Grangur Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 (edited) Hi there, I'm about to go on my hols and thinking of the good deals that might be going in duty free. So maybe this is the time to invest in a laptop? All I'm likely to want it for is a bit if home admin stuff and music. So software I'm likely to load would be: Office Chrome - browser Transcribe! iTunes Reaper Gimp - image software. That's about it... any suggestions about what laptops are good these days? (or not good?!) Thanks Edit: Maybe this should be in "off topic" ? If so, dear Mods, please move this. Many thanks Edited July 6, 2015 by Grangur Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billy Apple Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 I've had a Sony and two Dells. Aren't they all much of a muchness, last a few years and then pack up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grangur Posted July 6, 2015 Author Share Posted July 6, 2015 [quote name='Billy Apple' timestamp='1436200847' post='2815916'] I've had a Sony and two Dells. Aren't they all much of a muchness, last a few years and then pack up? [/quote] Yes, that's what I was trying to avoid. To make things even more interesting.I've already got a "Thinkpad" that belongs to my employer. So I could simply keep using that, but I'm getting twinges of guilt at wearing out their laptop. Mind you, it's lasted 3.5 years so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
landwomble Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 Dell UK outlet. Find yourself a nice ultrabook at half price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wateroftyne Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 [quote name='landwomble' timestamp='1436204121' post='2815962'] Dell UK outlet. Find yourself a nice ultrabook at half price. [/quote] I picked up an XPS 15 via this route a couple of months ago. It's a lovely laptop, but it has a few (apparently known) issues that are proving difficult to get resolved. As it stands, as much as I'd like to, I can't recommend 'em. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeEvans Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 My Dell is absolutely rubbish. Bought it last year (with a work budget) and it was like stepping back ten years in terms of speed and reliability. It takes about five minutes to boot up, regularly freezes and is generally an absolute waste of space. When I got a new Macbook Air (new job) I couldn't believe the difference - it feels literally hundreds of times faster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrtcat Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 If you're using reaper then have a think about whether you are using the laptop to record stuff. If so how many inputs into reaper do yo want? If you want say 8 or more then USB 2 may not be the best way. Mac books with a thunderbolt port would allow you to use a firewire interface and that would allow you to use an interface with more inputs. I have a Dell PC and it's great but for laptop I'll always use Mac until you can get USB 3 ports on standard laptops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 All the software is available for Windows and Mac, so I think it boils down to which you need the best experience from. If it is Office, then get a Windows machine and if it's iTunes get a Mac. Simple. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 Don't let Kanye West get anywhere near it ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
landwomble Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 [quote name='JoeEvans' timestamp='1436205127' post='2815975'] My Dell is absolutely rubbish. Bought it last year (with a work budget) and it was like stepping back ten years in terms of speed and reliability. It takes about five minutes to boot up, regularly freezes and is generally an absolute waste of space. When I got a new Macbook Air (new job) I couldn't believe the difference - it feels literally hundreds of times faster. [/quote] The new Macbook air is very expensive sive for a very low spec. Dunno what your old work did to screw up the dell but a modern machine shouldn't and doesn't typically behave like that. Make sure you get an SSD and even a lowly core i3 should be more than adequate for speed... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lowdown Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 [quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1436206779' post='2816006'] Don't let Kanye West get anywhere near it ... [/quote] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HowieBass Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 A fair few new Windows laptops have USB 3 ports. As I've mentioned elsewhere on here I think LibreOffice is a great free alternative to MS Office and also I'd recommend the equally good and free Avast for antivirus software. I'm currently using a Samsung laptop with a Core i3 processor, 6GB RAM, running 64bit Windows 7 - performance isn't bad at all for a machine that's close to 3 years old. I understand that the performance should improve when Windows 10 comes out. I tried a couple of laptops before I bought it, the thing that made me choose this was better specs for the same price compared to other makes in the store and I preferred the trackpad on this over all the others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 MacBook Pro ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrtcat Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 [quote name='HowieBass' timestamp='1436208674' post='2816035'] A fair few new Windows laptops have USB 3 ports. [/quote] If it were me then I would seriously consider one of the windows ones then. USB 3 interfaces shouldn't be too far away if the ports are becoming common. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnm93 Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 Buy the cheapest one in the shop. They are all designed to last about 3 years, no matter what anyone says..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shambo Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 I've been doing a bit of research into portable computing since the turn of the year and I'm holding out for a MS Surface Pro 4 to do some CAD/Photoshop with a stylus on my uni course, but am resigned to the fact it might never happen, or at a realistic price for me. As someone mentioned above, chosing a lappy with a solid state drive will provide the most dramatic improvement in performance for the money. Personally, I'd look for a 1920 x 1080, 15.6" full high definition screen (FHD), as opposed to HD+ or just HD which isn't good enough for modern movies. RAM might be something you could upgrade easily yourself at a later & cheaper date. Apparently, the new direct X coming with the new windows OS is going to favour big towards multiple core processors, more so than any previous incarnation, so you might not be wanting to do anything too graphically taxing ATM, but it's something to consider if you want your new lappy to keep pace with newer software for longer. Happy hunting Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grangur Posted July 6, 2015 Author Share Posted July 6, 2015 Thanks for the info. Certainly some interesting ideas. I don't expect to be recording much on it, except "me n my bass" stuff. I already use Libra Office for work. I save most files to MS Office format though, so it opens on an Android tablet. Good point about going for an SSD though. Many thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeEvans Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 [quote name='landwomble' timestamp='1436207455' post='2816019'] The new Macbook air is very expensive sive for a very low spec. Dunno what your old work did to screw up the dell but a modern machine shouldn't and doesn't typically behave like that. [/quote] Yes - I wouldn't have bought the Air myself, but it's very nice nonetheless... Boots up more or less instantly (solid state HD) and does everything very fast and easily while also being very small and light. And the Dell was like that straight from the box. I fiddled about a bit trying to work out if there was anything actually wrong with it (as did the IT guy at work) but didn't really get anywhere. It's entirely possible that there is some reason for the slowness beyond it just being a bit crap, but it has certainly put me off Dells. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffbyrne Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 (edited) Our house currently sports 2 x Hewlett Packard Tower PCs, 4 x HP laptops and an HP netbook. All are reliable. One laptop is an I7 processor, one an I5, one a Core II Duo and one an ancient and slow (but still reliable) Celeron. Currently all are running Win7 except the I7 which is Win10 Preview and the Netbook which runs Mint Linux. Both tower PCs are quad core. I don't run Win7 in less than 4 Gb RAM and 8Gb on the towers. The netbook is limited to 2 Gb but the Linux runs fast on it, partially due to the SSD. As you've probably surmised, I'd suggest you took a look at HP machines. Good luck whatever you decide on. G. p.s. Since Apples & PCs effectively use the same hardware these days (you can firkle Apple OS to run on PC & Windoze to run on Apple) I feel that paying Apple prices make for a very expensive PC. You can get versions of Linux that emulate Win or AppleOS and, generally, run faster. G. Edited July 6, 2015 by geoffbyrne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wateroftyne Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 [quote name='JoeEvans' timestamp='1436213605' post='2816112'] Yes - I wouldn't have bought the Air myself, but it's very nice nonetheless... Boots up more or less instantly (solid state HD) and does everything very fast and easily while also being very small and light. And the Dell was like that straight from the box. I fiddled about a bit trying to work out if there was anything actually wrong with it (as did the IT guy at work) but didn't really get anywhere. It's entirely possible that there is some reason for the slowness beyond it just being a bit crap, but it has certainly put me off Dells. [/quote] Yup. I'm generally a PC person, but I picket up a fairly new Macbook Air off Gumtree for a great price for Mrs. WoT and it's lovely. Such a tidy bit of kit. I went with my Dell XPS 'cos I can't abide the floppy plastic tat that most other PC laptops seem to consist of. It's solid and well-built, but.. it's just flaky. And that's a shame :-( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevB Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 Bought an Advent Roma 3000 a few years back in a PC World sale, still going strong and was pretty cheap. I run a second external hard drive for all my music/photos etc so I won't lose them if the laptop goes down. No serious problems for me running iTunes on Windows7. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r16ktx Posted July 7, 2015 Share Posted July 7, 2015 [quote name='Johnm93' timestamp='1436210225' post='2816063'] Buy the cheapest one in the shop. They are all designed to last about 3 years, no matter what anyone says..... [/quote] I'd say that you're going to the wrong shop then [quote name='geoffbyrne' timestamp='1436215012' post='2816139'] ...I'd suggest you took a look at HP machines... [/quote] I too recommend HP (based on the company I last worked for using and supplying hardware for call centres from laptops to servers, hundreds of machines, all HP, and all A1 for the expected lifetime of 7-10 years) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muppet Posted July 7, 2015 Share Posted July 7, 2015 [quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1436218048' post='2816183'] I went with my Dell XPS 'cos I can't abide the floppy plastic tat that most other PC laptops seem to consist of. It's solid and well-built, but.. it's just flaky. And that's a shame :-( [/quote] I've rebuilt mine three times already. It's a lovely looking thing but I too have had so many issues with it. At the time I think they took lots of good stuff and bunged it in a case without thinking of compatibility. My HP, whilst ugly, is bulletproof. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
landwomble Posted July 7, 2015 Share Posted July 7, 2015 [quote name='Shambo' timestamp='1436211828' post='2816091'] I've been doing a bit of research into portable computing since the turn of the year and I'm holding out for a MS Surface Pro 4 to do some CAD/Photoshop with a stylus on my uni course, but am resigned to the fact it might never happen, or at a realistic price for me. As someone mentioned above, chosing a lappy with a solid state drive will provide the most dramatic improvement in performance for the money. Personally, I'd look for a 1920 x 1080, 15.6" full high definition screen (FHD), as opposed to HD+ or just HD which isn't good enough for modern movies. RAM might be something you could upgrade easily yourself at a later & cheaper date. Apparently, the new direct X coming with the new windows OS is going to favour big towards multiple core processors, more so than any previous incarnation, so you might not be wanting to do anything too graphically taxing ATM, but it's something to consider if you want your new lappy to keep pace with newer software for longer. Happy hunting products [/quote] The Surface Pro 4, if and when it lands, will gave a much higher resolution screen than that. It's also likely to be fanless. As the Surface line is a premium product, expect it to be Macbook Pro money. You might consider the Surface 3 (non pro). It's a nice little machine and considerably cheaper that the Pro. Re USB 3.0 - wouldn't buy a machine without, although all new machines should have it as standard. It's not exactly new, USB C is coming soon... Asus, Lenovo, HP and Dell are all making top quality kit at the moment. Obviously they all have low, medium and high end offerings but generally now is a good time to buy laptops. In the run up to Windows 10 expect to see more new products launched from all the manufacturers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yorks5stringer Posted July 7, 2015 Share Posted July 7, 2015 I see the OP mentions "Gimp" software. Any more details as I'm not sure that would suit me.......? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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