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Best Laptop to Buy?


Guest gardenofroses
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Guest gardenofroses

I'm in need of a new laptop.  

 

a. Does anyone have a recommendation?    Want to spend $450-650.   

 

 

b.  If  you use something like apple i pad in your homeschooling  how do you incorporate it?   (also pondering if this is worthwhile to buy for the $$)

 

TIA  !!!!!!!

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Wow, with that budget you can get something *really* nice.  In general, as much RAM (Memory) as the motherboard will support is the first priority. We bought 3 Refurbished Dell Latitude E6400s from Blair Technology Group (BlairTG) and they have 4 GB of RAM and an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU (they were made during 2008 -2010).   They are great workhorses.

 

The night of September 10th, I won a used Dell Latitude E6410 (the model after the E6400) in an eBay auction for $129.28 plus shipping.   :hurray: It has 8 GB of RAM. It has an Intel i7 CPU at 2.8 GHz, it has an Nvidia  NVS 3100M card for video, it has an upscale (14" Wide XGA +) display.   That one is for my wife (she's a "gamer") and the difference in power is awesome...     :hurray:   Eventually, I hope to be able to win one like that, for myself...    :lol:

 

I would look for: The most RAM (Memory) it will hold. The highest quality (non glare, Matte) display you can get, An  i7 CPU if possible.

 

We are Windows 7 based, but DD has an E6400 with Windows 8.1 and she has no issues with Windows 8.1 on it. (Her Desktop/Tower PC has Windows 7)

 

Try to stay away from laptops built for the "Consumer" market. Those are what you will see if you walk into a store catering to Retail customers.

You will generally get higher quality (design and components) in laptops designed for and sold/leased to Enterprise (Corporate) customers.

 

GL with whatever you buy!

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One other thing is to get a fast hard drive. The laptop I won in the eBay auction for my wife has a 320 GB    5400 RPM mechanical (HDD) drive in it. If I were replacing it (there is no reason to do that at this time) I would buy a 7200 RPM drive.

 

I told my wife that for that model (E6410) the only component that would make it faster is a faster hard drive.

 

Even faster than 7200 RPM would be an SSD drive, but they are expensive (cost per GB of capacity) and one of my childhood friends (an Electrical Engineer) had a lot of trouble with  the SSD drives he bought for his home server. Mysterious problems, until he and the factory decided they were defective drives...

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I'm in need of a new laptop.

 

a. Does anyone have a recommendation? Want to spend $450-650.

 

 

b. If you use something like apple i pad in your homeschooling how do you incorporate it? (also pondering if this is worthwhile to buy for the $$)

 

TIA !!!!!!!

We use ipads, did for hs and also for ps.

 

The ipads are used like computers. Kids use Apple Pages software to write, but also Google docs. Bluetooth keyboard is essential.

 

What iPads don't do well: multi-tasking with multiple screens.

 

What iPads do well:

-- storing ibooks right there

-- use scanning software to copy school papers, much easier tan printer scanners

-- recording and voice recognition software, dictating writing assignments

-- apps for graphing, unit conversion, dictionary, more convenient than computer based apps, imo.

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