New computer

I am looking for another laptop, my techie person has resurrected this one for the last time :pray:
Is it possible to get a QWERTY one in France, I really cannot get along with AZERTY :frowning:

Dell probably the easiest, or just order from the UK

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Lots available, just specify what you want

https://www.cdiscount.com/informatique/r-ordinateur+portable+clavier+qwerty.html#his

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Thatā€™s handy to know. Thanks Jane. :slight_smile:

If you order from the manufacturer you can specify the keyboard you want. UK, US, French, Greek, etc.

If you are not buying direct from the manufacturer always do a little research to make sure youā€™re not buying an obsolete or soon to be obsolete model. Or if you are that it is suitably discounted.

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If you buy a new one from a French retailer, have your techie person on standby to put a fresh Windows install in as changing the system language to English later can leave a few screens/menus in French.

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Thank you for your suggestions.
As a technophobe I think I will try and find a UK company that will send to France.

Get an Azerty computer and a plug-in Qwerty keyboard, then you wonā€™t have to fiddle about with Alt+0000 to get the accent ed French letters!

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I considered suggesting this but using a laptop with an external keyboard is a bit of a faff

The easiest way to get (most) accented characters is to enable French spelling correction (Ć  can be a pain though)

I like Dell but my last laptop was from PC Specialist. Very happy with the spec and price, but you may not like so many options.

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Just get one from Dell, the french site allows you to order a laptop with a qwerty keyboard. Better for guarantee if bought here I think

https://pilot.search.dell.com/laptops/clavier%20qwerty

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Thank you for your added suggestions :hugs:
I am still looking, the more I look the more I am undecided :crazy_face:
My last two computers, over 18 yrs have been Sony Vaio without any problems. The first one used mainly for business, the current one just for any French official use and the usual banking, shopping, surfing etc. I can change to a French keyboard, but I have rarely needed to use it.
I have decided that I only need a high end budget laptop,if there is such a thing :thinking: As long as I can deal with banking, shopping and maybe the occasional french paper work with assured security.
Most of the laptops I have looked at come with windows 10 I had difficulty adjusting to W10 so went back to W7. Any comments on W10 will I just need to adapt to it?
I see Dell have improved, twenty years ago :-1:
Okay, onwards and upwards :pray:

Anything new is going to have Windows 10 on it and quite probably cannot have W7 installed due to non-availability of USB drivers (so, no mouse or keyboard which does tend to make it slightly difficult to use the laptop :slight_smile: )

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No keyboard? :thinking:

Only if you try to install Windows 7, the new Intel chips have a USB subsystem for which no Windows 7 drivers have been written so, while you can install W7 on them you canā€™t use it afterwards.

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Iā€™m surprised you struggled with W10, but maybe thatā€™s because I really like it. Itā€™s pretty much the first OS apart from the Mac ones which I could say I actually like. Which looks sad now Iā€™ve written it.

You can make W10 look like W7 in certain aspects: https://www.howtogeek.com/277448/how-to-make-windows-10-look-and-act-more-like-windows-7/ but my advice (which costs the same whether you take it or not, and everyone has different ideas) is to just work with it :slight_smile:

Alternatives exist, though. Have you thought of a Chromebook? You can try the Chrome OS before you buy: https://partnerdash.google.com/apps/simulator/chromebook#?l=en

What about a Macbook? Thatā€™s certainly high-end, if only in price! But if itā€™s an OS you could get to like, Macbooks seem to keep on going. (Then again, buy the right laptop/Chromebook and that will last too. My 2012 Dell is still going strong.)

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I recently bought a new laptop from a company called XiFrance - they are importers for Xiaomi in China & Hong Kong. It has the QWERTY keyboard layout, but they also include a silicon cover that sits on top of the keyboard and has the AZERTY layout.

I went for the RedmiBook 16 model (Ryzen 7 4700U, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD for those that are curious) but I had quite specific requirements and there are cheaper versions available. Cost me ā‚¬800 all in, but they do a 14" laptop with lower (but still very good) specs for ā‚¬650.

Itā€™s a fantastic little machine, and I highly recommend it. Only thing to be aware of is that the ā€œstandardā€ version comes with a Chinese version of Windows that you have to migrate to English yourself - very easy to do, took me about an hour but I do work in IT - otherwise the ā€œpremiumā€ version comes with Windows in French.

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Is it just me but are France more expensive on computers then most countries

Iā€™ve compared a couple of prices in UK and France recently - a new monitor for my son and laptop for my daughter - both were cheaper in France for exactly the same models.

Not so with Ubuntuā€¦ you can set a Compose key with which you can easily do French accentsā€¦ I use the right Win key for that so Rt Win a ` in series gives Ć .
The Compose key latches to avoid stretching your fingers across the keyboard :wink:
All of the accents are available including consonants etc such as the cedilla Ƨ using a standard English UK keyboard.