Buying a laptop - any ideas?

[bgowland]

Thanks whurlston - interesting idea but all the ones I looked at were priced above our budget (well the ones with decent hardware specs, anyway).

Just for info for anyone reading this, as ever when doing this sort of purchase I ended up going off on a tangent and settled on a Toshiba (not initially in my manufacturers short-list). Specifically this one...

Toshiba Satellite Pro C850-15V

Not exactly high-end but the specs knock the socks off her 8-9 year old Dell Celeron-based box.

It also has W7 which we think she'll be more comfortable with than W8 which most new laptops seem to come with. Other features which ticked the right boxes are Bluetooth so she can sync stuff easily with her Android phone (strangely enough, a lot of laptops don't have BT capability), a 102 key keyboard including numeric keypad and it's one of the lighter models I looked at.

Anyway, it's due to be delivered on Monday so hopefully it'll turn out to be a good choice.

Cheers,
Brian

[Graham]

Be warned ... the aforementioned daughter tells me that Toshiba laptops are incompatible with spilled coffee ... hence the HP.

[stustunz]

I just look at battery life nothing else matters

[bgowland]

Be warned ... the aforementioned daughter tells me that Toshiba laptops are incompatible with spilled coffee ... hence the HP.

Thanks for the warning.

[mvallevand]

One of the reasons I bought this cheap Asus i7 laptop was because if their accidental damage protection plan against coffee spills etc. When I did go to register I found out my vendor Best Buy Canada had opted out. Grr.

Martin

[ACTCMS]

This is maybe an old guy thing... but I learned very early on that most electrical equipment is incompatible with spilled anything - the trick is not to spill it in the first place...

[whurlston]

I really do wish companies would quit including those stupid popout cup holders with their PCs. It's a support nightmare for PC techs when they break.

[naskdn]

She like it light and just do the general tasks, what's the budget?

[naskdn]

Check these new models, any interests?

[pcostanza]

I got my son an ASUS about 4 months ago....don't recall what model but he loves it and brags about the battery life. He can get thru school the whole day without electrical power.
On the other hand, we've had a few HP's and they were very nice and sturdy but battery life sucked.