Need Suggestions for a Decent Laptop/Notebook for Office/Commuting. Budget Less than $1000

LFloraLaura on 28/08/2016 - 12:59

Hello everyone,

Someone can suggest a decent laptop. I am looking for a purchase that will serve my needs for at least 7-10 years.

The laptop should be not heavy and needs to have decent battery life since I ant to use this as my office/commuting.travelling laptop.
3-4gb of RAM, SSD hard drive and decent speed… what else?

Thank you!

Computing

Comments

  • k-rokfm on 28/08/2016 - 13:16
    +2

    7-10 years is a long time in technology. No tech is built to last that long anymore in reality - just look at phones for a good example.

    • scrimshaw on 28/08/2016 - 19:37

      You'd have to take VERY good care of it to make it last that long. I'm fairly certain with good maintenance (and/or light use) a well built laptop could last 10 years.

      Phones can last, but what makes them 'unusable' and 'undesirable to use' down the road is the fact that

      1. Mobile phone tech is progressing quite fast, phones become slimmer, the battery becomes larger, the feature list grows
      2. Phones are useless when the battery ages and can no longer hold a charge.
      3. We killed 2G, we introduced 3G, and now we have 4G. Everybody wants the fastest speeds, so we upgrade.
      4. Mobile phone operating systems can't be changed or upgraded easily. You can't for example, upgrade your Nokia dumbphone from Symbian S40 to an Android Marshmallow, but you can easily upgrade your Windows XP laptop to Windows 10.
      5. phones are fashion statements and nobody wants to be seen carrying a Nokia 3310..

      If you want a laptop that lasts OP — avoid the common consumer crap and buy a Dell Latitude / Hp Elitebook Folio series or Lenovo Thinkpad T series. All well built machines for business usage. If you are tight with money, either buy the cheapest model or buy the refurbished (last year) model.

      • mskeggs on 29/08/2016 - 11:06

        I have three decade old laptops sitting beside me I am trying to get going to operate as a torrent box and google photos sync box. Pretty low requirements. But it isn't hardware issues, its the software.
        The old mac is non-intel, and can't run any modern software. The web browsers for it are dangerously insecure.
        The old PCs are capable of running Vista, and maybe 7? but those OS's are EOL too, although Win7 has security hotfix support for a few more years yet.
        The other option is Linux, which would offer good long term OS support, but again have compatibility issues for applications.

        In 7 years you will be encountering regular problems with software security and compatibility if you wish to use modern software, and in 10 years your PC will not be able to operate most software reliably for use as a general purpose computer.
        Figure a life of 5 years and you can avoid these sorts of issues, and amend your budget to plan for a refresh then.

  • FloraLaura on 28/08/2016 - 15:02

    I understand that but my needs are somehow basic. My current laptop was bought in 2005 - is not working now unplugged and takes a minute to boot. :)

  • [Deactivated] on 28/08/2016 - 15:41

    Lenovo arent too bad for the money

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