My laptop is dying. I am fed up on relying on my daughter in England to buy me some second hand one or selling her old laptops on to me. it lasted for almost 20 years and now I want a new one. But with Windows 7 on it, not window 8 i would rather not have to pay more than 400 Euros. any clues where to go? I am near Marmande (47)
I was taking the mick re: Linux
:)
Thank you all for all your help. I have now bought the Toshiba, so far so good. Tim I did try Linux in a previous life and decided it was only for grown ups.
Brian English, I thought this was a polite dinner party, I did not know one could bring horses????????????????
I am used to Linux (am better at it than Windows) but I would not recommend it for the mainstream user.
As someone in IT, go with Windows 8.1. It is not that bad, really. You can set the main screen up to boot straight onto the desk top like Windows 7. I'm on 8.1 now and it is alright really.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2043243/how-to-boot-to-desktop-mode-in-windows-8-1.html
Plus you will have better long term support.
I would second Dell. And you can always find a local point of contact in English (seems to be the third profession behind gites and estate agency ;-) )
Has anybody suggested a Linux Laptop yet?
Easy Cash have a very nice All-in-one from Lenovo that should keep you going for another 6 or 7 years (or more) with your kind of usage. It has a reasonable balance of power and price but is a bit higher than your budget at €499. To me, for the extra money you'll get a corresponding longer usable life, so it's no more expensive than the Toshiba laptop in overall terms. It takes up a bit more space, but you get a bigger screen, which should be easier to read.
At the end of the day, you have to make a decision according to your own requirements. My feeling is that the Toshiba laptop, with an extra 2 GB of RAM, is about the same value for money as the Lenovo All-in-One. It's just that, as you'll pay less for the Toshiba, it will last a correspondingly shorter time. If you, or your husband, particularly like the All-in-One, I don't think you'd lose by spending a bit more up front. The Asus All-in-One machines shown on the Easy Cash site have rather under-powered processors, but are at quite a low price. The best value PC complet I see there is the Samsung with an Intel Core I5 processor at €400. Unfortunately, I've had a bad experience with Samsung equipment in the past, so am a bit anti-Samsung. They do, however, appear to offer lots of bang for your buck.
Thank you very much, that was a very useful round up.
You are right and we do not carry computers (or anything electronic ) around. This newish computer is for my husband, he only use it for e-mails, ebay and searches on internet and playing spider solitaire. I do not have too much problems with loading stuff and he says that he does not mind the azerty keyboard. I hate it and I am French! he really like the Asus all in one, big screen and he could use a qwerty with it,
The Toshiba man asks 40 euros for 2 more Go of ram but apparently I can get it for 20 on-line if needed.
I have just found out that the Lenovo is in Caen................
We use Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird
There's a general problem with used laptops that are around 3 - 4 years old and that's that their batteries are close to the end of their useful life. Most suppliers, even if they give a general guarantee, won't cover the battery because of this. If you are going to use this laptop primarily in one location at home, this isn't usually a problem, as it will normally be plugged in to the mains anyway. Otherwise, budget in an extra €40 - €50 for a replacement battery before too long. (As you seem to be looking at 15.6 inch screens, I guess you're not planning to carry it around much. Laptops of that size are pretty heavy, especially when you add in the charger & cable.)
As for the Toshiba from your local shop, the 2 Go RAM is not enough for decent performance, especially as the processor is quite slow. I'd ask them how much it would be with 4 Go, which would definitely improve performance. This matters less for now than in 2 - 3 years time, by when software like Internet Explorer & suchlike will be expecting much more power in your machine.
The machines from Easy Cash, especially the Lenovo, seem to offer value for money, but who's going to set them up for you? And are you OK with the system and especially the keyboard being in French? Personally, I find the AZERTY keyboard impossible to get on with, but there is a simple solution. Buy a UK or US keyboard, which must have a USB connection, but nearly all do. This can be readily plugged into the laptop and with a bit of configuration, you're back to a usable keyboard.
Hope this is of some help.
thank you very much.
So far, I have found at my local shop, (they fixed one of my computers very experctly and reasonably before)
ex-enterprise 3or 4 years old:
Toshiba tecra A11-14J
15'6 led core13 M330 2,13Ghz
2Go 320Go DVDRW wifi Web cam Windows 7 Pro
3 months guarantee 324 Euros
at the local Cash for Crap I mean 'easy cash'
Ordinateurs portables LENOVO 4063HM1
1 offre disponible
- Mémoire vive : 4 go
- Modèle de processeur : Core 2 Duo 2.6 GHz
- Carte graphique : Ati Fire GLV 5700
- Taille de l'écran : 15.6
-
Capacité disque dur : 160 goÀ partir de 199,99 €
Asus all in one
intel 1.65
Hard disk 500Go
Ram 4Go
laptop terra mobile
Intel dual @1.65 ghz
ram 6 Go
HP pavilion DV6
intel dual@2,1Ghz
ram 4 Go
all about the same price
what do you think? I sent that list to my daughter guru IT, still no answer!
Thanks
Dominique
Dominique -
This machine, delivered for about €288 offers first class value. You'll get Windows 7 (Pro version) in English, & a UK keyboard. (It's very hard to get anything other than French software & an AZERTY keyboard if buying in France.) Lenovo made some of the most reliable laptops going for IBM until IBM pulled out of that business & Lenovo continued under their own name. I've got a Lenovo laptop that's still going & it was bought in 2007!
Hi there, you can try DELL France online. I ordered my laptop from them 4 years ago. I wanted an English keyboard but with the french plug/transformer and they can oblige..different specs etc and will deliver to your home. One thing I did need to order i remember was a copy of a utility bill with my current address which i faxed through to them. Good service.
In fact we had backed up the SSD and were sitting down ready for a couple of hours of re-installing stuff. However, when we tried to fire it up with the external system disk, ready to wipe the disk and start again, it actually fired up from the original SSD and just worked!
More luck then judgement maybe, but only possible if the spec is the same, as you say.
Thanks to all for advice, I am going to look locally for a computer I like and an after sale service that look for real then I'll take the liberty of asking you folks what you think about the model.
Thanks in anticipation
I was also able to unplug the SSD from my old machine and plug it straight in to the replacement, so I didn't have to reinstall anything either.
I have to say that unless the machines were identical, just swapping the OS drive into another machine is not a very good idea.
I know you say they were "the same spec" but over the life of a laptop they use different bits of hardware.
I am not saying it can't be done but you are going to wind up with all the wrong drivers and none of the right ones for the various bits of hardware involved.
Often times you are stopped from doing this because of the predictable blue screen of death you get when you put a piece of hardware with a totally wrong bit of software.
But hey.. if it worked. Cool :)
I agree with Brian the transfer to windows 8 was difficult on the PC but now it's 8.1 and I have the Cloud etc plus my tablet hybrid It's a breeze.
Thanks
thanks for advice
thanks, The guy in Marmande is pretty good as well, but I'll keep Angouleme in mind.