New or second hand laptop ??

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Snowfire
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New or second hand laptop ??

Post by Snowfire »

With the sudden loss of my laptop, I have unfortunately found my Internet pleasure hijacked by the necessity to use an early generation iPad.

It's a hideous experience. So much is denied. A constant requirement to upgrade to a higher iOS. iOS 5 is as current as this machine will ever get. Websites and applications are demanding iOS 7, or rather what this tablet is insisting. Apple greed knows no bounds.

I need, now, to purchase a decent laptop. I did consider a high spec, second hand unit ( an hp NO9D5a. Quad processor, 8 gb RAM, 1 tb hard drive, touchscreen ) for £300.00 but should I stick with new.

Any advice or recommendation would be much appreciated
"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."

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G#Gill
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New or second hand laptop ??

Post by G#Gill »

Would you get a 12 month warranty with a second hand laptop ?
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Snowfire
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New or second hand laptop ??

Post by Snowfire »

I need to check. There will be some sort of warranty but I'm not sure how long
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Bruv
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New or second hand laptop ??

Post by Bruv »

Have you done an Ebay search ?

That is always my first stop these days.
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Ahso!
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New or second hand laptop ??

Post by Ahso! »

They're inexpensive enough here new. I usually prefer new whenever possible.
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spot
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New or second hand laptop ??

Post by spot »

I'd go for new as well. I might buy a startlingly attractive preloved laptop off eBay for £70 if the mood took me, but if I want to replace my main machine I'd go for new. Either way would involve a search, I have no idea what laptop is this month's flavour. One could throw one's grain of salt into the discussion if invited.
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
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Bruv
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New or second hand laptop ??

Post by Bruv »

Visit Trusted reviews or Which or any of the PC mag websites
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gmc
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New or second hand laptop ??

Post by gmc »

They become obsolete so quickly go for new and they do fail no matter how good a make, £300 will get you a fairly decent spec. Do you need touch screen? I don't see the point myself and you're paying for that. Nor do you need a large inbuilt memory - imo anyway, i use external hard drives and back them up so I'm not leaving anything important on a computer that might fail or get nicked. New machine will come with the option of a free upgrade to windows 10 if that matters to you.
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LarsMac
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Post by LarsMac »

Go with new. You can find some good deals, these days.
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Snowfire
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New or second hand laptop ??

Post by Snowfire »

New it will be then. Thanks to all for your advice. The sooner I can rid myself of this tablet the better.

Off to look at whats cool and what's not
"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."

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FourPart
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New or second hand laptop ??

Post by FourPart »

I got a nice recon laptop from eBay fairly recently for £31. Nothing too fancy, but the main problem is that it's had W7 installed, when it was made for XP. This means that with the additional memory usage that W7 requires, it runs really slowly. I really need to get hold of a XP install disc so I can downgrade, but they tend to cost more than the laptop cost me.
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spot
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New or second hand laptop ??

Post by spot »

FourPart;1482047 wrote: I got a nice recon laptop from eBay fairly recently for £31. Nothing too fancy, but the main problem is that it's had W7 installed, when it was made for XP. This means that with the additional memory usage that W7 requires, it runs really slowly. I really need to get hold of a XP install disc so I can downgrade, but they tend to cost more than the laptop cost me.


Windows 7 feels comfortable - to me anyway - with 2GB installed, and at least a 1.6GHz dual processor. With less memory it does tend to be sluggish, with 1GB I'd call it unusable.

Anyone running XP while connected to the Internet is rather more likely to lose their online banking and credit account assets than the average user, XP was deliberately run off Microsoft's security upgrade cliff some while ago.

Would you like to tell us what the nice recon laptop model is?
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
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FourPart
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Post by FourPart »

HP NC6220

Intel Pentium M

1.73 GHz

Windows 7

80Gb HDD

1.5 Gb Ram (Upgradeable to 2gb)
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spot
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Post by spot »

That does look very usable, I like the screen resolution. I agree it's very borderline for running Windows 7 though. I doubt whether it's carrying an authentic license for Windows 7, too, buy that's just me being wary.

Have a look at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Insta ... quirements - it fits easily within that minimum requirement.

What you could do, since you have a CD-RW, is write the Ubuntu 15.04 live CD and restart the system. With luck it should boot into Ubuntu, and if it does it won't make any changes at all to your hard drive. It will feel slower than it would from the hard drive, but it will give you a chance to see that the operating system isn't daunting and that your laptop will happily go onto the Internet using it.

If you try that and discuss what you find and how it strikes you, we're good at hand-holding.
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
Bruv
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New or second hand laptop ??

Post by Bruv »

spot;1482057 wrote: .........................we're good at hand-holding.


Well.......it depends who's hand.

But yes, I could give some encouragement.
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chonsigirl
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New or second hand laptop ??

Post by chonsigirl »

Did you find one yet? I still have my laptop, they are inexpensive here for new ones. I opted for an acer tablet with wireless keyboard for backup, my laptop is older too. But the tablet works just fine for internet and smaller things to do on a computer.

I have a large tablet, just for reading music. (it is almost page sized) It is a handy thing to have for musicians nowdays. I don't have to tote alot of books around going to different engagements, or for practice time. Just took me awhile to figure out how to make notations on the music. :)
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FourPart
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New or second hand laptop ??

Post by FourPart »

chonsigirl;1482394 wrote: Did you find one yet? I still have my laptop, they are inexpensive here for new ones. I opted for an acer tablet with wireless keyboard for backup, my laptop is older too. But the tablet works just fine for internet and smaller things to do on a computer.

I have a large tablet, just for reading music. (it is almost page sized) It is a handy thing to have for musicians nowdays. I don't have to tote alot of books around going to different engagements, or for practice time. Just took me awhile to figure out how to make notations on the music. :)
You should look at Harmony / Melody Assistant from Myriad: Music Notation Software and much more... / Myriad : logiciels de musique, et bien plus.... I do all my writing / scoring / arranging on it. Far better than Sibelius, and a fraction of the price.
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chonsigirl
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Post by chonsigirl »

Oh , I will look at that. I use Sibelius now and anything useful I will enjoy. Thank you for the link.
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FourPart
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Post by FourPart »

The reason I bought the £31 laptop in the first place was that I'm in the process of trying to put together a local Community Choir, and have plans on using the files programmed into HA as an accompaniment. It also has the Virtual Singer, which is a voice Synthesiser which speaks the words to the pitch of the note, thus 'singing' the words. Sure, it sounds a bit robotic - not surprising, as it IS a robot, but the notes are accurate & a great training aid for choir members who don't read music.

My latest arrangement, for instance (written ready for the Xmas season):

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chonsigirl
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Post by chonsigirl »

That is very cool. I need a music writing program for music I play, so I can add things into it. (like specific cadenzas and stuff like that from other sources) For what we do at church there is plenty of music at all levels for the musicians, I have up to 20+ in my orchestra, pretty spiffy. And hey spot, they got me a big organ, and put me over there. I belong to the organ guild and all now, so I can learn all the stops I haven't figured out. And even got pretty little organ shoes. It was a big change for me, but I still play the nice Kawai grand occasionally, and practice on it all the time.

I wish you luck Four in starting a choir that should be fun. And have fun seeing Libera, I found a link for them they sound so sweet. You will enjoy it. (I thought at first it was a bell choir, I have 2 now and a chimes one for the kids-teens, loads of music links if you ever need it)
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Post by FourPart »

You can download the Trial version of Melody / Harmony Assistant (they're essentially the same, only Harmony has all the functions enabled) which is limited to key of C in 4/4, and I don't think you can save on it, but it gives an idea of what it's like. Extremely User Friendly & customisable.

Plus, unlike Sibelius, when you need the latest version you get unlimited download updates for free - as well as personal support from the writers themselves (Didier & Olivier Guillion).
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Snowfire
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Post by Snowfire »

Well, John Lewis persuaded me to part with some hard earned, albeit a reasonable amount, for an Acer Aspire 17.3 inch lap top.

I also bought my wife a Toshiba Chromebook. So neither of us need dirty our hands ever again on the filthy iPad .

We can spit on its uselessness. Well we can when I pick my laptop up tomorrow
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FourPart
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Post by FourPart »

Congratulations on the birth of a bouncing baby Lappy. Acer may be nothing particularly special to write home about, but they're good & reliable & do what they say on the tin. Perfect for general home use.
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Post by Bruv »

Look good to me, but what do I know?
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