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[broadstairs]

Having had a disaster with my wife's new laptop (see another thread) I am wondering now how we can decide what to get. Nowadays it seems that you cannot really see any of this equipment working and are expected to just plunge in a buy, with the added issue of most if not all Laptops being excluded from any return/refund unless either faulty or you decide against it without even opening the packing.

My wife refuses to set foot in PCWorld again as the assistant in there treated me like an imbecile who did not understand PCs and as good as ignored my wife as if he believed women should not be involved in technology purchases.

I know one can read reviews but you need quite a large number of reviews to be able to judge how good anything really is.

How do others here go about deciding on Laptops?

Stuart

[HPsauce]

I tend (when asked for advice) to point people to John Lewis (in store).
Good unbiased advice and a limited but useful range of units, plus excellent service.

[broadstairs]

I tend (when asked for advice) to point people to John Lewis (in store).
Good unbiased advice and a limited but useful range of units, plus excellent service.

That's great if you happen to have a store nearby.

Stuart

[HPsauce]

Well you asked, and I do, though I avoid it myself.   

[loonylion]

In my case, my next laptop is going to be a custom spec from Eurocom (www.eurocom.com). That said, I tend not to do laptops much at all. I have a mini-itx form factor desktop (AMD A8 APU) that I sometimes use when I go on holiday, but for most part I'll only use a laptop when there's no other alternative.

[broadstairs]

Well you asked, and I do, though I avoid it myself.   

I know I asked and I do like John Lewis, just a tad too far these days....

I also dont use laptops much, they have their uses though. In this case it is for my wife who likes a small portable computer with everything (well almost everything since she uses a mouse) built-in. The real issue is she is very particular about what she likes and does not like hence my problem finding something she will like. She really needs to try it out and therein lies the problem!

Stuart

[Ronski]

I've only ever bought one laptop a Lenovo which I still use from time to time, and take on holiday. I've advised on quite a few others that freinds or family have purchased. I tend to look at the specs including the type of screen (glossy/matt) and reviews if possible. I also take the users requiements into consideration.

[broadstairs]

One big issue my wife has with laptops is sound, it is not that she uses it for music but needs enough volume to hear sound tracks of video clips on the net etc. Our current ACER has only one speaker (the left one) and I did not know this when we purchased it as it was not obvious from the specs however the rest of it is fine (it's an i5 M480) and it now runs Fedora 20 rather than W7 which is what it came with. So you see this is my problem and reading reviews you have no idea whether the people writing them were even interested in any sound when the give 4 or 5 stars. Another issue is screen colour rendition, my ACER is great but the HP one we tried was lousy when compared to it.

Just in case anyone wonders why we need a new one the ACER has a very intermittent bug which I've been trying to fix for probably 7 or 8 months now without success. Once I can get my wife something she is happy with I will spend some time stripping and rebuilding the ACER to see if I can sort it but right now my wife does not want me to make it worse  or to be without it while I try to fix it.

I'd love to be able to take her into somewhere so we could try them out but the Currys/PCWorld  always are so reluctant to help (or of course dont know how to). The other issue is that there is always so much noise in these places trying to hear ones self talk is an issue so listening to a Laptop is a non-starter.

Stuart

[NewtronStar]

There is a substitute to laptops and it's tablets great for music and pictures and web browsing, she my need a pair of earphones as most are on the very quiet side, you can hook up a bluetooth mouse and keyboard and earphones or buy bluetooth speaker station now that's loud.

I think she will like the 10 inch screen or above.

[broadstairs]

She already has a Samsung 10 inch tablet for quick stuff but they're no good for storing her photos on or keeping emails on (she would never trust the cloud and neither do I). She finds the screen a bit small and fiddly to operate with all the different gestures and the sound is not very good without earphones which she does not want to use. I find ladies using touchscreens leave an awful lot of grease makes on them  She (like me) finds it very incongruous seeing folks using tablets for photography, her sister does it all the time with an Ipad and I'm wondering what she will do when her email account fills up and she runs out of space for photos. My wife's camera takes great photos and would fit in my shirt pocket! Again it all comes back to add-ons (keyboard earphones) which are all extra cost.

So it all comes back to a laptop.... big screen, keyboard, plenty of storage, speakers (if we find a good one)....

Stuart