HS To JMU

[YosemiteSam]

Granddaughter is off to JMU and she is shopping for a new laptop.

I don't know squat about laptops and don't want to ask her what she wants.

So what would you guys suggest?

thanks


~YS~

[xyzzy]

Most important question is Mac or PC (and is that choice dictated by the school)

Without that answer any advice you get has a 50% chance of being completely irrelevant.

[Con Reeder, unhyphenated American]

In the Windows realm, HP, Acer, Asus, Lenovo, or Dell are all decent
and well-supported on the PC side. If you can afford an I4 with 8G of
RAM and a terabyte of disk, will probably last. If you can afford the
fancier SSD, fine.

Biggest decision is weight/display size. I bought one of the little 10"
ones and discovered the keyboard/display were too small for me. But the
weight of 3 pounds is awful nice for carrying around campus, and you can
get a 24" HDMI monitor with wireless mouse/keyboard for the dorm room. I'll
call that option 1. Lots of battery life, 8 hours. $950 for PC, $200 for
extra monitor/keyboard.

Option 2 -- My wife has an Asus with a detachable keyboard that can be
used as a tablet. Turns out she doesn't tablet too much, but its been
a good PC for her. Has a 256 SSD and 8G RAM. 11.6" display, I think.
Reasonable. Option 2. Weight about 4.5 pounds. Cost about $1000.00
or so. About 5-7 hours battery life.

Third option is more weight, 15" display, regular hard drive. Weighs 6.5
pounds, has lots of hard disk space. Not sexy, heavy, clunky. Cheap,
about $500.

Prices are probably a bit lower and performance a bit better than above,
because our purchases were 2 years ago. I've kept my eye on things and
seem to be about the same, but probably a bit better.

So if I were going to make a recommendation without regard to cost,
would go for option 2, a lightweight Acer or Asus with detachable
keyboard and SSD. If she needs to do lots of computer work, get a
separate monitor and keyboard/mouse.

--
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it,
can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the
universe to do. -- Galileo

[xyzzy]

"Get a small laptop with a separate monitor for desk-bound work" is probably good advice in both the Mac and PC realms.

I use a 13 inch Macbook at work and I have a 25 inch monitor on my desk. I like the Mac keyboard so I have them set up so that when I'm at my desk the Mac is open in front of me and the big monitor is right behind and over it, and I set the display arrangement so the external monitor is on top of the internal monitor.

Btw I'm not too thrilled about the latest MacBooks, which only come with USB-C ports, including for power. So unless you buy expensive Apple gear you probably need a bag of adapters to connect to anything else like monitors, mice, feh. (see: http://www.techconnect.com/article/3136583/macbook-accessories/macbook-pro-thunderbolt-3-adapter-guide-how-to-connect-an-iphone-display-hard-drive-and-more.html)

I have the previous generation Macbook with 1 magsafe, 2 thunderbolt, 2 "normal" usb 1 hdmi and 1 SD card port. That's just about the ideal configuration IMO and if it's a Mac shop I'd look for one of those used or reconditioned.

[J. Hugh Sullivan]

On Mon, 17 Jul 2017 08:17:15 -0700 (PDT), xyzzy <xyzzy...@gmail.com>
wrote:

My 50% - One son prefers the Surface Pro (latest model); the other
recommended a top of the line Asus for me and I am absolutely
satisfied. I use it as a desktop with wide monitor but it is portable.
I was looking at Dell but the gift came before I decided.

Hugh


---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

[Some dued]

I like having a 17 inch laptop and no external keyboard/monitor. Just a wireless mouse.

[Michael Press]

In article <7cd9dd01-8ba9-4760...@googlegroups.com>,

Sounds like an option is to buy an older Macbook with the features you recommend.

--
Michael Press

[J. Hugh Sullivan]

On Mon, 17 Jul 2017 10:54:05 -0700 (PDT), Some dued
<theodo...@gmail.com> wrote:

>I like having a 17 inch laptop and no external keyboard/monitor. Just a wireless mouse.

My Asus is the 17" and the monitor is 25". I have never unhooked it
from the monitor. I have a wired keyboard and wireless mouse. All that
stuff is beyond my level of sophistication.

I have a 15" HP and smaller monitor behind me but I rarely use it. And
I have an iPad and Samsung cell phone. My Google calendar is
simultaneous on all three.

My Win 10 home screen looks like Win 7 - none of the 10 stuff appears.
I don't adapt well to new technology. In fact my DOS screen looked
like Win 7 once icons were available.

I like the wide monitor because double pages are normal size for the
smaller laptop.

At my age I learn how to do what I need to do but I am no competition
for you young guys.

[YosemiteSam]

OK, 1st thanks for all the info.

I c&p'd the details from your posts and sent them in an email to her 1st cousin who will be a soph this year @ JMU and get her feedback.

on a personal note....

after I sent the email I looked at it in the Sentbox and stared at the lines of specs listed in more or less the same order as responses. It was then from an RCA dog stare I realized I knew less than squat.

...again thanks

~YS~

[J. Hugh Sullivan]

On Mon, 17 Jul 2017 16:15:41 -0700 (PDT), YosemiteSam
<Yosem...@byteme.com> wrote:


>I c&p'd the details from your posts and sent them in an email to her 1st cousin who will be a soph this year @ JMU and get her feedback.
>
>on a personal note....
>
>after I sent the email I looked at it in the Sentbox and stared at the lines of specs listed in more or less the same order as responses. It was then from an RCA dog stare I realized I knew less than squat.
>
>...again thanks
>
>~YS~

Please let us know how it ended. I don't need another laptop but I
might buy a tablet size anyhow.