Goldenrod and all other tech savy ppl

I'm in the market for a new lap top. I've never had to purchase one before so I'm clueless as to where to begin.

Our budget for the laptop, a wireless printer and Word is $1,000 max. We basically need it for storage of photos / videos, internet research, and document writing. I would appreciate any suggestions or advice.


TIA!

Re: Goldenrod and all other tech savy ppl

I'm currently a fan of Acer, HP, and Lenovo laptops. I've had good experiences with those. For basic tasks like you mentioned, the lowest entry-level computers are plenty for what you'll need.

For media storage, get one (preferably more, for redundancy) external USB drive. 1 or 2 TB drives are under $100.

I've used HP printers for decades, and they are good printers, but I've recently switched to Epson. HP ink cartridges have all the colors in one cartridge, so if you run out of cyan, but still have 50% of the yellow and magenta left, you have to toss the entire cartridge. With Epson, each color is separate, so if you run out of one color, you just replace that one cartridge.
The 3 in 1 wireless printers by Epson are really nice. Scanner/printer/copier. Many of them also have an email address, so you can "mail" your print requests to the printer from any device anywhere in the world, in addition to wi-fi enabled to print to locally.

I'm a big fan of OpenOffice. It's a MS Office compatible suite, but it's free. As long as you aren't doing anything overly unique, you won't notice much difference. Sometimes, OpenOffice is actually more compatible with older MS Office documents than MS Office is... I've had times where I couldn't open an MS Office document with a newer version of MS Office, but I could open it with OpenOffice.

Re: Goldenrod and all other tech savy ppl

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!

Re: Goldenrod and all other tech savy ppl

I will add a few things.

I recommend you get a computer with an I5 (eye-five) Intel processor.

There are 3 made by Intel.

I3 - Entry level. Great if you are doing homework, bills, internet, word etc. Basic.

I5- a little more "beefy". Things will load a little faster. Can handle more without slowing the computer down.

I7 - heavy duty. Great for lots of video, gaming, Higher end users.

For what you describe a I5 should fit the bill just fine.

Also. Make sure you get a decent size hard drive. I like to 500 gig. You may not use all of it, but tis good to have. Even better getting a Terabyte (1TB). The higher the drive the more you can store.

Its always nice to get a solid state internal hard drive, but NOT needed. Basically it does not have any moving parts so MUCH less likely to fail.

And ALWAYS backup to an external hard drive. You can get them anywhere for $100 or less. You don't need to spend the money on an external SOLID STATE hard drive. It would be nice, but for someone like you REALLY not worth the money.

Some facts:

1. Some laptops have dedicated (or called "discreet") graphics cards. They hold their own extra memory JUST for video. IT is not needed, but again, nice to have. So when you see the CARD has 8gig of memory that's in ADDITION to the RAM (see below for RAM). It help the video card process video faster, cleaner, smoother and better.

2. All computers should be 64 bit now.

3. A lot of computers have touch screens now. I have no opinion about it but I think its useful for using Windows 10.

4. You will see another standard of "8gb of memory". That RAM. Random access memory. Basically the MORE RAM a computer has the faster it can process data. I wish I could opine as to how much the MINIMUM you should get. But I don't think any computer would not have less than 2 gig's of RAM. AS always, the more the better.


Lastly: My caveat with "more is better". Keep in mind what you are using the computer for and what you MIGHT need it to grow into. If you think you will be streaming non stop Netflix you might want to think about getting the discreet video card. You don't NEED 500 gig of memory on a hard drive. you might have the option of a 250 solid state or 500 regular. If you have an external drive to save things onto I might go for the 250 Solid State, KWIM? But you don't NEED the I7. You don't NEED a 500 gig internal Solid State drive (expensive!!!!). You don't need a discreet video card. You don't need 8gig of RAM memory.

But if you say "Ya know, I know I want to stream Netflix. I want to start gaming, I want to download Photoshop and start doing crazy projects......you might want to get some of the higher end options. My PERSONAL belief is more RAM is good.

I have an ACER and LOVE it.