Trying to sort through the daunting varieties of PCs - need a new one...suggestions?

[NRaleighLiberal]

I've had Dell, Lenovo and HP PCs (I am really hard on them - right now half of the letters on keys are worn off and it is less than two years old!).

I am not a gamer - main use of the PC will be writing, web surfing, blogging, managing pictures, and also running webinars and recording a podcast. !5 inch screen seems about right. I use Windows 10 and the various Microsoft tools (Word. Excel, Power Point).

Price wise I would love to stay below 800 dollars (lower is better).

Looking through reviews on CNet and other sites, and Amazon, it seems there is something "wrong" (as in unliked) with pretty much every model.

So - any suggestions? I'd like to take advantage of any big sales that pop between now and Christmas.

Any laptops or brands you love...or hate?

[steve2470]

1. are you open to a refurbished one ? I've had good luck with refurbs

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4RR27V4597

Lenovo Laptop T420 Intel Core i5 2.50 GHz 4 GB Memory 500 GB HDD 14.0" Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit

best rating on newegg.com $259 + shipping

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. I will check that out - thanks.

Seems like a daunting selection of different types these days - just need something simple, indestructible, fast and reliable!

[steve2470]

3. if you want FAST, you need an SSD and maybe a HDD for storage

Sadly the cheaper ones like the one I showed you do NOT have SSD's.

Let me find you an SSD one.

[steve2470]

4. this has an SSD, so it's faster than any laptop with only a HDD

Lenovo Laptop T420 Intel Core i5 2520M (2.50 GHz) 8 GB Memory 128 GB SSD 14.0" Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4RR5MV8552

also refurbed which is no biggie to me, $255 plus shipping

[NRaleighLiberal]

5. thanks, my friend.

[steve2470]

6. my pleasure, my friend!

[sharp_stick]

8. The Lenovo T420 is a decent laptop

it was my last work PC and it held up really well to a lot of abuse.

[Egnever]

11. One issue with that machine

the storage space is very small. If you are doing podcasts and images you are going to fill that in no time. windows will eat a good chunk of that drive all by itself and leave you with somewhere around 80 gigs of storage to work with. That is not much when you are working with images and sound files.

Other than that it is a lot of machine at that price. You could certainly grab a larger drive and put it in but I just wanted to make sure you were aware you will definitely need to do that sooner than you would probably like.

Working with images chews disk space I would not recommend anything smaller than 500 gigs for that sort of usage.

[steve2470]

15. how about this machine for him ?

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834268878

HP Laptop 640 G1 Intel Core i5 4th Gen 4300M (2.60 GHz) 16 GB Memory 500 GB SSD 14.0" Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit

REFURBISHED, $477 + shipping

eta: shite just noticed no SSD....brb

eta2: ok here's one with an SSD

Lenovo Laptop T420 Intel Core i5 2nd Gen 2520M (2.50 GHz) 16 GB Memory 512 GB SSD 14.0" Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA77G5BX6613

[Egnever]

16. Couple of things

That is a second gen Intel chip which means the machine is pretty old. They are currently on 7th gen.

It also means the video is going to be pretty crappy. Notice the resolution is not even 720p. So the screen will not be that crisp.

There is good value in the SSD possibly although there is no telling who made it or if it was put in new during the refurb or if it is just erased. Though I would be surprised if a machine that old had a 512 SSD to begin with.

On paper the specs look decent but that Intel chip is a give away of the machines age. Not necessarily bad but it does mean that a lot of that machine is old.

It does carry a one year warranty so that is helpful but the older chip could cause issues going forward it is missing instruction sets that improve efficiency and power consumption.


His statement that he is going to work with photos and sound editing means I would be very cautious with older machines. Video has come a long way since that machine was built as has power consumption on the newer chips.

If it is going to sit plugged in power consumption is not as big a deal but if it will travel that becomes important.

[sharp_stick]

7. If you can

building your own is a great way to save money. I know Newegg has a couple of videos on doing it. All you really need is a case, power supply, motherboard, CPU, RAM, storage. Options would be a graphics card and DVD/CD drive. What you describe doesn't need a really expensive graphics card so the video options available on most of the budget CPU's should work, that will save you a bunch.

It's acutally a lot of fun if you have the time and commitment. Use pcpartpicker.com to build it piece by piece and they'll even make sure it's all compatible. You can even see what other people have built and even copy them. pcpartpicker will line up the cheapest way to order each of the parts.

https://pcpartpicker.com/builds/

If you don't want to do that. What you're describing can be found pretty easily. There are always a lot of unlikes on every computer because people aren't finding exactly what they want at the price they want. I still find Dell provides a pretty good computer even thought they tend to jack the prices quite a bit. If you go to Newegg they will offer fully built computers at any price point and usually their reviewers tend to be a little more knowledgeable about the products.

The link below is to Newegg where I've limited it to computer systems less than $750 with an i5 Intel CPU.

https://tinyurl.com/yb2tvbkv

Good luck.

[OriginalGeek]

9. Online and refurb are great

As long as you are familiar with how it it will perform. If you are not you can still buy online BUT I would suggest taking the specs with you to a computer store, best buy, whatever is near you and play around with similar models. Pay attention to cpu, graphics card and screen size. Try to compare as close to apples and apples as you can get.

If it runs as smoothly as you like then you can look at hard drive size and price and other options.

[msongs]

10. keyboards can be replaced. doesnt sound too difficult nt

[Betty88]

21. Most times very easy to change them out

Just google and follow the directions, if thats all thats wrong

[Egnever]

12. Are you looking for a laptop or a desktop?

[NRaleighLiberal]

13. laptop

[Egnever]

14. So in that case some things to look for

given you want to work with images and recording I would look for a machine with at least 8 gigs of memory preferably 16gig and at least 500 gigs of drive space. Even 500 makes me nervous with you saying you are doing podcasts as well.

Solid state drives are great and will definitely speed up load times and write times when working with video or the podcasts but it comes with a price and once the programs are loaded you will not see a huge difference in performance given enough memory to work with. You really see most of the difference when loading an app initially or when writing large amounts of data. They are definitely nice but with your usage you should be aware that storage space is going to come at a premium with an SSD

I am not sure what exactly you are doing with the photos but any real editing is going to lean heavily on the graphics processing unit. if it is just basic storage of photos then anything will work but if you are going to be doing extensive editing you should definitely pay attention to the GPU (video card)

I would not recommend anything below an I5 on the intell side or if you can find one an A10 or FX on the AMD side.

You could save a little cash if you are able to replace the HDD yourself by getting say the one linked above by steve and then switching out the drive for a larger one you purchase separately.

There are a large amount of configurations to chose from and it is difficult to suggest the right machine for you without knowing more about your usage.

Things like will it sit on a desk or will you move it often. If it sits on a desk then you don't need to worry about things like weight also standard drives are much more sensitive to movement and SSD can be dropped with little to no impact on the drive the same drop can ruin a standard drive.

if you are going to work from say the couch then the newer convertible laptops can be nice that flip into a touch screen so they can be used like a tablet on the couch.

There are a lot of options but knowing your usage and preferences will help nail the machine for you down a lot.

With a working budget of $800 you should be able to get a pretty satisfying machine. I would definitely want to know more details of your usage before going with the fist good price I came across. What works for you may not work for someone else and vice versa.

lastly whatever you go with if possible I would highly recommend going into a store and looking at the model and feeling the keyboard and mouse pad to see if they are comfortable for you. you an get a great machine but be completely unhappy with it just because the keyboard for you is horrible.

Happy to try to nail one down for you if you want to provide more usage details.

[Egnever]

17. Hey this just popped up when I was looking for something at costco

https://www.costco.com/Dell-Inspiron-15-5000-Series-2-in-1-Touchscreen-Laptop---Intel-Core-i7---1080p.product.100375038.html

That is a sweet machine for $699. Under the budget you were shooting for and hits a lot of your requirements.

[LeftInTX]

18. You may want a keyboard with raised letters

My old Dell keyboards used to have raised letters. My HPs do not and the paint wears off.

[OAITW r.2.0]

19. Just bought a Lenovo IdeaPad 110.

love it....about $400.00, 15" screen, graphics card, and 500GBytee storage. erfect with Win 10 and Office 365.

[steve2470]

20. what did you finally get ? just curious nt