Questions on Old and New Laptops

I recently received an email from a daughter of a friend of mine, and it's a common question and topic that I often field for people. I wrote her back, and thought I'd share the content of the dialog, and additional questions, with others, as it might help. In fact since then, two other people have asked similar questions; so I hope this helps!

This is for informational purposes only. Name(s) have been changed to protect their identity. This information is current as of June 2013, but as you know, technical specifications can and do change rapidly in our field.

Hi Anna,

...

 

I am saving up money right now to buy a new laptop. Mine is ready to retire. I can't really do my school work on it, it gets me aggravated.

 

I just wanted to ask you for advice. What kind of laptop should i get, I have been looking online but it all sound the same to me, and most of it i don't understand. I just need something where i can use the full Microsoft Office package.I work with Excel and Word a lot, and at times use the other programs. For some of my online classes i have to watch videos.

Have you considered a Mac? I would get a Mac Book Pro, if you can afford it.

What's your budget?

 

A lot of my business courses require me to download trial versions of certain programs such as SPSS and PHStat.

Some of those might not have Mac versions... do you (or your course work) require it to be a Windows PC?

Are you looking for a laptop only? Or are you also considering desktops too?

 

So i am guessing i need a computer with a lot of space.

You want a minimum of ¼TB of space (250GB).

Solid State Drive (SSD), if you can afford it.

 

Right now i have an Acer, but it has become very slow and gets hot very very fast even with a fan under it.

Open it up &/or blow it out with compressed air. Not the canned air- it loses pressure too fast as the liquid boils off (cooling the can) to fill the void. Get to a real air compressor with 70-100 psi and get all the dust out of your PC - or as much as you can. Although it doesn't seem like it, dust - especially the soft light fluffy dust that accumulates over a long time, is a very good insulator of heat - this means that it acts like a blanket over all your PC's components and heat sinks - unfortunately helping to hold IN the heat that the PC is trying to expel into the ambient air.

This can cause your PC to run hotter than it should, use more energy trying to compensate, and even scale back the processor speed as heat levels exceed tolerances. If it gets too hot, it can permanently damage some parts of your PC, &/or cause it to spontaneously reboot for no apparent reason (among other things).

 

It is on its fifth year of serving me :)

That's a LOOOONG time - even for a home PC.

My recommendation for the average machine is 3 years in business, 5 years tops for home.

You're at the end of that useful life-cycle on this PC. I would not spend any $$ to fix or upgrade it. (Time, on the other hand, like to [software] clean it up, or [hardware] blow it out, is probably worth it in the meantime while you're looking for a replacement.)

 

I would like to have something that has an easy way to organize all my school work as well as other documents + pictures.

Use Dropbox. It's safe (not malware), secure (encrypted), easy, and works/runs all the time; backing up and updating your files to the cloud. For example, I had my daughter organize all her school work in a folder (with sub-folders) in her own Dropbox account. And I had her share that folder with me (my Dropbox acct), so that I had a real-time instant back up of her work, should something happen to her PC.

This is something that you CAN and SHOULD do now- on your slow machine- so that when you DO get a new PC, install Dropbox, and enter your account info - all your files will automatically start downloading and populating your new PC.

It will also get you a ready-made easy way to shuttle files from one PC to the other. Though, if you're going to need to move a lot (1GB+), a thumb drive or the like would be faster.

 

If you have anything in mind could you please help me with this decision.

If you're on a super tight budget, and want PC over Mac, then here's the laptop I recommend to folks:
http://jayharrison.blogspot.com/2012/08/best-current-deal-on-laptop-pc.html

For (right now) less than $300, you get a business class notebook "Lenovo ThinkPad R400 14" Notebook - Refurbished - Intel - Core Duo 2.2GHz - Black - 4 GB RAM - 160 GB HDD - DVD-Reader - Genuine Windows 7 Professional 32-bit."

Cons: Slim on HDD space; regular HDD - not SSD; Optical drive is READ only (no burning).

 

 

Thank you,

My pleasure. Let me know if I can ever be of assistance!

Thank you,
Jay Harrison