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Re: Recommendation for a New Laptop for Wife

Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2019 9:45 am
by daylen
It all depends on the what you are using it for. I use a desktop for most tasks and a chromebook when away from my office area. I often forget to charge, so the 9+ hour battery life is handy. Desktops are the most cost efficient option in the long run if being stationary is a non-issue. Parts can be replaced easily with a wide selection (upgrades or downgrades). The price paid for being unplugged is high.

Re: Recommendation for a New Laptop for Wife

Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2019 12:20 pm
by Jean
250 for a second hand laptop that last 5 year is hard to beat with a desktops, because for some reason they are harder to find second hand.

Re: Recommendation for a New Laptop for Wife

Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2019 3:09 pm
by kevib
I have macbooks for work so I can compare Linux and OSX, and at least over the past 5 years I can say Linux is much less hassle to maintain.
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Agree, and Linux has brought life to a lot of cheap and outdated laptops of mine over the years, but far to often (regardless of the OS) these laptops makes a lot of fan-noise compared to the Macbook pro that is (almost) silent. H. Botev's wife may appreciate that....

Re: Recommendation for a New Laptop for Wife

Posted: Sun Oct 13, 2019 1:46 am
by daylen
@Jean Then the whole laptop must be replaced for another 250. An entry level desktop can be built for 400 easy (without using ebay, newegg, craigslist, etc.) and when a part fails it can be replaced individually. The case and monitor will last a lot longer than five years. More sensitive parts such as the hard drive and motherboard tend to last at least that long.

Re: Recommendation for a New Laptop for Wife

Posted: Sun Oct 13, 2019 12:05 pm
by zocab
kevib wrote:
Sat Oct 12, 2019 3:09 pm
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Agree, and Linux has brought life to a lot of cheap and outdated laptops of mine over the years, but far to often (regardless of the OS) these laptops makes a lot of fan-noise compared to the Macbook pro that is (almost) silent. H. Botev's wife may appreciate that....
Interestingly my Thinkpads are generally quite quiet (I have 2 for complicated reasons), whereas my work macbook often makes noise due to a combination of chrome with too many tabs and safety software that my employer installs. For an average user macbook is indeed likely to be quiet though.

I know one person whose Thinkpad's fan failed (made lots of noise too before failure), but the nice thing was they could get a replacement for 15$ from ebay, and the machine ended up being quieter afterwards. My main concern with macbooks is maintenance seems much harder - although I imagine more modern Thinkpads will also be harder to fix than the 2010 models I use.

Re: Recommendation for a New Laptop for Wife

Posted: Fri Oct 18, 2019 1:15 am
by LookingInward
zocab wrote:
Sat Oct 12, 2019 9:31 am
I have macbooks for work so I can compare Linux and OSX, and at least over the past 5 years I can say Linux is much less hassle to maintain. (That used to be different, when I first started with Linux it was easy to break your OS if you didn't know what you were doing, and things like printers were difficult to get working.)
What do you mean exactly by "hassle to maintain"?

Re: Recommendation for a New Laptop for Wife

Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2019 12:40 am
by mferson
We have a Chromebook at home. It has a decent performance which is good enough for basic computing tasks.

Re: Recommendation for a New Laptop for Wife

Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 12:46 am
by EdithKeeler
I'm a huge Chromebook fan. I've used a Chromebook for years, and haven't looked back. Long battery life, nothing gets lost because it's all on the cloud, I think the word processor and spreadsheet apps do everything I want, and it's speedy for websurfing. And if you spill a coke on it, it's replaceable for about $200.