New Laptop

Alie&Jim's Carrilite · February 19, 2016

Evidently I am hard on laptops. The current one is about 18 months old and one of the hinges is broken. Thankfully everything still works.

Question is- If a buy a cheap cheap laptop say under $250 and then an external hard drive like the Sea Gate 1TB, would that work as far as working on Excel and Word files and doing the normal web browsing, mail, etc? I need Office on the machine but thats it. I could store all the files and pics on the hard drive. Company doesn't want files related to them stored in Cloud or anywhere but on thumb drives or disc.

I'm thinking something with 4G and 500MB would do. Suggestions? (besides not being so hard on the computers)

docj · February 19, 2016

Several manufacturers have had repeated problems with laptop hinges. The one I'm most familiar with is Toshiba; I gave up on my <2 year old one for that reason. Toshiba's issues were so bad that a couple of years ago there was a class action suit on the issue. My old Toshiba is now our "media server" so it doesn't have to be opened all that often.

As for your new computer, if you check Costco or Sams you will find a number of <$400 laptops with hard drive sizes of ~500GB that would meet your computing needs rather than buying a "Chromebook" sort of machine with little or no storage. Are you proposing the external drive just for your company's data? If so, maybe you could use a large USB drive of ~64GB rather than an HDD. 64GB is a huge amount of data; I'd be surprised if you needed more than that for your work. Even though external drives aren't that expensive, a USB drive is a lot cheaper.

I'm sure that lots of people on here will weigh in with their picks as to brands, etc, but for what you're looking to do most of what's on the market will serve your needs.

RV_ · February 20, 2016

Post the model number and specs of the laptop you're considering and Me and the others will give you opinions. I agree with Joel's post too.

Here is a refurb nicely spec's i5 laptop for $174 from Newegg. The one reviewer so far loves it and describes it well.

Go here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834297073&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=IGNEFL021916D&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL021916D-_-EMC-021916-Index-_-LaptopsNotebooks-_-34297073-S2A4D

Today the Top shelf 500GB SSDs are selling for about $119.99 when on sale: Here is the regular price for a 480 GB SSD http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820173874&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=IGNEFL021916D&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL021916D-_-EMC-021916-Index-_-InternalSSDs-_-20173874-S1A4D

For $274 you can set up the laptop with all your data and programs and all the updates including Windows 10 at the end. Then clone the smaller hard drive to the SSD, as they are really easy to swap out on laptops. The save your Hard drive in a ten buck external drive enclosure for laptop 2.5" drives: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=0VN-0003-000H3&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=IGNEFL021916D&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL021916D-_-EMC-021916-Index-_-HardDriveEnclosures-_-0VN-0003-000H3-S2A10C

For the little you are using, basic MS Office and storage a five buck external drive case and your now free spare HD, become a 240GB external drive. For about $300.00 you can have that i5 laptop, an SSD, and external case for your old one. Should cover your needs and give you a blazing system. If you feel the need for more speed then up the RAM to 8GB.

EZPZ.

Hope that helps

RV_ · February 22, 2016

Jim,

any decisions yet?

Alie&Jim's Carrilite · February 22, 2016

Jim,

any decisions yet?

Yes.. One from Best buy or one from Newegg....

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/toshiba-satellite-radius-11-6-touch-screen-laptop-intel-pentium-4gb-memory-500gb-hard-drive-satin-gold/4213206.p?id=1219707776192&skuId=4213206 Its onsale for 279 or so.

RV_ · February 22, 2016

JIm,

If 11.6" screen is what you can make do with, this one gives you a tablet and laptop, and I own one. http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Asus-Transformer-Book-T200TA-C1-BL-11-6-inch-Intel-BayTrail-T-Atom-Z3795-/381513616552?hash=item58d3fbcca8:g:XdYAAOSwFqJWjypK

It is $100.00 more than yours and only 20 bucks or so less than a New Surface 3 (not Pro) 10.8" tablet with essentially the same specs on the newer SoC, with full 1080 rather than your Best buy Toshiba 1366x768 resolution. However for that price the Surface 3 is without keyboard ($129.99) and cannot expand the SSD with an additional full laptop size SSD or HD. This one has great keyboard an additional hard drive bay in the keyboard base. It also has a full size Ethernet port, and 4GB RAM, as well as USB3 etc. The only reasons I am selling mine and got a Surface 3 Pro are price and Full HD. I got an offer for a sealed brand new Surface 3 Pro from a bankruptcy for $500.00. It is 128GB SSD and 4 GB of RAM. And because the Surface Pro 3 has full 1920X1080 HD resolution on a great screen.

I mention the ASUS only because it has the extra hard drive bay so you can add a 1 TB drive for 45-50 bucks if you want. http://www.ebay.com/itm/TOSHIBA-MQ01ABD100-1TB-5400-RPM-8MB-Cache-SATA-3-0Gb-s-2-5-Internal-Notebook-Ha-/291286885487?hash=item43d20d246f:g:TywAAOxy7S5SBTu2

Gives a 11.6" notebook with a detachable tablet. So a Twofer. I like Toshiba laptops too. If you already have a Windows tablet no gain there.

used the T200 comes in all kinds of processors. I would not consider any one except the Atom Z3795 processor. The T200 also comes in the Z3770, which misses some real advantages of the Z3795.

I've used mine for a year now and it is all I could want but has the and now I have it all and can use my extra regular full size computer wireless keyboards and mice with it if I want, or my K400 Logitech which is OK for traveling with, but I prefer a full size keyboard and use them at home with our tablets.

Just another idea.

My ASUS, like the laptop you are considering has only the same 1366x768 that most do on the bottom end of the laptop scale. I wanted full HD 1080 like the Venue 11 my wife now loves. Yes she gets my tech hand me downs.

I do have a 100GB SSD in the hard drive bay in the keyboard on mine but could as easily put a 1TB HD or 500GB SSD in it cheaply. However I have a desktop and do not need it.

No I won't ship mine despite many friends from the forums asking when I mentioned selling my stuff. I learned a long time ago to only give a threshold warranty. I guarantee electronics to my door after spending as much time as my friend or buyer needs to play with it to determine it is indeed perfect. But people today are too quick to try before they buy and I can't afford to let someone break or mar my babied stuff or break it, and claim it was that way on arrival. It may get broken by delivery. Much easier to deal locally and final sales. So please don't ask.

I would have bought the 128SSD 4GB RAM Surface 3 without the Pro if it were an 11.6" screen because my wife already has my old Venue 11 Pro that has everything but 11.6" and is only 32 bit Windows and limited to 2 GB of RAM by the Atom Z3770 SoC.