costco to increase the warranty and you'll be good. For work I've bought dells, hps and Lenovos and the failure rate has been the same.
benjrblant
> Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
04/27/2019 at 13:34 |
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Using openoffoce or google docs if possible could save you some cash.
facw
> Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
04/27/2019 at 13:36 |
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If you want a numpad it should be easy to find some random 15.6" laptop with one at that. I wouldn’t want a machine that big, but with a numpad, that’s what you are looking at. I’d make sure to have:
At least a 1080p screen
At least 8GB of RAM
At least a 240GB SSD
For example look at these:
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facw
> ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)
04/27/2019 at 13:41 |
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I just use whatever they are calling the one built into windows these days. Probably not the best, but at least it stays out of the way.
Aremmes
> Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
04/27/2019 at 13:42 |
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Dnt waste money on a third-party antivirus - Windows Defender works better, costs nothing, and comes bundled with Windows 10. As for office software, I would recommend LibreOffice, however that has a learning curve that you may not want to climb, in which case just fork the monies for MS Office.
This Dell Inspiron 15" seems good - although it does have a touchscreen.
https://deals.dell.com/en-us/productdetail/2b3u
Future Heap Owner
> Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
04/27/2019 at 14:04 |
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Let me try interest you instead in the Land Cruiser of laptops: a ThinkPad. They tend to last forever. They meet military toughness specs for humidity, vibration, temperature, and dust resistance. They’re designed to survive having liquids spilled on the keyboard (there’s a drip tray underneath that funnels the liquid out holes in the bottom) and they’re delightfully user-serviceable. I know several people who hoard the old ThinkPads with 4:3 aspect ratio screens (from 2008 and earlier) for their own personal use.
Mine was around $1300 new, and it’s been going strong for six years without any problems (I’ve replaced the battery twice, but that’s to be expected). You can find my model of ThinkPad (a 2013 T530) on ebay for about $150-300 . For $450-600, you can get a bit newer & beefier T540p with a numpad .
Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
> Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
04/27/2019 at 14:08 |
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For a durable laptop, the MacBook is probably the most robust and durable out there. And that’s backed with Consumer Reports data.
The Microsoft surface pro is also highly rated.
And other good options that are robust are the Dell Latitude 5xxx series and the Lenovo T series.
Generally these will cost at least $400 more than the typical consumer grade notebook.
But in my experience, they are far more likely to hold up well to 3 years of heavy field sales use.
So I’m saying if you want something more robust, you need to increase your budget to at least the low CAD$1000 price range after tax... or about US$750 after tax
And if you must have a number pad, consider just plugging in an external keyboard.
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Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
> Future Heap Owner
04/27/2019 at 14:13 |
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I'll second the robustness of the lenovo T series.
Deltyn drives a meh car
> Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
04/27/2019 at 14:17 |
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Look into the Acer e15. I just picked one up a few months ago and it meets all your criteria. They have an Intel i3 version that's fine for running office and such and a slightly more expensive i7 version for video editing and what not.
Boxer_4
> Future Heap Owner
04/27/2019 at 14:20 |
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That’s where I was going to go.
Chuckles
> Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
04/27/2019 at 14:24 |
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I'm not much of a computer person, so my advice is to see if there are any people in your area who refurbish laptops. There is a guy in my area who buys laptops in bulk from companies whenever they upgrade to newer ones. He wipes them, cleans them up and installs windows and Microsoft office on them. You can get pretty good laptops for $300ish. I bought one last year and it's been great for my parents.
BaconSandwich is tasty.
> Future Heap Owner
04/27/2019 at 14:26 |
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US military toughness in a Chinese owned laptop. I'm sure there's some irony in there somewhere.
deekster_caddy
> facw
04/27/2019 at 15:55 |
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windows defender is reasonably decent. With all of these programs, it’s a race to see who gets the new definitions in place first. Microsoft has been doing a pretty good job lately, but they still can’t protect someone from clicking on a link to one of the lock you out pages...
Best advice I have - create a separate user who is an administrator and only use it to install programs. Make your own user a “standard” or “restricted” user who can’t install stuff. That way if someone sends a malicious link your way and you fall for it, they can’t bork your entire system - only your user profile. Then you use your admin account to retrieve files from your borked user profile, create a new (restricted) user profile and put your files back...
ttyymmnn
> benjrblant
04/29/2019 at 19:00 |
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Libre Office is good, too.