The Official Computer Tech Support Thread

[Trollheart]

I had a thread about this somewhere but my quick lazy search hasn't turned it up, and like Homer says, the lesson is, never try.

So anyway, Plankton has been helping me to try to pick the best laptop I can, and I've been driving him nuts I'm sure (talk about "Screaming at an Empty Canvas", huh?) so I'm appealing to you guys.

Ideally, opinions from anyone who has had, or has, a laptop, the purchase of which they either regretted or did not, would be most welcome. Every brand I research I get good and bad (often really threatening/warningly bad) reviews, and I don't know what to do.

So it's basically this: do you, have you, any preference for, or do you or have you owned a Dell, HP, Acer, Asus or Lenovo laptop? I'm not asking for specs, as I know what I want and can afford. It's more about the reliability. I know nobody can stop your laptop from having problems and nobody can predict if it's going to give you hassle or anything, but stories or advice from those who have, or have had, any of the above brands (or others) and how it worked/has worked out would be helpful.

Thanks.
TH

[Plankton]

Just get a Banana Jr 6000.

[Trollheart]

They're only skin-deep though. Besides, if I were to get a Banana I'd have to learn a whole new way of computing, and I'm too old and crotchety to do that at my time of life. My Windows gives me regular updates whether I wants 'em or not, and that's jest how I likes it!

[Plankton]

My Windows updates me when the sun goes down, and then up again, every single day.

[Trollheart]

If I look at refurbished - or what they call renewed: makes it sound like these laptops have all had a sudden religious conversion! - I have these choices. Any advice very welcome.


HP EliteBook 850 G3 15.6" FHD, Core i7-6600U 2.6GHz, 16GB RAM, 512GB Solid State Drive, Windows 10 Pro 64Bit, CAM, (RENEWED)

4.6 out of 5 stars 4
EUR679.55 + EUR 31.82 shipping

HP Pavilion 15-EH 15.6 FHD AMD Ryzen 7 4700U 2.0GHz 512GB NVME 16GB DDR4 Webcam Backlit Keyboard Windows 10 Home (Renewed)

3.8 out of 5 stars 5
EUR580.65 + EUR 20.62 shipping

Dell Inspiron 5570 Intel Core i7-8550U FHD 15.6" AMD 530 DVD-RW Windows 10 Pro Platinum Silver (16GB RAM 1TB HDD) (Certified Refurbished)

EUR773.92 + EUR 31.49 shipping


NEW DELL PRECISION M7510 I7 6920HQ 3.8GHZ QUADRO M1000M 2GB 16GB 2133MHZ FHD 1080P 256GB SSD NT0132 (Renewed)

3.8 out of 5 stars 6
EUR601.31 + EUR 29.21 shipping

Dell Precision 5520 15.6" FHD, Core i7-6820HQ 2.7GHz, 16GB RAM, 1TB Solid State Drive, Windows 10 Pro 64Bit, (RENEWED)

EUR645.17 + EUR 30.50 shipping

Dell XPS 13.4" 2-in-1 Touchscreen Laptop, 10th Gen i7-1065G7 CPU, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD (Renewed)

EUR773.92 + EUR 22.62 shipping

Dell Latitude E5580 15.6in Laptop, Core i7-7600U 2.8GHz, 16GB Ram, 256GB SSD, Webcam, Windows 10 Pro 64bit (Renewed)

EUR515.28 + EUR 31.16 shipping

Dell Latitude E5570 Laptop, 15.6 Inch HD Display (Intel Core 6th Generation i7-6600U, 16 GB DDR4, 256 GB SSD) Windows 10 Pro (Renewed)

EUR478.28 + EUR 31.59 shipping

Lenovo IdeaPad 5 15.6" FHD Laptop, AMD Ryzen 7-4700U, Wi-Fi 6, Webcam, Backlit Keyboard, Fingerprint Reader, HDMI, USB-C, Win 10 Home, w/ Tikbot Accessories(16GB RAM | 512GB PCIe SSD)

EUR678.73 + EUR 20.74 shipping
Price dropped 1% (was EUR688.53 when added to List)
Capacity : 16GB RAM | 512GB PCIe SSD

2021 Lenovo IdeaPad 5 Laptop, 15.6" FHD, 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 4700U (>i7-10710U) Upto 4.1 GHz, Wi-Fi 6, Backlit KB, Webcam, Fingerprint, USB-C, HDMI, Win 10 H, 32GB MSD Card (16GB RAM | 512GB PCIe SSD)

2.0 out of 5 stars 1
EUR662.38 + EUR 20.62 shipping
Price dropped 14% (was EUR769.99 when added to List)
Capacity : 16GB RAM | 512GB PCIe SSD

[Mindy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcL932W6E1w

CNBC
Jul 10, 2021


Microsoft Windows debuted in 1985 and for the past two decades it has been the dominant PC operating system worldwide. In 2020, Windows had almost 83% market share by unit shipments, while Google Chrome OS had 10% and Apple’s Mac OS had 7%, according to Gartner.
From solitaire to its iconic start button and start up sounds, productivity apps, gaming and corporate computing, Windows changed the way we use computers. The legendary Windows 95 helped propel the company to dominate the market in personal computing. Microsoft has introduced many versions of Windows since its inception with some more memorable than others. It’s competed with IBM, Apple, and Google for market space. According to Microsoft, there are more than 1.3 billion devices running Windows 10 worldwide on a monthly basis.
Today, Windows only makes up 14% of Microsoft’s business but remains a critical part of it. The company just announced the latest version Windows 11.
CNBC spoke with former Microsoft employees including Terry Myerson, Michael Cherry, Brad Silverberg and Tandy Trower to get a look back at over three decades of Windows.

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

I had a thread about this somewhere but my quick lazy search hasn't turned it up, and like Homer says, the lesson is, never try.

So anyway, Plankton has been helping me to try to pick the best laptop I can, and I've been driving him nuts I'm sure (talk about "Screaming at an Empty Canvas", huh?) so I'm appealing to you guys.

Ideally, opinions from anyone who has had, or has, a laptop, the purchase of which they either regretted or did not, would be most welcome. Every brand I research I get good and bad (often really threatening/warningly bad) reviews, and I don't know what to do.

So it's basically this: do you, have you, any preference for, or do you or have you owned a Dell, HP, Acer, Asus or Lenovo laptop? I'm not asking for specs, as I know what I want and can afford. It's more about the reliability. I know nobody can stop your laptop from having problems and nobody can predict if it's going to give you hassle or anything, but stories or advice from those who have, or have had, any of the above brands (or others) and how it worked/has worked out would be helpful.

Thanks.
TH

Oh btw my second to last laptop was an HP and went down due to a known issue with a lot of HP laptops where the... CPU (?) had some kind of short that costs hundreds of dollars to fix and even if fixed may very well happen again, so I'd do some extra homework on HP laptops. It's been awhile so I don't remember the specifics but it was only a year or two old and just died.

[Trollheart]

Thanks Batty. I had heard that HP have a bad name, some of their machines prone to, um, going on fire. I think I'm kind of leaning in a Dell direction at the moment.

[Mindy]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

Thanks Batty. I had heard that HP have a bad name, some of their machines prone to, um, going on fire. I think I'm kind of leaning in a Dell direction at the moment.

[The Batlord]

I had a Dell laptop before spilling beer on it and nuking it and had no complaints. It was a budget gaming laptop so had some issues with heating but there's generally gonna be some heating issues with gaming laptops especially budget ones (as in making my bedroom hot), but one thing that was kind of annoying was the darkness of the screen. It was... fine, but if a laptop is reviewed as having a dark screen maybe believe them cause people don't generally complain about a dark screen for no reason and it can be an annoying quality of life issue.