Laptops

**digitalgpbandit** · 08-31-2020

I need some help finding my wife a new laptop so she can do her classes on Zoom as her's is older and really lags with larger groups on and mine is even older...its windows 7 with no camera lol.

I'm looking for recommendations for something that will handle larger Zoom meetings on the inexpensive side? Where to buy, processors, memory, etc?

I would prefer windows. I don't keep up with this tech anymore. Thanks in advance

**Xerosiv** · 08-31-2020

I am not sure what the budget is, but these are some things I would look for in a windows laptop:

Most cores/fastest processor in budget
Most RAM - Win10 'requires' 2GB, I would at a minimum double that, more if possible.
Look for drives that you will need - i.e. most don't come with a disk drive anymore, if you need that you will have to search for one with it or buy an external drive.
Solid State Drive - less chance of failure from moving around/impact vs a rotational drive.
Connections needed - my Surface for example has ONE usb port, and NO ethernet - wifi only. I had to purchase a usb hub to connect more than a mouse to it at one time.
Keyboard setup - I prefer keyboards with the number pad to the right, I always look for these when making a decision.

You could also look at wifi boosters if she is moving around the house a lot. See Google Nest for an example.

As for brand, I personally like Asus, I have never had an issue with them, but I would think pretty much any mainstream brand would be okay.

I don't know anything about Apple or Chromebooks, you will want to make sure these operating systems are compatible with everything her classes require her to do.

**digitalgpbandit** · 08-31-2020

Thank you for the info Xerosiv. I’m looking in the $300 range or less. I’ve been told processor and ram are the two most important things. I don’t really know processors these days other than intel Celeron is the cheepo budget one. Most of the laptops I looked at are 4gb ram. Not sure if I should be looking at 8gb instead. Those push the budget. My house isn’t that big the WiFi is pretty strong here. The only other thing would be needing at least 2 USB ports.

**digitalgpbandit** · 09-03-2020

Alot of places are out of stock. I think with the move towards remote learning due to the pandemic sales are crazy. I ended up purchasing the Lenovo 81W0009DUS from Best Buy online this morning as I was lucky it came back into stock, but now is out again. It was high on my price range, but for the money can't beat the specs on it

**Xerosiv** · 09-03-2020

Yeah, I was noticing a lot of out of stock when I was looking around, sorry I didn't get back with any other info. I have tons of time to browse every other week at work, that's next week. hah

Looks like you found a nice one tho, and not a terrible price. That should work good for y'all for a long time. And it has bluetooth, you can get a program to connect to an adapter to talk to your car. =)

I haven't tried it yet, but I just downloaded a trial/free version of OBD Auto Doctor from the windows store. I plan to review it once I try it out with our bafx adapter. I haven't found anyone else that has tried it yet, hoping it allows for more functionality/better logging capabilities than a cell phone app.

**04lss** · 09-03-2020

For win 10 to have a good time you want at least 8GB of ram , and a 256GB SSD. Also make sure they have full windows home installed. Dont get anything with "S-mode" It locks you to just using programs from the windows store . If you dont have to go new look at some recycling companies. They sell old corporate laptops. You can usually get a huge discount on them. Id recommend buying one for 200 bucks or so and throwing in an SSD. with windows 10 an SSD is almost a requirement.

I realize this info is a little late, but it might help someone.