• The site migration is complete! Hopefully everything transferred properly from the multiple decades old software we were using before. If you notice any issues please let me know, thanks! Also, I'm still working on things like chatbox, etc so hopefully those will be working in the next week or two.

Laptops

D

digitalgpbandit

New member
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
 


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.
 
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.
 
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
 
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.
 
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.
 


You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top