Which Lap-top?

[troutman]

Quoted:

Refusbished Toshiba Tecra R940-02T, i5, 4Gb, 320Gb HD, Win 7 Pro/Win 8, 14” Warranty to Jan 2016. $599

or:

New: Ultrabook, Acer S7-391-9413, i7, 4Gb, 256Gb SSD (Solid state Hard Drive), Windows 8, 13.3” Multi-touch Screen, 1 Year warranty, $1499


For teenager - to do homework - play minecraft - watch netflix, youtube

[fundamentals]

If all you need is a laptop to play Minecraft and watch videos, the first one will be just fine. No need to spend an extra $1000.

[cKy]

this is like asking if you want your kid to drive a 2004 Cavalier, or a 2010 Lexus.

Laptop #1 - Is good for what you want to do for basic stuff. But being an i5, it wont have the staying power as the i7 in #2 (it's also more then half the price)

Laptop #2 - Clearly better in every way spec wise except the RAM. I would upgrade the RAM in both machines to 8 gig, but thats just me. Laptop will also last longer in the tech world as it's more powerful.

If the kid only plans to use and abuse it for a few years and then head to college and get a new laptop - i'd go #1.

If he wants to use the laptop for awhile (and possibly hand it down to you guys or another family member in a few years), I'd go #2. It's your money.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by cKy

this is like asking if you want your kid to drive a 2004 Cavalier, or a 2010 Lexus.

I'd flip that around, and go more with a 2010 Lexus or a 2015 Kia. For me the Toshibas have always been one of the better laptops out there, and Acer has been the lower end.

The R940 had about a 2 year model run, ending just a few months ago. So it may not be that old.

[MickMcGeough]

What cKy said. Option #1 will have you posting anothing "which lap-top" thread in less than 2 years. Option #2 will have you set for 3/4 years.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by MickMcGeough

What cKy said. Option #1 will have you posting anothing "which lap-top" thread in less than 2 years. Option #2 will have you set for 3/4 years.

Thanks everyone.

I think in two years he will be working and can buy his own laptops. #1 should do the trick for now . . .

[CroFlames]

A little off topic, but my work computer is a HP Elitebook 9470m and I am extremely pleased with it. Very light, thin, fast & powerful. I believe it is in the $1100 price range.

I would recommend it if you are looking for a decent laptop for business applications.

[DoubleF]

I personally would buy laptop 1, clean it up, upgrade ram (less important) and replace HDD with a solid state drive. A Tecra is a higher end Toshiba laptop (business grade I think) and should last more than 2 years with proper and occasional cleaning to ensure it doesn't gunk up and overheat. I'm a huge fan of staying away from commercial grade laptops which seem to easily die within 1.5-3 years.

Cost of the SSD and a cable to use to clone the HDD should probably cost you another $100-150 or so (I personally like Samsung, Intel or Kingston SSDs the most depending on which has best deal at time. Found OCZ, crucial and corsair a bit more finicky), but the performance difference than a mechanical hard drive is ridiculously huge. Consider it... like asking a kid to learn how to do basic maintenance on a car like do oil changes and stuff. The difference between a mechanical hard drive vs SSD is like a performance car with bald tires. Tires are often overlooked but can really change the experience one has with their car. Same with a SSD in a laptop. It can change the experience from "This laptop is slow and sucky" to "Damn, faster than many other laptops on the market". I have a laptop I bought in 2007 that boots up faster than many laptops you can grab in any store today running a 5400 rpm mechanical hard drive. Crap hard drives can hold back performance greatly.

Laptop 2 is fricken overkill. I would rather buy a mac for that price point and I'm not a huge mac fan (used one for a few years, but still couldn't get used to it, so I sold it). It will however, be a damn fast laptop.


Why not option 3? I'm thinking life lesson opportunity for decision making. Hand your kid a $500 budget and tell him/her to research a good laptop to buy and use for the next 3 years. Futureshop, Bestbuy, Staples and Memory Express are great places to start to see what's available at that price point. Other sites like Tom's hardware, social media, friends etc. are another to determine what choices to make. Maybe throw a laptop or two above the budget and ask what he/she thinks if you were to buy it for your own use. See what comes out of it. In the end, the budget constraint is only for a challenge for the teen. What you actually spend doesn't have to be restrained by the $500 budget.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

A little off topic, but my work computer is a HP Elitebook 9470m and I am extremely pleased with it. Very light, thin, fast & powerful. I believe it is in the $1100 price range.

I would recommend it if you are looking for a decent laptop for business applications.

That's a business grade laptop. Most of those are built with slightly better parts (thus expected to last longer) and have less crapware software installed than typical commercial grade software. Futhermore, many commercial grade laptops sport a keyboard which is nicer to type with than those compressed netbook keyboards they shove on many laptops these days. If I'm not mistaken, the following are the business grade laptops for most typical brands:

Sony: S and Z series
Lenovo: T and X series (Y is commercial grade)
Toshiba: Tecra
Dell: XPS and maybe latitude? Alienware?
HP: Elitebook and Probook and Envy?
Acer and Asus don't have business grade as far as I know.

A slight knock against these laptops are that at times they are knocked for being clunky and ugly.

http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html
I stumbled on this years ago and I've learned most of the basics from it to keep my computers running smoothly. I don't think you need to go through the whole thing, but the 3 basics I would suggest is Defragging (unless you have an SSD), using CCleaner to clean up crap on the system such as cookies etc. and disabling unneeded programs at start up. I would definitely credit this software maintenance in ensuring my laptops have all lasted over 5+ years.

[rbochan]

Avoid Acer.
That is all.

You can get a new Toshiba in the $300-350 USD range just about every week at Staples or Best Buy.

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

That's a business grade laptop. Most of those are built with slightly better parts (thus expected to last longer) and have less crapware software installed than typical commercial grade software. Futhermore, many commercial grade laptops sport a keyboard which is nicer to type with than those compressed netbook keyboards they shove on many laptops these days. If I'm not mistaken, the following are the business grade laptops for most typical brands:

Sony: S and Z series
Lenovo: T and X series (Y is commercial grade)
Toshiba: Tecra
Dell: XPS and maybe latitude? Alienware?
HP: Elitebook and Probook and Envy?
Acer and Asus don't have business grade as far as I know.

A slight knock against these laptops are that at times they are knocked for being clunky and ugly.

http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html
I stumbled on this years ago and I've learned most of the basics from it to keep my computers running smoothly. I don't think you need to go through the whole thing, but the 3 basics I would suggest is Defragging (unless you have an SSD), using CCleaner to clean up crap on the system such as cookies etc. and disabling unneeded programs at start up. I would definitely credit this software maintenance in ensuring my laptops have all lasted over 5+ years.

You are bang on about the keyboard actually. It's a dream to type on it.