Laptop advice

[Wonderer67]

I’ve written a handful of stories, I’d like to write a little bit more. Problem is, my laptop is pretty ancient in technology standards it takes forever to start up. It’s also clunky and big. I do not love it.

Asking a question like laptop and operating system preferences could be akin to posting something on the politics forum!

I’m really only familiar with windows and Microsoft products. I would say I’m moderately good at using Microsoft Word as an example.

I’m not so old that I wouldn’t try something different, but we just like to hear what you all think.

And perhaps some recommendations.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I'm not going to recommend anything specific because that's constantly changing and needs a whole bunch of research everytime you need to replace a laptop.

But I'm guessing that what you have doesn't have an SSD (Solid State Drive) and every laptop on the market now does, so whatever you buy you will see significant improvements.

(I hate Apple with a passion so I'm not going to suggest swapping out of Windows. But again, anything will do the basic wordprocessing necessiary to write fiction)

 

[Rob_Royale]

A newer PC is a good idea. The recent MSWord365 is very good and includes an audio readback function that I use for every story. Recommended.

 

[ronde]

If you don't want to spend a lot of money, look for a refurbished laptop. A lot of businesses upgrade their computers every 2-3 years, and their old ones get a going over for function and appearance. I've had several and they operated fine, but might have a few scratches or dings. A refurbished laptop will probably be an HP or a Dell. My luck with HP is pretty good, Dell, not so much. Personally, I like Acer laptops. Unless you really like Chrome, I wouldn't buy a chromebook.

As far as software, Word is great, but probably a lot more than you need and you'll have to renew the subscription every year. Apache Open Office Writer looks and operates a lot like Word, and can import Word files as well as save files in Word format. You can download the Apache Open Office Suite for free and in addition to Writer, you'll get spreadsheet and presentation software as well. I've used all three and they're pretty easy to use once you get used to them.

 

[NotWise]

If you don't want to spend a lot of money, look for a refurbished laptop. A lot of businesses upgrade their computers every 2-3 years, and their old ones get a going over for function and appearance. I've had several and they operated fine, but might have a few scratches or dings. A refurbished laptop will probably be an HP or a Dell. My luck with HP is pretty good, Dell, not so much. Personally, I like Acer laptops. Unless you really like Chrome, I wouldn't buy a chromebook.

My experience buying refurbished Dells from Dell is excellent. Both my laptop and my desktop computer are refurbished Dells. They come with Windows, and I install Ubuntu.

 

[alohadave]

My experience buying refurbished Dells from Dell is excellent. Both my laptop and my desktop computer are refurbished Dells. They come with Windows, and I install Ubuntu.

And refurbished doesn't necessarily mean used. If an item is returned, for whatever reason, even if never used, it's checked over and offered as a refurb for a discounted price.

 

[onehitwanda]

Any modern laptop will do. Then use an online suite like those offered by ProtonMail. Word is the devil, don't use it. So is google docs

 

[TheWritingGroup]

If you do buy a Windows laptop, make sure that it either comes with Windows 11 or can be upgraded to it.

Older laptops that can't be upgraded will be unsupported by Microsoft when Windows 10's support runs out in just under a year, unless you want to pay significant amounts of money to Microsoft to be a special exception.

-Rocco

 

[Wonderer67]

A newer PC is a good idea. The recent MSWord365 is very good and includes an audio readback function that I use for every story. Recommended.

Love that functionality. Find a lot of mistakes that way.

 

[Wonderer67]

Some solid advice here! Thank you all!!

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Some solid advice here! Thank you all!!

If you happen to have a computer nerd friend, consider that we, I mean they, change computers pretty often. They might be willing to part with the older one for a song, and might even feel obligated to be tech support.

Signed,
Used to be literal tech support
-Rocco

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

1. Buy as much memory and speed as you can afford(OS is only relevant to the APS you want to run)
2. Use it until it doesn’t do the job anymore.
3. Repeat as necessary.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Just occurred to me, a factory reset might help.
You casn Google how to do that for your system.

 

[shelleycat1]

To OP
You have not said how old, how much memory now and how big a disk.
My 10 year old HP has enough memory added, 12G, to be fast enough to run two VMs on top of windows, The original disk has been replaced with a 1TB SSD. Those two changes gave it a new lease of life.

It won’t run W11 but I can switch to something else by then. Ubuntu probably.

 

[shelleycat1]

Not knocking @ShelbyDawn57 ’s advice but make sure you have a tested backup of all your important data before major reconfiguration. You do have a backup, tested, don’t you.

 

[Noor]

I have a MacBook Air m1 and I’m not going back. It’s so fast, easy and extremely light. Plus I got it over a year ago and it doesn’t feel outdated at all.
I attend Google devfests and the google devs there all had apple, so I figured why not?

 

[Noor]

That said I bought an hp Chromebook for a client with amazing speakers.
I think he’d just use it on the road to look up stuff but he’s actually switched entirely to the Chromebook as most of his work is in online, in the cloud or uses cloud software. It was about $250 and pretty slick. I thought about getting one just for financials, although I couldn’t do business taxes in it.