how to find a new laptop
 

Ineed new laptop & I'm not tech savvy. Please recommend something: I need a laptop to run WORD, & EXCEL. I surf the web & shop online. I use hotmail/outlook. I save lots of pictures (.pdf, .tiff. jng) from my iphone to my laptop. Currently I have used 100 GB of my 225 GB Dell laptop that we got 5 yrs ago. I don't do any gaming & don't want to. Weight is important, current laptop weighs 2.2 lbs.; I'm willing to go to 3 lbs. Backlighting is VERY important. Battery life not so important. Chromebooks look interesting but I tried a MAC years ago & could never adjust to it so went back to WINDOWS. Thanks for any recommendations.

Chromebooks don't have a hard drive, so you'd have to save your photos to the cloud somewhere. I'm much like you. I just bought a Lenovo laptop with 4 mg RAM (more than enough if you're not gaming nor stream ing vids) and a 125 gig hard drive. It was something under $300 from Walmart. There are a lot of black friday deals right now.

You don't need a high end PC. HP, Dell, ASUS, Lenovo, any of those will do.
Don't spend over $400. Just my opinion

Have you considered subscribing to Microsoft 365 for $70 per year? It will allow you to use all of the MS Office programs: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook on all of your devices, and you can download the programs to any device. It will also provide 1tb of cloud storage using One Drive. You would not even need to have a Windows computer. Any Internet device will work, and the programs are always up-to-date. So, any laptop will work, even a Chromebook. I have subscribed for several years. Your photos will fit on a flash/thumb drive, but the cloud storage will allow you to access them from any Internet device.

I assume you’re using a usb cord to get the photos from iPhone to laptop since you did not mention a cloud service? Anyhow, I use both windows and iPad for work and personal and much prefer the iPad (with a wireless keyboard). You said you tried MAC but your using an iPhone that is a Mac? You can subscribe to a few gig of icloud storage for like 50 cents a month and you’re not in danger of your storage being stolen, damaged, or hard drive issues just using an PC storage, etc. I have seen a few people post in here about using local storage like a PC but the cloud is the way to go as pictures taken on your phone will automatically sync with your iCloud and be available on your iPad (or it does have windows capability via a windows app).

Asus Vivobook S 14 at BestBuy on sale at a good price. AMOLED 14 inch screen.
Model:Q423SA-U5512 - On sale now for $650 - 2.87 lbs.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-vi...xtStoreId=1156

Best Buy is a good option.

I'm a Lenovo Yoga user.

Light weight & powerful.

:posting:

Take a look at what Amazon has to offer in the Acer Aspire range - I went with the Ryzen CPU which does everything the more expensive Intel option does.

Light weight and inexpensive never seem to get together :)

Do you belong to either Sams or BJ? If so pay them a visit

Why do you want to buy a new computer? If you are having trouble with storage, the cloud storage options could be helpful. If the computer is running slowly, a clean up of the files running could extend the life for a few more years. We are using a computer that is 10 yrs old though we don’t play games on it.

We did have a lap top which finally came up with the message “This computer can no longer be updated . Buy a new computer.”

Chromebooks all come with USB ports where you can insert a flash drive, and store everything on the drive for when you can't access the internet. You just have to remember to upload any changes or new files to the cloud when you do that.

Google docs doesn't download anywhere though - you'd have to convert the file before you can move it out of the cloud storage. Which - if you're into software, isn't hard to do, it just has a learning curve.

Windows 11 is out, and Windows 10 is being officially retired next October. A machine that's 5 years old MIGHT not be updateable. Mine isn't. I just bought a new desktop because some of my old apps were updated for Windows 11 and weren't working properly anymore. They still worked - just not well.

Security updates will cease to exist for windows 10 next October. That means they're already barely stable now, and will be UNstable next year.

Thanksgiving sales are when you find the best prices, so Windows has basically forced everyone into having to buy a replacement a full year before they turn windows 10 into legacy machines.

I'll have to buy a new laptop too for the same reason.

Chromebooks DO have a hard drive. I'm typing this right now on my Chromebook. I have plenty of movies, photos and documents saved to my Chomebook. Mine has a 64GB solid state hard drive. Paid $299 for this Chromebook.

I don't deal with Windows computers anymore. Too much bloat and nonsense like viruses to deal with.

My main computer is a Chromebook. It's fantastic, light and fast.

You can load Word and Excel using Google Docs and Google Sheets and still save in Word or Excel format if that's what you need.

Most younger people just use Google Docs and Sheets for everything. It's FREE, better than the Microsoft products, you can do 99% of what they will do, plus you can easily access your documents and spreadsheet from your phone or another computer if you ever need to through Google Drive which is also free.

Note to the OP: If you prefer Word and Excel, you'll need MS Office. The off-line version of it is not free. But if you want a free office suite I recommend LibreOffice. It works the same as MS Office, it's open source software, offered by The Document Foundation, a non-prof that's been around for many years. It's the same group that produced OpenOffice (LibreOffice is basically OpenOffice, with more functionality and wizbang sparkles).

They do accept donations, but use of the product for personal use is 100% free.

That's a great question

Looks like you already have enough RAM and storage for your needs, and 5 years is no great age for a laptop - should be "Windows" upgradable for some time if you need to

I use CCleaner every month to get rid of junk and speed things up, and my old laptop just keeps going and going

LG Gram 16 inch at Bestbuy for $850 on sale. Less than 3 lbs.
Model:16Z90R-H.AAY7U1

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/lg-gram...?skuId=6579392

You didn't say why you need a new one. Did the old one die? You're going to be very disappointed in the replacement. It will be slower and buggier. It will refuse to run your old software and try to make you rent Word and Excel from Microsoft instead of using the programs you've already own. It will freeze whenever it feels like downloading an "update" -- which will be almost constantly. It will periodically download an update that breaks everything and forces you to recover from backups.

Personally, I've been keeping my old Win-7 laptop running for at least the last 14 years. I've replaced the battery twice and the hard drive once. I keep my wife's old Win-8 Dell in backup, against the day when I'm forced to replace mine. She insists on the latest and greatest, and is willing to wait for her computer to try to keep up with her typing, just to be able to say she's running the new stuff. I'm not. To each their own, I guess, but it sure is annoying when I'm forced to fix her computer every time some moron at Microsoft breaks it. I have turned off the updates on that stupid thing every way I can think of, using all the skills I learned in a 40 year career as a coder, but they keep finding ways to turn it back on so they can break it again.

But good luck with your new laptop. If I were you, I would scour the garage sales for an old one.

Neither windows 7 nor windows 8 have ANY security updates anymore. Win8.1 stopped updating in 2023. That means EVERYTHING you do on windows 8.1 is subject to hackers, crackers, trojans, phishing scams, ransomware - and there is absolutely NOTHING you can do to prevent it. If you're online, you're vulnerable, and the criminals who target vulnerable people will eventually find you (if they haven't already).

Whenever you are online and open any software on your computer, someone "out there" is watching you do it. They might not be interested in you. But if you have a decent bank account, or use credit cards online, they might be interested in you. Firewalls and virus protection won't protect you if you're using a legacy unsupported version of windows.

You don't need the most current one, but you do need one that continues to get security updates. Right now, that means windows 10. In October of 2025, Windows 10 will cease to be supported or have any security updates, and windows 11 will be the "oldest one that gets security updates."

I had stayed away from Lenovo laptops but finally bought one earlier this year at Best Buy. I have to say it is the best laptop I've ever owned. I got the Yoga with a 1 TB SSD.

You can get free upgrade to Win 11 from Win 10 before cut off for support in 2025, from Microsoft.

Some Windows 10 computers cannot be upgraded to Windows 11. It is not just a software upgrade.

Yes. I should have added, Microsoft will check existing com. to see if it will carry upgrade.
Mine does, so will do it nearer shutoff.

I’ve helped friends get rid of their windows crap (and a few times away from a Mac computer) to go to an iPad. Much better experience than a pc. If you type a lot, then you can get a keyboard/trackpad for it. I would get the 12.9” from 2022 or the more current 2024 models. I bought my wife a newer 2024 with the pencil so you can write/draw/sketch on it. Word/excel and apples equivalent software come on it. You can buy internal storage up to 2TB.
This iPad will allow you to have an easy experience doing whatever you need to do. We get the 256G storage option. We also buy Apple cloud storage to get more advanced features like private relay and many new mail security features and we can store files/photos/music in the cloud.

Jacobs Computer in Wildwood is the place to go for your shopping needs

Complementary colors
 

Warning: stream of consciousness posting. OrangeBlossumBaby and Blueblaze have lots of Bs and Ls and orange and blue are complementary colors which always reminds me of Thunderball which was out when the 47 year coder wifey and I learned that color fact together in 7th grade. We got together at our 25th high school reunion. :-) It's quite the luxury to be able to run the various points made in this thread by her, as my tech savvy is extremely limited (niche?), though I'm learning a fair bit in this thread. Fascinating to see that so many old farts here have come to know so much about tech. Had coincidentally read through the Wikipedia entry on Edward R. Murrow last evening. There have been some changes since that era, though I do (barely) remember seeing him on TV. BTW, got down *that* rabbit hole via reading up on King Edward VIII, about whom I had also known very close to nothing. No fan of "royalty", BTW.

I just bought this one. My Computer guy recommended it. It’s a steal right now at Best Buy.

Lenovo Ideapad 1i 15.6" FHD Touchscreen Laptop - Intel Core i3-1215U with 8GB Memory - Intel UHD Graphics - 256GB SSD - Cloud Gray $249.

Microsoft Office
 

Or, you could buy an Office Pro 2024 software key from any number of suppliers for about $35 and use it without having to connect to the internet to use all the Office apps or pay a new annual subscription It is legal. They buy the keys from companies that buy computers that are preloaded with Office but don’t want to use it and sell them to people that do want them. I have updating my copies of Office this way for years.

To decrease the weight, get one with a solid-state drive (SSD). You will want at least a 500 MB SSD. RAM memory is more important than speed of the CPU so get at least 16 MB of RAM. There will be great deals on Black Friday - Best Buy, Walmart, Sam's, Dell, will all have excellent deals. Also, I would plan on buying 2 anti-virus programs - example, Norton and MalwareBytes for internet protection - be safe out there!

I get my laptops from Walmart. Right now there is an HP 15.6" Windows Intel I3, 8GB memory, 256GB SSD for $283. on sale. I'm in IT, so, I opened it up and replaced the drive with a 2TB SSD. I don't recommend opening up your laptop if you aren't technical. But I would definitely recommend this laptop.

Want to save your current laptop? It can be converted to Linux (I've converted many people here in The Villagers to Linux over the past few years). You can use your current MS apps online. Not sure about that? Then buy a new SDD disk drive and I'll put Linux on that, then copy all your files to the new drive (at your house). If, after a while you don't like it, I put your old drive back in your laptop and no harm no foul. (JoelJohnson920@gmail.com)

Upgrade the hard drive to SSD
 

Do you currently have a solid-state hard drive? If not, you may look at updating your current drive to a 500 gig or 1 tera byte drive. I'd go to a tera byte drive. It'll give you room to store and upgrade to windows 11. That's what I did. All your programs can be reimaged over to the new dive with ghosting software. The cost of word and excel for your new laptop would justify just cost to reimage the drive. After you have the new SSD hard drive imaged, they just take out your old one and put in the new one. You will see a boost in speed. Next how much RAM do you have? A boost in RAM will boost performance. I'm running a dell with 16 gig of RAM, 2 hard drives. A 500 gig and 1 tera byte. I run excel, word, power point, edit videos, it's 5 years old, and it runs great. It's an Inspiron 3793 so a pretty decent laptop. NOT 2 pounds. 6.6 lbs. actually, but it's a 17-inch screen. I'd buy Dell again. It's all the company I worked for bought. They have a great extended warranty if you are not computer savvy.

Be sure you get a Win 11 OS, Windows is dumping 10 next year. You will see many great deals, but on laptops that cannot be upgraded.

Love my Lenovo.

You can go to productkeys.com and buy a legal permanent Office 2024 license for $23.90. No way I'm paying $70/year. It's a one use one computer key, but at that price it's a steal.

Just about any laptop would work for you. Why not stick with Dell? Too bad you could not adjust to a Mac. I switched years ago and it took a little getting use to but now I would never go back to a Windows operating system! I have had zero issues with our MacBook Air laptops for over 10 years. There is an Apple club here that would help you out. Just my opinion.

I typed in that address and got a blank screen.

But, I assume you get a one time installation on one device, with no updates or cloud storage. MS 365 allows you to use Office on multiple devices on the Internet or download it other devices. The programs are always up-to-date. You also get 1tb of cloud storage. But, if it suits your needs, great.

I would suggest trying an iPad and considering a Mac.

I have used Windows and Linux for quite a while. Linux can extend the life of older hardware but while it can be "pretty much like" Windows, it isn't Windows and the differences become annoying.

I recently started using an iPad and am amazed at how well it integrates with my phone. Other than making calls, I can do everything on my iPad in the same way I do those things on the phone. This makes life very simple. I even have MS 365 running on the iPad so I can open and edit Excel and Word documents. I still think I need a laptop for some other packages but if I didn't have those then the iPad might be all I used.

I am currently typing on a Windows laptop which will need to be replace eventually. I am trying hard to come up with a reason not to switch to a Mac so that all my devices are integrated and function the same. It would be great to have a message come to my phone but see it on my Mac screen. If I add a new password on my iphone it would automatically be available on the iPad and Mac. If I find a recipe while using the Mac and save it to my iCloud storage then I can call it up on my iPhone and check the ingredients while I'm out shopping.

Yes, all these things can be done on Windows if you run the right applications, subscribe to the right cloud storage, have all the settings correct, and pay for the necessary subscriptions. It is also possible to build my own sub sandwich by buying the bread, meats, and condiments. But just as it is far easier to get that sub from the Publix counter, so it is far easier to get the interoperability by using the Apple products.

Currently, there are two software packages that I don't believe I can live without but haven't confirmed they work on a Mac. If I find that they will run on a Mac then the decision will be simple. If they won't then I'll keep the old Windows laptop in the office for running just those two programs.

Oops... it's productkeys.com - forgot the s.

1) It is a full legal key.
2) It gets all updates via Windows update, so programs are always up to date.
3) It's a one time payment, not annual. My price to install on 3 computers would be about the same as the annual fee... except that I save that annual fee for every year past my purchase. I seriously doubt that most folks here need to install on more than 2 machines. Office apps on Android and iPhone are free to anyone. Microsoft pushes major updates every 3-5 years for Office. All other updates come through Windows update.
4) It's installed locally, so it always works, and my sensitive files are not stored in the cloud. (I was in IT my entire career. Anything stored in the cloud will eventually be hacked. I don't store anything with sensitive information in the cloud.)
5) It does not include cloud storage, but iDrive is far better than MS cloud (or Google Drive) storage and you can get 500GB for $9.95/year.

With all these suggestions just remember, if you go cheap, you are going to get cheap.

I would suggest going on-line with Dell and get a nice laptop during this Black Friday sale. Get the service contract for 4 years since they heavily discount it, and no matter what happens, Dell will take care of you.