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friend needs new laptop, recommendations?
My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM and
slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed! A computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then get it working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we think it's smart to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue later, or just use it as a backup with enough s/w removed that it's still usable. I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him through the next 5 yrs. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451 He doesn't do much more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save tons of pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher). I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if that is in itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like good speed for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that it is not an issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying h/w from Walmart? And are there better deals in roughly this price range? Money is definitely an issue. TIA, Mike |
#2
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friend needs new laptop, recommendations?
Mike S wrote:
My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM and slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed! A computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then get it working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we think it's smart to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue later, or just use it as a backup with enough s/w removed that it's still usable. I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him through the next 5 yrs. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451 He doesn't do much more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save tons of pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher). I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if that is in itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like good speed for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that it is not an issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying h/w from Walmart? And are there better deals in roughly this price range? Money is definitely an issue. TIA, Mike That's a TN display. The color will shift when you more your head. On my laptop, the "best" view of the screen, requires placing your head below the horizon. Which means tilting the display back at 135 degrees, to get good image quality. An IPS display panel has a so-called 178 degree viewing angle, which means the position of your head is not as important. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPS_panel To me, "the panel isn't the only thing, it's everything". Good image quality is important. ******* And for Win10, you would appreciate an SSD more than a rotating hard drive. Even if you could only afford a 60GB SSD, it would be better than a rotating 1TB HDD. I couldn't believe the difference until I tried it here. Right now in the test machine I have an SSD with cloned Win10 on it, to replace the 500GB hard drive I was using. And the startup is a lot faster. With the HDD, there was a delay until you could do anything, until Windows Defender finished its initial scan. The SSD makes that a lot faster. Depending on the type of SSD used, it can be a bit harder on battery life. There are some articles which compare power consumption, to make such a selection easier. The SSDs that do some amount of data compression before writing to the flash chip, can have higher power consumption. The Kingston SSDs with Sandforce controllers, are an example of potentially high peak power designs. But finding a good article will allow looking up the actual measured numbers. The power number "printed on the tin" (devsleep?), is intended to deceive, and real measurements are required. ******* It's disappointingly difficult to get a good deal from Dell. When I googled, I was being pointed at a Dell gaming laptop to get IPS, and then I get a power sucking GPU I don't need. https://www.pcworld.com/article/2465...sappoints.html Things I want for Win10: 1) IPS panel 2) SSD (because it's Win10, WinXP could use an HDD) 3) Quad core CPU (because it's Win10, WinXP could use dual core) Other nice to haves: 4) Keyboard you can use. 5) Chassis that doesn't bend. You can spend *days* sweating over Google searches, to find a decent laptop. Good luck in your search. Paul |
#3
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friend needs new laptop, recommendations?
On 11/28/2017 6:34 PM, Paul wrote:
Mike S wrote: My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM and slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed! A computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then get it working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we think it's smart to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue later, or just use it as a backup with enough s/w removed that it's still usable. I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him through the next 5 yrs. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451 He doesn't do muchÂ* more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save tons of pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher). I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if that is in itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like good speed for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that it is not an issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying h/w from Walmart? And are there better deals in roughly this price range? Money is definitely an issue. TIA, Mike That's a TN display. The color will shift when you more your head. On my laptop, the "best" view of the screen, requires placing your head below the horizon. Which means tilting the display back at 135 degrees, to get good image quality. An IPS display panel has a so-called 178 degree viewing angle, which means the position of your head is not as important. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPS_panel To me, "the panel isn't the only thing, it's everything". Good image quality is important. ******* And for Win10, you would appreciate an SSD more than a rotating hard drive. Even if you could only afford a 60GB SSD, it would be better than a rotating 1TB HDD. I couldn't believe the difference until I tried it here. Right now in the test machine I have an SSD with cloned Win10 on it, to replace the 500GB hard drive I was using. And the startup is a lot faster. With the HDD, there was a delay until you could do anything, until Windows Defender finished its initial scan. The SSD makes that a lot faster. Depending on the type of SSD used, it can be a bit harder on battery life. There are some articles which compare power consumption, to make such a selection easier. The SSDs that do some amount of data compression before writing to the flash chip, can have higher power consumption. The Kingston SSDs with Sandforce controllers, are an example of potentially high peak power designs. But finding a good article will allow looking up the actual measured numbers. The power number "printed on the tin" (devsleep?), is intended to deceive, and real measurements are required. ******* It's disappointingly difficult to get a good deal from Dell. When I googled, I was being pointed at a Dell gaming laptop to get IPS, and then I get a power sucking GPU I don't need. https://www.pcworld.com/article/2465...sappoints.html Things I want for Win10: 1) IPS panel 2) SSD (because it's Win10, WinXP could use an HDD) 3) Quad core CPU (because it's Win10, WinXP could use dual core) Other nice to haves: 4) Keyboard you can use. 5) Chassis that doesn't bend. You can spend *days* sweating over Google searches, to find a decent laptop. Good luck in your search. Â*Â* Paul Thanks Paul, I had no idea about the display, and an SSD is good advice, it's operated plugged in a good % of the time. #5 is smart too. Thanks, Mike |
#4
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friend needs new laptop, recommendations?
On Tue, 28 Nov 2017 16:42:38 -0800, Mike S wrote:
My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM and slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed! A computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then get it working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we think it's smart to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue later, or just use it as a backup with enough s/w removed that it's still usable. I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him through the next 5 yrs. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451 He doesn't do much more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save tons of pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher). I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if that is in itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like good speed for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that it is not an issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying h/w from Walmart? And are there better deals in roughly this price range? Money is definitely an issue. TIA, Mike I have had good luck with the re-furb re-sellers. ... but I'm a cheap-skate, low-tech user. no photo shop ~ 2 years ago - I got my current ThinkPad T500 - it cost me $ 140. plus a new battery ~ $ 40. .. it's still going strong ... .. still out-performing my wife's newer Dell . ... just say'in maybe your buddy's problems are not - hardware - at all - maybe he's click-happy ? John T. |
#6
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friend needs new laptop, recommendations?
On 11/28/2017 9:00 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 28 Nov 2017 16:42:38 -0800, Mike S wrote: My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM and slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed! A computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then get it working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we think it's smart to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue later, or just use it as a backup with enough s/w removed that it's still usable. I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him through the next 5 yrs. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451 He doesn't do much more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save tons of pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher). I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if that is in itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like good speed for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that it is not an issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying h/w from Walmart? And are there better deals in roughly this price range? Money is definitely an issue. TIA, Mike I have had good luck with the re-furb re-sellers. .. but I'm a cheap-skate, low-tech user. no photo shop ~ 2 years ago - I got my current ThinkPad T500 - it cost me $ 140. plus a new battery ~ $ 40. .. it's still going strong ... .. still out-performing my wife's newer Dell . .. just say'in maybe your buddy's problems are not - hardware - at all - maybe he's click-happy ? John T. Found a used machine that looks good for $300 HP Elitebook Workstation Laptop Model 8560W Windows 10 Pro 64bit Intel Core i5 2540M 2.6GH-3.3GHz 500 GB SSD 6 mo's old 6 Gigabytes DDR3 RAM On paper it looks great, and should do everything he needs very nicely. I'd be happy to hear any opinions on this model. Thx, Mike |
#7
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friend needs new laptop, recommendations?
Mike S wrote:
On 11/28/2017 9:00 PM, wrote: On Tue, 28 Nov 2017 16:42:38 -0800, Mike S wrote: My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM and slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed! A computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then get it working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we think it's smart to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue later, or just use it as a backup with enough s/w removed that it's still usable. I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him through the next 5 yrs. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451 He doesn't do much more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save tons of pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher). I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if that is in itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like good speed for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that it is not an issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying h/w from Walmart? And are there better deals in roughly this price range? Money is definitely an issue. TIA, Mike I have had good luck with the re-furb re-sellers. .. but I'm a cheap-skate, low-tech user. no photo shop ~ 2 years ago - I got my current ThinkPad T500 - it cost me $ 140. plus a new battery ~ $ 40. .. it's still going strong ... .. still out-performing my wife's newer Dell . .. just say'in maybe your buddy's problems are not - hardware - at all - maybe he's click-happy ? John T. Found a used machine that looks good for $300 HP Elitebook Workstation Laptop Model 8560W Windows 10 Pro 64bit Intel Core i5 2540M 2.6GH-3.3GHz 500 GB SSD 6 mo's old 6 Gigabytes DDR3 RAM On paper it looks great, and should do everything he needs very nicely. I'd be happy to hear any opinions on this model. Thx, Mike It's from May 2011. https://www.cnet.com/products/hp-eli...nch-tft/specs/ QM67 Memory Max Total 32 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333 MHz / PC3-10600 Form Factor SO-DIMM 204-pin, Slots 4 -- could be 2x2 + 2x1 = 6GB now... https://ark.intel.com/products/50072...up-to-3_30-GHz Base 2.60 GHz # of Cores 2 # of Threads 4 = 2C 4T Processor Graphics - Intel HD Graphics 3000 That should be "OK" for Windows 10, but not "Stellar". It's probably 3X as fast as my laptop :-/ It also has a discrete graphics chip. I guess that's what makes it a workstation ? The discrete graphics has memory chips soldered somewhere next to the GPU chip. It's probably not an MXM module, but the chips could be right next to the GPU die or something. Graphics Processor NVIDIA Quadro 1000M - 2 GB DDR3 SDRAM Quadro 1000M https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php Quadro 1000M Bench=747 -- discrete GPU is 3X Intel HD 3000 =313 -- the CPU GPU Modern web browsers take pleasure in abusing the GPU, and I wouldn't really care what GPU is in a computer except for the fact that software developers are carrying their bad GPU habits over from mobile platforms, to desktops. And that means, we do have to care about "tick box compliance" when it comes to getting the best performance out of platforms other than mobile phones. The older your desktop world gets, the "less compliant" it is with the latest GPU feature. We look for a driver for the graphics: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us Quadro Quadro Series (Notebooks) Quadro 1000M Windows 10 64-bit Optimal Driver Enterprise English http://www.nvidia.com/download/drive...x/104400/en-us Version: R361 U5 (362.77) WHQL Release Date: 2016.6.15 Since that's an old driver, my guess is the GPU has gone out of support. It means there is *some* driver for Win10 (good) but you won't be able to get the new "GPU utilization" graph on Task Manager shown in the latest Win10 OS Upgrade (16299). My purpose in mentioning this, is to show how Microsoft "gradually shades out" the old hardware when it comes to features. I have no hardware in the house, that can show Win10 GPU usage in Task Manager. As for the chipset... First link gets us a datasheet link. https://ark.intel.com/products/52813...xpress-Chipset This link, page 2 shows a block diagram. CPU has GPU, QM67 drives the graphics outputs. When the Quadro 1000M is in the picture, Optimus can be used, to cause frame buffers full of 1000M data, to be displayed on the QM67 graphics ports. The 1000M doesn't drive the panel directly, and the data is DMA transferred until it finally comes out of the QM67 panel bus. https://www.intel.com/content/dam/ww...form-brief.pdf Again, we wouldn't care except when Optimus driver quality sucks, or when using BumbleBee in Linux (the optimus driver they've got) has a problem. While these "dual GPU, small BIG" designs are fun, it's the slightly bad driver quality that ****es people off. ******* It's thick like a tank. That's what a worstation laptop should look like. It probably won't flex like a "Walmart Black Friday special". That's good. https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400124,00.asp "The 15.6-inch widescreen display is no joke either, with 1,920-by-1,080 resolution, LED backlighting, and a matte finish. The backlighting could be just a bit brighter, but it still offered lively colors, deep blacks, and crisp details." So we still don't know the panel type. For some reason, this review shows different hardware inside ??? https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/la...litebook-8560w Still cannot find a declaration of panel type. But... https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review...k.67994.0.html "The viewing angles are better than in most laptops. Even larger deviations from the sides and from above at an angle don't lead to a change in the picture. There's only a bit of room for improvement from an oblique perspective." That means it's not conventional TN, which suffers quite a bit from color shift. It might even be usable. At $300, it's a bare pass in terms of "future compliance" and should have no problems as a web surfer. As long as you remember it's from the year 2011, you'll be OK. The SATA ports will be SATA II, so if you bench the SSD with HDTune, it'll read ~220MB/sec rather than ~450MB/sec that a SATA III connection would have given. But that's not what SSDs are for - it's the low latency which counts and makes Win10 bear-able. Paul |
#8
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friend needs new laptop, recommendations?
My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM and slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed! A computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then get it working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we think it's smart to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue later, or just use it as a backup with enough s/w removed that it's still usable. I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him through the next 5 yrs. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451 He doesn't do much more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save tons of pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher). I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if that is in itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like good speed for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that it is not an issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying h/w from Walmart? And are there better deals in roughly this price range? Money is definitely an issue. TIA, Mike I have had good luck with the re-furb re-sellers. .. but I'm a cheap-skate, low-tech user. no photo shop ~ 2 years ago - I got my current ThinkPad T500 - it cost me $ 140. plus a new battery ~ $ 40. .. it's still going strong ... .. still out-performing my wife's newer Dell . .. just say'in maybe your buddy's problems are not - hardware - at all - maybe he's click-happy ? John T. How many refurbished laptops have you had good luck with? The computer has too much stuff running, and he can't seem to pick anything to let go of. I don't see anything too egregious, and since the machine is older instead of beat it to death he'll just pick up something with more RAM. I've bought 4 - 2 were ThinkPads for my college kids ; 1 HP, 1 ThinkPad for myself. My third kid got a new Acer that had good specs for the money and it started to fail at 13 months - 1 year warranty of course. The reputable refurb guys will offer ~ 6 month warranty - so you aren't getting stuck with a known lemon - like a private sale. Here's a couple of examples - note - Canadian dollars. http://www.eco-techrecycling.com/pcsales.php http://www.wifinut.ca/laptops.html John T. |
#9
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friend needs new laptop, recommendations?
On 11/29/2017 11:15 PM, Paul wrote:
Mike S wrote: On 11/28/2017 9:00 PM, wrote: On Tue, 28 Nov 2017 16:42:38 -0800, Mike S wrote: My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM and slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed! A computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then get it working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we think it's smart to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue later, or just use it as a backup with enough s/w removed that it's still usable. I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him through the next 5 yrs. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451 He doesn't do muchÂ* more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save tons of pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher). I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if that is in itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like good speed for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that it is not an issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying h/w from Walmart? And are there better deals in roughly this price range? Money is definitely an issue. TIA, Mike Â* I have had good luck withÂ* theÂ* re-furbÂ* re-sellers. .. but I'm a cheap-skate, low-tech user. noÂ* photo shop Â*Â* ~Â* 2 years ago -Â* I got my current ThinkPadÂ* T500 Â* -Â* it cost meÂ*Â* $ 140.Â*Â* plus aÂ* new batteryÂ* ~Â* $ 40. Â* ..Â* it's still going strong ... Â* ..Â* stillÂ* out-performing my wife'sÂ* newerÂ* Dell . .. just say'inÂ*Â* maybe your buddy's problems are not Â* -Â*Â* hardwareÂ* -Â* at allÂ* -Â*Â* maybe he'sÂ* click-happy ? Â*Â*Â*Â* John T. Found a used machine that looks good for $300 HP Elitebook Workstation Laptop Model 8560W Windows 10 Pro 64bit Intel Core i5 2540M 2.6GH-3.3GHz 500 GB SSD 6 mo's old 6 Gigabytes DDR3 RAM On paper it looks great, and should do everything he needs very nicely. I'd be happy to hear any opinions on this model. Thx, Mike It's from May 2011. https://www.cnet.com/products/hp-eli...nch-tft/specs/ Â*Â*Â* QM67 Â*Â*Â* Memory Max Total 32 GB Â*Â*Â* DDR3 SDRAM 1333 MHz / PC3-10600 Â*Â*Â* Form Factor SO-DIMM 204-pin, Slots 4Â* -- could be 2x2 + 2x1 = 6GB now... https://ark.intel.com/products/50072...up-to-3_30-GHz Â*Â*Â* Base 2.60 GHz Â*Â*Â* # of Cores 2 Â*Â*Â* # of Threads 4Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* = 2C 4T Â*Â*Â* Processor Graphics - Intel HD Graphics 3000 That should be "OK" for Windows 10, but not "Stellar". It's probably 3X as fast as my laptop :-/ It also has a discrete graphics chip. I guess that's what makes it a workstation ? The discrete graphics has memory chips soldered somewhere next to the GPU chip. It's probably not an MXM module, but the chips could be right next to the GPU die or something. Â*Â*Â* Graphics Processor NVIDIA Quadro 1000M - 2 GB DDR3 SDRAM Â*Â*Â* Quadro 1000M Â*Â*Â* https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php Â*Â*Â* Quadro 1000MÂ*Â* Bench=747Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* -- discrete GPU is 3X Â*Â*Â* Intel HD 3000Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* =313Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* -- the CPU GPU Modern web browsers take pleasure in abusing the GPU, and I wouldn't really care what GPU is in a computer except for the fact that software developers are carrying their bad GPU habits over from mobile platforms, to desktops. And that means, we do have to care about "tick box compliance" when it comes to getting the best performance out of platforms other than mobile phones. The older your desktop world gets, the "less compliant" it is with the latest GPU feature. We look for a driver for the graphics: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us Â*Â*Â* Quadro Â*Â*Â* Quadro Series (Notebooks) Â*Â*Â* Quadro 1000M Â*Â*Â* Windows 10 64-bit Â*Â*Â* Optimal Driver Enterprise Â*Â*Â* English Â*Â*Â* http://www.nvidia.com/download/drive...x/104400/en-us Â*Â*Â* Version:Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* R361 U5 (362.77)Â* WHQL Â*Â*Â* Release Date:Â* 2016.6.15 Since that's an old driver, my guess is the GPU has gone out of support. It means there is *some* driver for Win10 (good) but you won't be able to get the new "GPU utilization" graph on Task Manager shown in the latest Win10 OS Upgrade (16299). My purpose in mentioning this, is to show how Microsoft "gradually shades out" the old hardware when it comes to features. I have no hardware in the house, that can show Win10 GPU usage in Task Manager. As for the chipset... First link gets us a datasheet link. https://ark.intel.com/products/52813...xpress-Chipset This link, page 2 shows a block diagram. CPU has GPU, QM67 drives the graphics outputs. When the Quadro 1000M is in the picture, Optimus can be used, to cause frame buffers full of 1000M data, to be displayed on the QM67 graphics ports. The 1000M doesn't drive the panel directly, and the data is DMA transferred until it finally comes out of the QM67 panel bus. https://www.intel.com/content/dam/ww...form-brief.pdf Again, we wouldn't care except when Optimus driver quality sucks, or when using BumbleBee in Linux (the optimus driver they've got) has a problem. While these "dual GPU, small BIG" designs are fun, it's the slightly bad driver quality that ****es people off. ******* It's thick like a tank. That's what a worstation laptop should look like. It probably won't flex like a "Walmart Black Friday special". That's good. https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400124,00.asp Â*Â* "The 15.6-inch widescreen display is no joke either, Â*Â*Â* with 1,920-by-1,080 resolution, LED backlighting, Â*Â*Â* and a matte finish. The backlighting could be just a Â*Â*Â* bit brighter, but it still offered lively colors, deep blacks, Â*Â*Â* and crisp details." So we still don't know the panel type. For some reason, this review shows different hardware inside ??? https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/la...litebook-8560w Still cannot find a declaration of panel type. But... https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review...k.67994.0.html Â*Â* "The viewing angles are better than in most laptops. Even Â*Â*Â* larger deviations from the sides and from above at an angle don't Â*Â*Â* lead to a change in the picture. There's only a bit of room for Â*Â*Â* improvement from an oblique perspective." That means it's not conventional TN, which suffers quite a bit from color shift. It might even be usable. At $300, it's a bare pass in terms of "future compliance" and should have no problems as a web surfer. As long as you remember it's from the year 2011, you'll be OK. The SATA ports will be SATA II, so if you bench the SSD with HDTune, it'll read ~220MB/sec rather than ~450MB/sec that a SATA III connection would have given. But that's not what SSDs are for - it's the low latency which counts and makes Win10 bear-able. Â*Â* Paul Paul, that was an impressively rigorous analysis, thank you so much. I'll recommend newer hardware. Best Regards, Mike |
#10
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friend needs new laptop, recommendations?
On 11/28/2017 7:42 PM, Mike S wrote:
My buddy needs a new laptop, his is over 6 yrs old, runs out of RAM and slows down often, and crashes when more than 2GB RAM is installed! A computer shop spent 2 hrs with him trying to install more RAM, then get it working again when it crashed each time. Due to its age we think it's smart to get a new computer and sort out the RAM issue later, or just use it as a backup with enough s/w removed that it's still usable. I found this - looks like a decent, affordable machine, to get him through the next 5 yrs. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-Insp...Drive/54906451 He doesn't do muchÂ* more than email (Outlook), browse the web, save tons of pictures, and do a little Photoshop (CS2 or higher). I've never bought anything at Walmart before, so I don't know if that is in itself an issue, or if the machine itself is good. It looks like good speed for the price, and I wanted to get one with enough RAM that it is not an issue in future. Do I need to be concerned about buying h/w from Walmart? And are there better deals in roughly this price range? Money is definitely an issue. TIA, Mike This any help? https://www.consumerreports.org/lapt...r-500-or-less/ |
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