Thanks saylor, I'm not too far off from where Carmine is on this. I have a 2010 HP laptop. I was a loyal Dell customer but the last desktop in 2008 had hard drive problems from early in its life. Because I know I'm pretty ignorant I spent lots of time on their shopping site and spec'ed the one I think I wanted, then I call sales and customer support to get my few remaining questions answered... no straight answers and two of the folks had Indian accents so thick I couldn't understand them at all.having no idea whats your budget:
Laptop, Notebook, 2-in-1 PCs - XPS, Inspiron | Dell
these are from $499 to $1200 ^^ this is not the top of the line machine. this is just a computer to try to meet your specs.
some caveats:
1.) you want SSD / solid state hard drive where possible. IDE is old style (spinning media like a record player) if it says anything about R.P.M its the old technology.
2.) you want as much RAM as possible. the above only have 8GB which isn't a lot in todays world. it is worth it to add 8GB more.
3.) if you own office 2010 and can reinstall it - cool. but office 2016 is current.
4.) windows 10 manages RAM memory better than windows 7. I have about ~1200 dell laptops deployed - ive seen it first hand...
5.) windows 10 is ugly up front, but once you turn off all the crap, its pretty much just windows. again. its been out long enough now that everythings mostly compatible.
if you do buy a new rig, make sure to click thru all the setup / first boot windows and turn off EYERYTHING! all the Cortana, and check the internet for this and that. turn off all that crap. its the work of the devil I tell you.
The Computer Whisperer.er.
- saylor
I called HP and talked to a nice guy in Texas who helped me put in my order. This one has been good to me, cost about $500 has a 17" monitor (I have vision problems) Its an i3 processor, Windows 7, 64bit, but I couldn't spec it out more than that. I try to make sure I buy a quality machine that has enough oomph to continue to be functional for a long time. I can buy office through work very cheap, but find I don't use it enough to matter (they don't allow us to work from home at all).
I was going to upgrade a year ago, but when I tried windows 10 on this machine it was a nightmare. I have been holding off since. Mine still works, I have found that Microsoft has been predatory with their updates and my machine will start doing all sorts of stuff in the background killing my memory. I simply dropped my savable information onto a jump drive and formatted the darn thing and disallow updating on most items. If I get it too screwed up I format again now.
I run windows 7, firefox, and malwarebytes... it still works for my purposes, except my CD/DVD drive is on the fritz... a replacement would need to have one , which is getting to be more and more uncommon. I replaced the battery with an bigger one a few years ago and all is still good for me there...
My hope is in a year or so, whatever follows Windows 10 will be out and I can skip ten entirely. My employer is still on 7 too, so I have no more exposure to 8 or 10 than my failed attempts to work with them. I am so pissed at Microsoft I have even thought about Mac but I am way too cheap for this to be a likely direction. I function well enough with what I have, but I realize I will eventually have to change too.
BTW, I don't speak Indian, so any extended service plans are a complete waste for me. I am the guy who would tell tech support "this computer didn't come with a wall". SSD are still expensive, maybe a little longer the pricing will get to my comfort level. Please feel free to point out where I am wrong or could do something better... I'm slow, but can learn.