Electronics

[Lynnj]

On 6/21/2014 bonnielu said:

Thanks so much. I guess I was looking at the 1TB and not the rest. Also the lifetime tech support.. someone to help out. Getting lazy in my old age. I am going to forget this one. Love to have a Surface. Neat gadget. Probably over price.

I do not have any issues with AMD however. Had that processor before without any problems. Also had Intel without any problems.

Another fast question. Do you all suggest on any electronics purchase the service contract?

You don't need a big hard drive. Even if it were a 500 GB hard drive, (which is half of the 1T), you will never in your lifetime use all of that space. 1T is like building a shopping mall parking garage at your house to park your 1 or 2 cars. Even 500 GB is a lot. You don't need all of that space - trust me.

A PC especially will stop working before you would even get anywhere near half of a 500 GB hard drive. I have a PC that I use for work, its an HP and not sure of the exact hard drive maybe 250? Anyway I save dozens of Excel, Word, PowerPoint and email documents daily. Very large files. I am not even anywhere near filling the hard drive space. Been using this computer for years.

Spend your money on RAM and processor speed. 8GB RAM, or higher if you can afford it. Then look for i5 (or i7 if you can afford it) intel processor. Hard drive could be 256 (500 which is really a lot of space) GB. Trust me, you will not be disappointed. You want to spend your money on the things that will make your computer run, not storage.

[bonnielu]

Thanks, I will be looking late Summer, early Fall.

[sipp]

Just sent back an AMD processor- ran so hot couldn't hold it on my lap- bought a cooling pad and the fan was on constantly (and hot to touch on the side too) Big hype about AMD's being in all the gaming consoles ( xbox etc.) I'll be looking for an intel again. Even if it 's only duo core - it will be better than the quad cores being touted.

As for the made in China comment--- well they just all seem to be lately- can't get around it. Even if they were assembled here- the parts probably are made in China and if not then probably some other Asian country or India or whatever.

And I do like a lot of storage- cause when I buy one I want it to last years- I can't afford to buy one every time some new gimmick comes along. Not to mention getting one with a system like Vista was or the new 8 -- which then (because it was better designed for ""touch""- was updated to 8.1 so a keyboard could be used and they tell you can easily switch to the ""classic"" desktop you always had in Windows 7-- They lie!!!) And because people are complaining about it ( I'm one of them- it takes 4 steps to do what Windows 7 did in one or two!) Anyhow- with enough complaints Microsoft will change that too and the next one probably won't be a free upgrade. It will be a whole new system so you'll have to buy it if you don't like 8.1.

I do want to keep up with technology- but I don't like being scammed. ""If it ain't broke -don't fix it!""

[gardenman]

A few quick points. There's not a huge performance difference between AMD and Intel processors so I wouldn't let that influence any buying decision. Both are good and quite reliable. Heat tends to come with performance. Higher performing processors whether AMD or Intel will draw more watts and therefore generate more heat. If you want a cooler laptop, look for one with a processor that draws fewer watts. You can find CPU's that only draw 25 watts and you can find some that draw 130 watts. Obviously a 130 watt processor will generate a lot more heat than a 25 watt processor. You'll give up a bit in performance by going with a lower wattage processor, but have a cooler laptop.

As to storage, my first computer came with a whopping 1.2 gb hard drive that the salesman told me I'd never fill. I had it for seven years and there was still space on it. My current computer has a 1.32 terabyte hard drive (a 1 tb and a 320 gb) and I'm always having to delete stuff as I run short on space. Now I have all of my music on it, I use the computer as a DVR, and I have tons of photos on the computer. When you have a choice, buy the larger hard drive as long as the price difference isn't huge. You'll likely find things to use that space.

As to made in China, there are seven companies that design/build most laptops and they work across brands and are all based in the Far East. There are also several build only firms, but more and more "manufacturers" use the design/build guys instead. The "manufacturers" simply give the firms the specs of what they want in terms of performance and price and then the companies design/build a laptop to meet those specs. Your cheap $250 laptop may have been made in the exact same factory as a high end Macbook Air. They'll each have different components, but could very well have been built by the same people in the same factory.

And finally about Windows 8.1, in the long term for people who use multiple devices (gaming consoles, tablets, smart phones, and computers) the newer versions of Windows will be easier to use. The user experience is designed to be as near to identical across the whole range of devices so if you learn it once, you can then use it on everything. Previously if you have each device you had to learn how each worked and the unique properties of each one. If you stick to the Windows environment for all of those (X-Box One, Surface tablets, Windows phones, and Windows based computers) they'll all function (eventually anyway) in the same manner and use the same apps. You'll be able to buy a single app and use it on all of those devices and it will work in the same way on all of them. This should significantly reduce development time and costs and result in lower priced software for consumers. (Or higher profits for Microsoft.) Previously creating an app to run on all of those devices required each version of the app to be created separately. Now instead of making four versions they only need to make one.

[shoekitty]

On 6/21/2014 chickenbutt said:

It's been my experience, over just the 15 years I've had computers, that 'tech support' is not very, well, helpful. I usually try to figure stuff out for myself because it's infinitely less frustrating. That's just me, though.

What I do, however, is to buy Square Trade warranties for all my laptops (and all other electronics - pretty much anything that plugs in). It's inexpensive but more importantly it's excellent service.

The one time I had to send a laptop in, I had it back and working (still works perfectly after several years and it was deadsville when I called in the warranty) in just under a week. Plus, they shipped me the laptop box and packing, a shipping box, and a prepaid FedEx label. All this came overnight and all I had to do was pack it up and drop it off (you can call for pick ups, but I like getting a receipt when I'm sending something valuable).

Tech support is okay if you want to wait 2 hours on the phone, struggle to understand instructions. I am also not a fan of what I call the "parrot syndrome". That is. Where they waste time by repeating every word you say. Lol omg, my new pet peeve!