# Any suggestions on laptops?



## DaVinciRemodel (Oct 7, 2009)

We had two of our laptops go down in the last week or so and I need to get them replaced. These are administrative machines and don’t run much (no drafting or rendering) so I don’t need a lot of power or toys. I have no clue what I’ll need to spend on them, but I would like to keep it at a minimum.

What the current machines have on them:

•	Chrome
•	Office 365 (full suite)
•	Evernote
•	Quickbooks
•	Lightroom (probably the biggest drain on resources).

My only requirements are a Windows 7 machine, with 8 GB of memory and a SSD hard drive. Anything else I should consider? The last laptop I bought was about two years ago (for myself). I spent about $3k on it… I’m hoping not to go there.


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## Leo G (May 12, 2005)

You scared me with this post. I thought that you're laptop crapped out. We basically bought the same thing, you got a lot more RAM than me.

I'd say stick with the Dell's. Maybe an Inspiron. Good luck with trying to get a Win7 machine.


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## DaVinciRemodel (Oct 7, 2009)

No… Not my unit. So far it’s a champ.

I was actually surprised by how many options were available for Win 7 machines.

The two I’m replacing are:

Toshiba – about 6 years old and a HP – about 4 years old.


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## Railman (Jan 19, 2008)

My conclusion after going through this recently.....
Dell, Lenovo, Asus, HP, pretty much in that order. My wife just ended up with an HP 360 2 in 1, because it still had the numeric keypad. She didn't like the setback to the keys on the Lenovo, & Dell dropped the numeric keypad on pretty much anything under $1400.
All of them have good, & bad reviews, but they seem to be the go to brands.


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## Leo G (May 12, 2005)

Really love the numeric keyboard. But then again it was $2600.


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## Bull Trout (Dec 6, 2016)

Leo G said:


> Really love the numeric keyboard. But then again it was $2600.


worth every penny imho


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## Leo G (May 12, 2005)

Does it come on the 15" screen or just the 17"?


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## Golden view (Feb 16, 2012)

I can't see much benefit in spending more than $1000 for what you do.


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## SuperiorHIP (Aug 15, 2010)

I bought my Dell probably 5-7 years ago, maybe more, and its been perfect. I bought mine from delloutlet.com, used to be able to get some really good deals there.


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## Leo G (May 12, 2005)

My first Dell lasted me 8 years. I still have it, and it still works thanks to Robie giving my his Dell that I swapped out the screen for. Mine was getting vertical lines in it, more and more.

The new one is great. 4K screen, nice and bright. Fast processor, and an M2.PCIe drive that is like lightning. I got it with 4 GB ram. I upgraded to 8 GB, but I don't think it really uses it. Always good to be on the safe side.


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## BillHel64 (Jan 7, 2018)

I'm gonna say from the things you are running that you bought far more firepower than you need. An Acer Aspire 15" will do the job just fine for what you are doing at about 349.99. You could bump the RAM to 8 with an addition 40. If you must have SSD then the same model can be upped to 529 price with 66gb and an ssd


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## DaVinciRemodel (Oct 7, 2009)

My experience is that an SSD outlasts the mechanical drives. This could be coincidental.


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## Leo G (May 12, 2005)

My experience is that SSD drives speed is worth the money. Especially with boot up times. I'm talking about the M2.PCIe drives


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## Golden view (Feb 16, 2012)

SSD is the most important thing.


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## kirkdc (Feb 16, 2017)

The last two I bought were (high end) re-furbished ones for 200-300 bucks and updated. I bought an older Gateway with Windows 7, lots of ugrades and I've had it trouble-free for about 7 years now. With the purchase, the guy throws in free maintenance service once per year.


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## DaVinciRemodel (Oct 7, 2009)

kirkdc said:


> The last two I bought were (high end) re-furbished ones for 200-300 bucks and updated. I bought an older Gateway with Windows 7, lots of ugrades and I've had it trouble-free for about 7 years now. With the purchase, the guy throws in free maintenance service once per year.


If you don't mind... Who's the guy?


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## kirkdc (Feb 16, 2017)

DaVinciRemodel said:


> If you don't mind... Who's the guy?


I never noticed you were in CO. Cheers !

His name is Marc, a good straight shooting guy. He always has some nice clean machines and backs up his work. He'll transfer stuff over from your old laptops to the new ones too. Or he may even have them in his office on hand. He's in CO Springs.


http://www.compu-marc.com/


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## JBM (Mar 31, 2011)

My wife purchased a 15” Samsung in November for like 1100 and it is the nicest laptop quality wise I’ve ever used. Has all the usual bells and whistles including ssd.


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## Stryker1-1 (Dec 25, 2017)

for personal use I'm a big fan of off lease machines can usually get a great machine that is 2 years old for 50% or more odd retail 

If you don't need portability why not consider a desktop computer 

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk


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## CityDecks (Jan 10, 2018)

DaVinciRemodel said:


> We had two of our laptops go down in the last week or so and I need to get them replaced. These are administrative machines and don’t run much (no drafting or rendering) so I don’t need a lot of power or toys. I have no clue what I’ll need to spend on them, but I would like to keep it at a minimum.
> 
> What the current machines have on them:
> 
> ...


Apple. Made switch 6-7 yrs ago actually still use my 1st apple laptop and it never crash or even slowed down. All your apps ate perfectly applicable. Good luck. 

Sent from my E6810 using Tapatalk


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## kirkdc (Feb 16, 2017)

DaVinciRemodel said:


> I ended up with a refurbished unit from Kirk’s referral.
> 
> Dell E6430
> 
> ...


Right on. Marc is a good honest guy and stands behind his work. The one I bought (and still have) from him had a so-so battery(he had told me beforehand) and I uppgraded and bought a 3 hour larger one. I think I've had mine 7 years or so without a problem. He also loaded a few cleaning programs on mine to do maintenance stuff. I'm not pc savvy at all.

I bought mine for $199, but his $300 and up pc's are dynamite.


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## RangoWA (Jun 25, 2014)

I paid $100 for mine, maybe a 15 yo Satellite. But I don't have to run Windows so it works great.


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