laptop ,which processor?

[gavuk]

I'm after buying a laptop for my old mums birthday (70).....she only really uses facebook/email and internet,so we have set a £300 limit..We want a 15.6 screen,so no netbooks please,but i'm struggling with the new cpu's ratings ....Can I get some suggestions from more knowledgeable members or better still links ...from usual places please,Tesco,Curry's,Comet,Argos,ebuyer or misco etc?......not really bothered about manufacturer ,although I have had a few Acers myself which have been very reliable and good value for money....Mum will never fill a 100gig hard drive so a faster processor and longer battery life is more important than Hdd.....Many thanks to anybody taking the time to reply Gav

 

[tigler]

If it helps, I just bought a Lenovo B570 with an Intel i3 processor and it's brilliant, by far the best laptop I've ever had and it's only the second from the bottom spec ! The lower spec version, the B470, still with the i3, should be ideal for your mum.
Got mine from Amazon, good price, brilliant service. Oh, it came with Win 7 which is way better than Vista and even XP.

 

[jaykay]

just got a intel i5, very fast.load internet in 20 secs

 

[knoba]

Happy 70th Birthday to your mum!

gavuk
i'm struggling with the new cpu's ratings

CPU ratings;
Cpu ratings are fairly easy to figure. The "system requirements" of each operating system, & version, etc. (eg. win7, XP, BeOS r.5.1, etc.) are listed by the software manufacturer, usually stated on their web-sites.

For example; Windows 7 system requirements are;

• 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

If the "hardware specs", for the machine, are over these "software requirements" (listed above) then the machine will have a better performance &, to a certain extent, have a degree of "future proof-ness" (meaning it will last longer before it requires completely re-placing... again). If the machines' specs are lower than the recommended software requirements, then; the opposite is true.

It's fairly typical to start with what software (operating system), one wishes to run first, because that will define the spec of the machine & how well the two will run together.

gavuk
not really bothered about manufacturer

Hardware manufacturers are important for the simple reason that "good support" is required throughout the life-time of the product (updates, resolving hardware bugs, warranties, etc.). Lesser brands often have very poor on-line support; so when an issue does arise (common to all brands) it can make resolving issues incredibly difficult.

The Brand also, very often, has an impact on the quality of components used in the manufacturing too. Just like with welding machines...

It has been my experience that "mature users" prefer; what they've been used to, not only in terms of hardware brands, but software versions too. It can help in making "a more seamless transition"...

hth

 

[Nomad]

Good on your mum for keeping up with new stuff

Don't shoot the messenger but have just been warned about a scam aimed at not-too-technical computer users.
Worth mentioning here, if it saves anyone else form grief it's been a good result. full detail here http://www.heliguy.com/Forum/possible-scam-alert-t63875.html

"makes you sick dont it. there is always somebody out for something for nothing.must be the season of scams or something... my elderly dad got done last week too. somebody rang him up,out of the blue and asked him if he was having problems with his laptop (which he was,it was running slow.i told him to hang on and id fix it for him Shocked ). anyway,he is not very computer literate so this bloke on the phone got him to enable remote access on it....
the t**t on the phone wiped everything on his computer and then told him to give him £95 and he would put it all back on.my dad got very upset when he realised what was going on and the bloke on the phone just laughed at him.luckily my dad does not keep personal info,bank details etc on his computer,so the theiving scum didnt have chance to clean out his bank or anything like that.but it makes me wonder how many people are not so lucky so as to make this worthwhile for the pond life to do it...

my dad contacted the old bill but they were less than interested,surprise surprise.
anyway,as a result,my dad has had his broadband disconnected and has sold his lappy.i told him i could secure his pc so this does not happen again but he feels violated and wants nothing more to do with the internet etc.cant say as i blame him really.hopefully people reading this will give a heads up to elderly friends,relatives who they feel might get caught with this too.if it stops one person getting caught out then me posting this was worthwhile."

Apologies for being the bearer of bad news but hopfully a useful reminder to stay safe on the pc.

All the best

 

[gavuk]

Nomad thats a shocking story ,rotten what some people will do for money ,Jaykay ,Knoba ,Tigler ,I have a i5 myself and am very pleased with it (another acer) but when looking at the sub £300 range,the cpu are all different.
I was hoping someone could tell me ,which order to place these cpu's....amd v160,amd c50,intel t4500,celeron p4600,etc or even better....."Gav this the best Tesco laptop or the best comet laptop"... ....
I would rather have a better(faster ) cpu/ram combi than a hdd which she will never fill or we could always get a usb drive which is cheap as chips later anyway ,battery life is not that important,but screen size 15.6 no bigger or smaller .she won't be playing the most up to date games if any so graphics shouldn't be a major issue....
Budget is set by my older sister.....soo £300 is the max spend...if it wasn't ,i3 or i5 would be my choice...,
sorry to be a pain and I value all comments and opinions.......many thanks Gav.....

 

[knoba]

gavuk
I was hoping someone could tell me ,which order to place these cpu's....amd v160,amd c50,intel t4500,celeron p4600,etc or even better....."Gav this the best Tesco laptop or the best comet laptop"

I don't know, Gav...

I use the method I stated above. I find it almost impossible to keep up with the minefield of emerging "tech", so... I don't try too hard, to do so.

As for retail outlets (high street); they gotta cover their overheads, unfortunately for them, it won't be with my shekels.

Sorry I can't be of more help...

 

[tigler]

I was hoping someone could tell me ,which order to place these cpu's....amd v160,amd c50,intel t4500,celeron p4600,etc or even better....."Gav this the best Tesco laptop or the best comet laptop"... ....
I would rather have a better(faster ) cpu/ram combi than a hdd which she will never fill or we could always get a usb drive which is cheap as chips later anyway ,battery life is not that important,but screen size 15.6 no bigger or smaller .she won't be playing the most up to date games if any so graphics shouldn't be a major issue....
Budget is set by my older sister.....soo £300 is the max spend...if it wasn't ,i3 or i5 would be my choice...,
sorry to be a pain and I value all comments and opinions.......many thanks Gav.....

You could do a wikipedia on the relevant processors, that would present the primary differences in specs.
Considering what your Mum will be using it for though I doubt there will be a major performance difference in them. Personally I would go for Intel though.

Youi could also try this geek site !! http://www.pctechbytes.net/forum.php

 

[mike os]

almost any will do... just go major manufacturer

http://www.ebuyer.com/271044-asus-x52f-laptop-x52f-ex794v worth a look

 

[pete3000]

Good on your mum for keeping up with new stuff

Don't shoot the messenger but have just been warned about a scam aimed at not-too-technical computer users.
Worth mentioning here, if it saves anyone else form grief it's been a good result. full detail here http://www.heliguy.com/Forum/possible-scam-alert-t63875.html

"makes you sick dont it. there is always somebody out for something for nothing.must be the season of scams or something... my elderly dad got done last week too. somebody rang him up,out of the blue and asked him if he was having problems with his laptop (which he was,it was running slow.i told him to hang on and id fix it for him Shocked ). anyway,he is not very computer literate so this bloke on the phone got him to enable remote access on it....
the t**t on the phone wiped everything on his computer and then told him to give him £95 and he would put it all back on.my dad got very upset when he realised what was going on and the bloke on the phone just laughed at him.luckily my dad does not keep personal info,bank details etc on his computer,so the theiving scum didnt have chance to clean out his bank or anything like that.but it makes me wonder how many people are not so lucky so as to make this worthwhile for the pond life to do it...

my dad contacted the old bill but they were less than interested,surprise surprise.
anyway,as a result,my dad has had his broadband disconnected and has sold his lappy.i told him i could secure his pc so this does not happen again but he feels violated and wants nothing more to do with the internet etc.cant say as i blame him really.hopefully people reading this will give a heads up to elderly friends,relatives who they feel might get caught with this too.if it stops one person getting caught out then me posting this was worthwhile."

Apologies for being the bearer of bad news but hopfully a useful reminder to stay safe on the pc.

All the best

There is a lot of this about at the moment along with viruses which look like anti-virus software, which ask you to "buy full protection now £70 ish"
They usually mess with various windows settings an actually are a virus themselves that hide your work and folders and disable internet access to scare you into buying the product with your credit card. They can be tricky to remove and ironically cost you about 1-2 hours work of a proper computer technician to remove and restore your work.

Best to note your work won't actually have been deleted usually just hidden or the folder renamed.

prevention is better than the cure, get up to date av software and don't open attachments or links from social websites.

 

[Spot the welders dog]

Gav,
Does your mum really need a laptop? Plenty of really cheap desktops around, or good quailty second user lappys. Bin Windows, and try a Linux distro.
You may be surprised at what a leaner OS can do compared to the bloated MS.

If mums lappy is not DOA, pehaps you could burn a CD of a Linux distro, pop in in, and see if you cannot get some more use from it before it becomes landfill.
Have a link to a nice distro here.

MS - Constant updates - Virus - Scams - $$programs$$
Linux - Free to update whenever YOU want - Virus Free(ish) not worth worring about - Scams "You have a virus in your C Drive" Boll8cks - Loads and loads and loads of free programs.

Difficult one

 

[knoba]

Spot the welders dog
Linux - [...] Virus Free(ish)

Have you ever suffered from the payload, of a destructive virus, on a linux distro, Spot? Gav? Anyone else?

In over a decade of running linux, exclusively, I've never had even one. And... purely in the quest for esoteric computer knowledge, I do have a tendency to frequent some rather questionable sites. I have had win32 trojans & various viri sent to my in-boxes. No worries!

Neighbour, last year, Windows, virus wiped his hard-drive completely, no back-ups...!

Puppys' a nifty little o/s - lightning fast. Forked out the debian tree. I have it on an old vaio with wifi. The only thing that stops me from using it as a daily driver, is because it runs users in root, if it ever did get an infection, it'd be almost as bad as using a windows box.

Personally, I would no longer recommend linux for the average desktop user. Most people don't want the hassle (education).

 

[gavuk]

Gav,
Does your mum really need a laptop? Plenty of really cheap desktops around, or good quailty second user lappys. Bin Windows, and try a Linux distro.

To be honest Spot,they have a desktop already ,this is so they don't have to take it in turns etc etc ......if it wasn't a present then I would consider a second hand lappy,but you only get 1 mum ....as for her learning how to use Linux?....I would have to move back in, to answer all the questions,and I hardly know linux myself ....I already use Knoppix and ubuntu but confess not very often,i have ubuntu and xp running on vmware player in windows 7 but rarely use them as I find win7 stable ...Mike os ,many thanks for the link,I've used ebuyer a lot in the past ,built desktops from them and found them good,certainly will consider the Asus,only ever used a mobo from them ,but it worked well and was reliable....I'm like you Knoba ,tech has started to run away from me the cpu ratings make less sense now than ever before ...I'm sure you are right Tigler and mum will never stretch whichever processer chosen ,I figure ram can be upgraded as can hdd,but processor will determine how long the laptop is useable as long as it doesn't break....many thanks guys .
Gav

 

[Spot the welders dog]

Quote:
Spot the welders dog
Linux - [...] Virus Free(ish)

Have you ever suffered from the payload, of a destructive virus, on a linux distro, Spot? Gav? Anyone else?
<snip>
In over a decade of running linux, exclusively, I've never had even one.<snip>it runs users in root,

Snap - Although I have always ran as root: 1+ to me.

if it ever did get an infection, it'd be almost as bad as using a windows box.

Nice to have a get outa jail card eh

Gav. Fair play if you've given Linix a bash )no pun(

 

[gavuk]

quick update ,ordered an acer aspire from ccl in yorks came 2 days later ,they text me a time and it was delivered within a 1hr slot,acer aspire.....I have removed the programs she will never use and made the back up discs ....hopefully all will go well.....many thanks to everybody who replied .....