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Post by caseyrook AKA Mechelle on Jul 14, 2018 16:48:33 GMT
I need a working (*actually* working) laptop that can handle Microsoft Office. I don't have all that much money but I do have two jobs so I could save up, hopefully in time to make a decision by the time school starts again:
I have three options:
1) Fix one of the laptops I already have (they're *all* nearly unusable)
2) Buy a new MS laptop (which I would prefer the most)
3) Buy a Chromebook
Option 1) My problem here is that the laptop I want to fix, my Acer which I have asked for help with here on another thread, has a hardware issue so I suspect that fixing it would be more costly than replacing it. Although, I can't be sure of that.
It boils down to: I need to replace the parts that connect it to WiFi and Ethernet cords. They are almost certainly the culprits.
Any ideas of cost for that and if the parts could be replaced by someone at home? I have a brother who has experience in taking apart and building PCs.
Fixing my other laptop, the one my mom gave me, would probably not be as costly, but I am not sure what its issue is, other than it blue screen of deaths waaaay too often, with one of six different error codes each time. I will fix this one if it turns out to be my best option but quite frankly, I really dislike this laptop. I only use it because I need a computer with a disc drive, anyway.
Option 2) Buying a new MS laptop is the option I would prefer of the three choices, but is also the least optimum one because it would cost the most and I'm afraid to pay a lesser price for a new MS laptop for fear of having the same problems all over again.
The last purchase I made turned out to be a TERRIBLE decision which I made because I just happened to have enough money to buy it and I wanted a tablet (it was a two in one that I regret immensely).
Unless you have recommendations for a fast-running, reliable, durable, laptop that also has good graphics and good speakers? (Comparable to my broken Acer which is a gaming laptop).
Option 3) Is probably my best bet but the problem is that I have little experience with Chromebooks. I don't know which models are the best and I'm not familiar with knowing what to look for in their Specs, especially when determining if they have a lot of usuable memory vs memory that the OS needs (like on an Android phone).
I think they can handle MS Office offline but I know for a fact that they can run Office online, if not.
Any advice, recommendations, or other input?
I'm desperate enough at the moment to put myself into debt (if I can find a cosigner for a small loan from my bank...) to get a 'good' laptop but I don't want to do that unless all other options have been turned down.
Thanks in advance for help.
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Post by beren44 on Jul 14, 2018 19:17:49 GMT
I need a working (*actually* working) laptop that can handle Microsoft Office. I don't have all that much money but I do have two jobs so I could save up, hopefully in time to make a decision by the time school starts again: I have three options: 1) Fix one of the laptops I already have (they're *all* nearly unusable) 2) Buy a new MS laptop (which I would prefer the most) 3) Buy a Chromebook If you decide to replace (probably the best option), I can seriously give a recommendation to Discount Electronics, for a used (refurbished, like new) laptop.
As you may know, Dell computers are made in Austin, and DE has been around for years here, selling refurbished Dells (as well as old inventory new discontinued models, etc). I have purchased both used towers and used laptops from them, with really excellent prices, and they have all been winners. A fair warranty, and the best thing...they come COMPLETELY CLEAN of all bloatware whatsoever...just whatever OS you want on it, an email program, firefox or chrome, and the Libre version of MSOffice (the free open source program..its compatible/comparable to Excel, Word, and Powerpoint.)
They are online at DiscountElectronics.com. I think you can get a LOT of computer for the money from them. Good Luck!
EDIT: not sure about the email program, I may have downloaded Thunderbird after I got home with it. Either way, they have all been great computers for around $150 each. They have lower and higher priced ones also, of course. These have served me well.
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Post by caseyrook AKA Mechelle on Jul 14, 2018 22:13:58 GMT
I need a working (*actually* working) laptop that can handle Microsoft Office. I don't have all that much money but I do have two jobs so I could save up, hopefully in time to make a decision by the time school starts again: I have three options: 1) Fix one of the laptops I already have (they're *all* nearly unusable) 2) Buy a new MS laptop (which I would prefer the most) 3) Buy a Chromebook If you decide to replace (probably the best option), I can seriously give a recommendation to Discount Electronics, for a used (refurbished, like new) laptop.
As you may know, Dell computers are made in Austin, and DE has been around for years here, selling refurbished Dells (as well as old inventory new discontinued models, etc). I have purchased both used towers and used laptops from them, with really excellent prices, and they have all been winners. A fair warranty, and the best thing...they come COMPLETELY CLEAN of all bloatware whatsoever...just whatever OS you want on it, an email program, firefox or chrome, and the Libre version of MSOffice (the free open source program..its compatible/comparable to Excel, Word, and Powerpoint.)
They are online at DiscountElectronics.com. I think you can get a LOT of computer for the money from them. Good Luck!
EDIT: not sure about the email program, I may have downloaded Thunderbird after I got home with it. Either way, they have all been great computers for around $150 each. They have lower and higher priced ones also, of course. These have served me well.
Okay, I'm looking at the site now and you've got me interested. What laptops would *you* recommend? I'd like to have one that can smoothly run programs like Photoshop. |
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Post by DoTheMath on Jul 14, 2018 23:23:29 GMT
If you decide to replace (probably the best option), I can seriously give a recommendation to Discount Electronics, for a used (refurbished, like new) laptop.
As you may know, Dell computers are made in Austin, and DE has been around for years here, selling refurbished Dells (as well as old inventory new discontinued models, etc). I have purchased both used towers and used laptops from them, with really excellent prices, and they have all been winners. A fair warranty, and the best thing...they come COMPLETELY CLEAN of all bloatware whatsoever...just whatever OS you want on it, an email program, firefox or chrome, and the Libre version of MSOffice (the free open source program..its compatible/comparable to Excel, Word, and Powerpoint.)
They are online at DiscountElectronics.com. I think you can get a LOT of computer for the money from them. Good Luck!
EDIT: not sure about the email program, I may have downloaded Thunderbird after I got home with it. Either way, they have all been great computers for around $150 each. They have lower and higher priced ones also, of course. These have served me well.
Okay, I'm looking at the site now and you've got me interested. What laptops would *you* recommend? I'd like to have one that can smoothly run programs like Photoshop. For shopping on a budget, this would be my top pick:
This one is nice for the money. SSD is a damn nice thing to have, but being only 128 GB pretty much makes it worthless unless you're willing to spend 100 -150 $$$ a bit later down the road to get a bigger one (I recently got a WD Blue 500 GB SSD for $109.00 from newegg.com but it was a sale price). If this laptop had a bigger drive it would be a steal at the price listed.
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Post by beren44 on Jul 15, 2018 16:00:29 GMT
Okay, I'm looking at the site now and you've got me interested. What laptops would *you* recommend? I'd like to have one that can smoothly run programs like Photoshop. I really couldn't make a recommendation, they are all relatively new and pretty powerful, I think any modern lappy could run photoshop just fine. |
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Post by backroadjunkie on Jul 15, 2018 16:12:07 GMT
It's really impossible to give a recommendation without knowing a budget. If you plan on running things like photoshop, it might be painful on a slow disk. The program itself is memory intensive, but they want to use some disk as scratch space which can really suck when it's on a slow disk (that's also your system disk that falls asleep alot because it's in a laptop.) I have SSD's on my two main desktops and in my laptop. Since I sometimes use Photoshop and Premier on the laptop, it's a 17" i5 machine, almost too big to be a laptop. But you really appreciate the real estate a large display will give you when editing, so consider physical screen size. A small HD screen might be great for video, but it's not very good for graphics work. It was also hard to work with before I installed the SSD (an adventure in itself) but now I've got no complaints. A caveat to that is I'm used to fast i7 machines with SSD's, so my perception of what's acceptable might be skewed.  But you should think about disk speed.
Office is pretty lightweight and will run on pretty much anything. After MS stops patching my version of office (they've already stopped supporting it), I going to look into open office. If I was going to install a new machine, I might think about starting with that, rather than renting MS Office. (If you don't already own a copy of a non-subscription Office.)
And lastly, there are no laptops with good speakers in them. They almost all sound like those 60's Japanese transistor radios. That's why they have a earphone jack. 
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Post by caseyrook AKA Mechelle on Jul 16, 2018 1:08:08 GMT
It's really impossible to give a recommendation without knowing a budget. If you plan on running things like photoshop, it might be painful on a slow disk. The program itself is memory intensive, but they want to use some disk as scratch space which can really suck when it's on a slow disk (that's also your system disk that falls asleep alot because it's in a laptop.) I have SSD's on my two main desktops and in my laptop. Since I sometimes use Photoshop and Premier on the laptop, it's a 17" i5 machine, almost too big to be a laptop. But you really appreciate the real estate a large display will give you when editing, so consider physical screen size. A small HD screen might be great for video, but it's not very good for graphics work. It was also hard to work with before I installed the SSD (an adventure in itself) but now I've got no complaints. A caveat to that is I'm used to fast i7 machines with SSD's, so my perception of what's acceptable might be skewed. But you should think about disk speed.
Office is pretty lightweight and will run on pretty much anything. After MS stops patching my version of office (they've already stopped supporting it), I going to look into open office. If I was going to install a new machine, I might think about starting with that, rather than renting MS Office. (If you don't already own a copy of a non-subscription Office.)
And lastly, there are no laptops with good speakers in them. They almost all sound like those 60's Japanese transistor radios. That's why they have a earphone jack.
Let's say $250 is the maximum I will spend. |
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Post by backroadjunkie on Jul 16, 2018 4:50:45 GMT
It's really impossible to give a recommendation without knowing a budget. If you plan on running things like photoshop, it might be painful on a slow disk. The program itself is memory intensive, but they want to use some disk as scratch space which can really suck when it's on a slow disk (that's also your system disk that falls asleep alot because it's in a laptop.) I have SSD's on my two main desktops and in my laptop. Since I sometimes use Photoshop and Premier on the laptop, it's a 17" i5 machine, almost too big to be a laptop. But you really appreciate the real estate a large display will give you when editing, so consider physical screen size. A small HD screen might be great for video, but it's not very good for graphics work. It was also hard to work with before I installed the SSD (an adventure in itself) but now I've got no complaints. A caveat to that is I'm used to fast i7 machines with SSD's, so my perception of what's acceptable might be skewed. But you should think about disk speed.
Office is pretty lightweight and will run on pretty much anything. After MS stops patching my version of office (they've already stopped supporting it), I going to look into open office. If I was going to install a new machine, I might think about starting with that, rather than renting MS Office. (If you don't already own a copy of a non-subscription Office.)
And lastly, there are no laptops with good speakers in them. They almost all sound like those 60's Japanese transistor radios. That's why they have a earphone jack.
Let's say $250 is the maximum I will spend. That's an awfully tough price point for a laptop without some comprises to the disk, display and/or processor.
If you're can't consider the used/refurbished market, get some estimates on what it would take to repair your old unit. It might be something as simple as reseating your network card. (Assuming your old laptop had an upgradable network option...)
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Post by caseyrook AKA Mechelle on Oct 2, 2018 14:29:30 GMT
I bought a new laptop yesterday! Between it and the Pen I bought for it, I ended up spending a good $900. It's okay though, because Bank of America was kind enough to dramatically increase my credit line...
...Anyway, it's an HP Envy x360 two in one. It seemed to be the only one at my local Best Buy that they had in stock and suited all things I wanted.
So, I'll finally be able to use my laptop and not have to worry about the blue screen of death!
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