New Laptop Advice?

[pulisa]

I'm sure you all know that I'm the forum Dinosaur and am totally clueless as regards technology....So, I

was wondering whether anyone could advise me re a new laptop for my daughter?

She wants it for :

Gaming (The Sims)

Watching Videos (YouTube, IPlayer etc)

It should have decent memory storage, a good battery life, be easy to use for browsing and she mentioned something about an 8G RAM?

Thanks in advance-I really wouldn't know where to start and with the shops closed don't want to get anything online without being sure.

[Pamplemousse]

I'm sure you all know that I'm the forum Dinosaur and am totally clueless as regards technology....So, I

was wondering whether anyone could advise me re a new laptop for my daughter?

She wants it for :

Gaming (The Sims)

Watching Videos (YouTube, IPlayer etc)

It should have decent memory storage, a good battery life, be easy to use for browsing and she mentioned something about an 8G RAM?

Thanks in advance-I really wouldn't know where to start and with the shops closed don't want to get anything online without being sure.

The somewhat beat-up HP I type this on was bought second-hand from eBay - it's an HP Elitebook 8460p, one of their old business range. It's built in an alloy chassis so weighs a ton but has a liquid-proof keyboard and is capable of being upgraded to 16Gb of RAM, which mine has. The hard drive was upgraded to a 1TB solid-state device so even if you drop the machine, the hard drive will come to no harm. I wouldn't trade it for anything - from switch-on to Windows 10 being fully functional is something like ten seconds, if that.

[ankietyjoe]

What budget are you looking at P?

[Scissel]

If you are okay with privacy concerns and being tracked by google, Chromebooks, are very fast compare to windows .. plus they offer very good security 'out of the box' without having to worry about 3rd party antivirus applications. Chrome is without question very secure, though, not so much privacy focused. They can be purchased new for under 200.00 dollars and they should last for 5 years + of taken care of properly. Your daughter will have lots to chose in the google store as far as gaming apps. On the other hand, Windows 10 (configured properly) is also a good option and secure, but new; they will run you around twice the price - with X-Box embedded within the OS 'itself'. Upon creating a MS account your also creating an X-Box account simultaneously. Skype, Office, One Drive (cloud) based service. Much less than 8GB if RAM and you're going to notice a slowed experience playing games or trying to more than 1 thing at the same time. That being said, a Celeron with 4GB can be had for as little as 300.00 new, and I would highly recommend ASUS - you get a lot for what you pay and with warranty with updated drivers - which is more than enough to watch youtube and stream videos. Its a good way to start without major investment. Online, make sure you are avoiding refurbished (unless you're computer savvy) and go with new laptops so as to avoid getting somebody else's problems. Good luck

[Fishmanpa]

If you're only going to use it for some games and browsing, a Chromebook might be the way to go. They're affordable and built for that. If you need MS office or other software and the like you can subscribe to it as opposed to having on your hard drive.

Positive thoughts

[glassgirlw]

I was always a windows person until I switched my life over to Mac. Now I’m not sure I’ll ever go back. But they are pricey though and some absolutely hate Macs (I used to be one of those people lol). I’m not super tech savvy so I love Mac for the simple reason that it always works and I don’t have to do anything to it. It just works like it should all the time. Also don’t have to worry about viruses really (I’m on YouTube a ton and would always struggle with viruses on windows computers, even with anti-virus installed). So Mac would be my vote if it’s within the budget! I have a MacBook Air for my laptop, an iMac for my desktop computer, and an iPad Pro for portable lightweight reading and such.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I was always a MS Office person, I needed spreadsheets and databases for my work, but since I no longer have those business roles I find a basic free download of Polaris Office is fine. If you like your graphs you will need to buy the full version though as it's very basic for this and you can't even amend your criteria after producing one. But MS Office is expensive really. It's not bad if you use it but for occasional use it's overpriced these days when you can do online spreadsheet work.

I've still got my full Office 2003 for heavier stuff but you can't install it on newer computers

[Pamplemousse]

I've still got my full Office 2003 for heavier stuff but you can't install it on newer computers

Errrr.... that's simply not true, Terry. I have Office 2003 running perfectly on my Windows 10 machine, straight out of the box (because Office 2010 was hateful). The only change I made is to download the Compatibility Pack, so it could work with documents created using the newer XML-based Office versions.

[pulisa]

Thank you SO much for all this info and advice! I'll get my daughter to read through all your suggestions because I just don't understand all the technicalities!

We're looking at a middle of the range laptop for games and browsing really, nothing Office related. Something reliable and relatively quick. She's looked at the Mac options but has been told that the Windows 10 option is better for games? I don't know...I've got Windows 7 and an ancient ASUS laptop which suits me fine but I still live in the Dark Ages so..

Budget is £600 onwards..I know the Mac is a grand plus but feel that may be too much of an expense and she's always had a problem with new stuff and justifying the expenditure..

Thank you again for all this help. She'll be very grateful for your feedback.

[ankietyjoe]

Thank you SO much for all this info and advice! I'll get my daughter to read through all your suggestions because I just don't understand all the technicalities!

We're looking at a middle of the range laptop for games and browsing really, nothing Office related. Something reliable and relatively quick. She's looked at the Mac options but has been told that the Windows 10 option is better for games? I don't know...I've got Windows 7 and an ancient ASUS laptop which suits me fine but I still live in the Dark Ages so..

Budget is £600 onwards..I know the Mac is a grand plus but feel that may be too much of an expense and she's always had a problem with new stuff and justifying the expenditure..

Thank you again for all this help. She'll be very grateful for your feedback.

Windows is the better gaming platform for sure. Not only in terms of what you get for your money, but also in terms of what's actually available. Unless she's an avid gamer though, it's probably not really an issue.

Saying that, the new generation of M1 Macs are far more powerful than the previous Intel powered computers. The cheapest entry point now would be the base model Macbook Air for £999. It is a lot more money, but you have to consider resale value too. After 3 years a PC laptop is virtually worthless, but a Macbook Air would still be worth £500-600. Could be worth it in the long run?

I would probably still stick with Windows though, it's just the better gaming platform overall right now.

After doing a bit of research, this one seems to be a bit of a steal. Slightly over budget, but has some very good specs and gaming performance.

https://www.ebuyer.com/983374-msi-gf...9s7-16r412-426

It can be opened up to upgrade RAM and hard drives too, if necessary.


Chromebooks aren't really up to the task of gaming, and in terms of viruses I've run around 20 different computers over the last 15 years or so and never once had a virus issue on anything. AV programs tend to flag up all sorts of stuff that isn't really an issue, really to justify their own existence. Built in Windows defender is all you need. People almost always get viruses from clicking on things they shouldn't click on, and no software will stop people doing that. I've run both Mac and PC for work and play machines.

Edit - Just found out you can actually add a second hard drive internally too if you want to. Any computer tech can do all this, it doesn't take long.