Cheap Laptops

[EphesiaNZ]

Forget the warranty, since the manufacturer won't pay much attention to it.

What!

They have a requirement under law in most countries to honour the warranty.

Be very careful about buying a Linux laptop. There is one version of Linux written especially for laptops.

Linux doesn't have a version, it is called a distribution. Anyway, what "version" of Linux is written for a laptop?

But if the machine is designed for Windows but has the Linux operating system installed, walk away.

If this was a new "in store" laptop then I would be very wary for sure but the "designed for Windows" is just a marketing gimmick unless its something like a Surface RT tablet, which is "designed for failure"

 

[Vince53]

Warranties are written by legal experts to protect the company, not the buyer. Too many people have had problems getting their warranty honored. It is just better to deal with a store that has an unconditional return policy. Taking a large company to court over a warranty that they wrote is an expensive, time-consuming task.

When you install Linux on a Windows laptop, you find that certain functions will not work. Sometimes major functions, sometimes minor ones.

I cannot remember the name of the company in Taiwán that designed a version of Linux designed specifically for laptops. It works well on laptops designed to use it. My neighbor has a seven year old netbook with it and it still runs well.

 

[EphesiaNZ]

Never had any trouble with warranties personally or in a corporate environment. Sometimes I had claimed on an issue where a laptop or desktop was a week or two past its warranty and it was still honoured - not to say that happens all the time.

I have found the odd issue or two when putting Linux on a laptop/desktop but there's usually a workaround. To be honest there is little incompatibility these days with Linux and hardware.

The Taiwanese Linux distribution you are talking about is probably Linpus which has been around for about 12 years. There is also Lubuntu but this has been around for only 6 years or so. Linpus was designed for lower spec hardware such as netbooks but wasn't designed primarily for laptops but, it fits the requirements as would most Linux distros that focus on being lightweight, examples being TinyCore, AntiX and Crunchbang to name but a few.

 

[Vince53]

Got a laptop so cheap that you can't find out much about your CPU? Type CPUID into a search engine and you can download a free tool that will give you detailed info on your CPU. You can't change anything, but it won't hurt your system.

 

[EphesiaNZ]

Got a laptop so cheap that you can't find out much about your CPU?

Also you can just do,

Start > Control Panel > System & Secuity > System

Under the System Page you can view processor type.

I guess all the CPUID is doing is displaying results from various WMIC calls which, can be done from the command line without the need to download anything. For processor info run this call from the command (cmd.exe) line,

wmic cpu list full

 

[Vince53]

The free CPUID program provides more information on your CPU than System does, plus it is easier to locate.

Someone wrote in on another forum that he had set a hard drive password and couldn't remember it. I thought that he was confused about a Windows Start-up password, but I researched it, and there really is such a thing. You have to go into BIOS to set it, and if you forget it, you CANNOT get in, and no one can get you in. Sometimes, certain companies can erase your hard drive and let you start over.

Although I repeat myself, the most effective password recovery tool is "guessing." It's in your brain somewhere.

 

[EphesiaNZ]

The free CPUID program provides more information on your CPU than System does, plus it is easier to locate.

Yes true. The WMIC method just avoids the need for installing another application and bogging down a Windows machine further.

Although I repeat myself, the most effective password recovery tool is "guessing." It's in your brain somewhere.

Beginning to find the "brain" method is less effective after 50

I advise people to write down username/passwords using pen & paper - remember those? Trouble is trying to remember where you hid that list...

Good thing about saving it to the brain or writing it down is that it's 100% NSA proof assuming they are not packet sniffing your internet traffic.

Unless you have a very good reason, don't password your hard drive in BIOS. Same goes for encrypting your hard drive too. If you forget the encryption passphrase then it may take you a few thousand years to break or just find your friendly neighbourhood NSA agent and they will do it in a few seconds.

 

[Vince53]

Are you worried about Microsoft ending support for Windows XP in April 2014? What are you going to do to your faithful old XP laptop when the time comes? (We have five XP laptops at the orphanage where I volunteer).

First, remember that for $250, you can buy a Windows 8 laptop that is dual-core (instead of single core) and has two gigs (instead of half a gig) of RAM (and it will be be DDR3 RAM, which is twice as fast as the DDR2 RAM your XP machine probably has).

Having said that:
1) Some of the free antivirus programs out there will continue support for a while longer. But when Windows 98 was dropped, it was only a few months until the free antivirus programs dropped it as well.

2) Upgrade everything, including your drivers, but SET A SYSTEM RESTORE POINT FIRST.

3) Look carefully for software that you want and download it now while it is still safe.

4) Consider taking your laptop permanently off the internet. One of our orphanages has a working Windows 98 computer with educational games, and it works fine. I got it onto the web one time, and it was so slow that it wasn't worth the delays. But it plays the educational games just fine.

 

[Vince53]

I let the kids at the La Ola Orphanage use my Acer laptop. They love its speed (dual-core, two gigs of RAM, Windows 8) because it is so much faster than the old Windows XP computers they have. But about ten days ago, everything started going wrong with my laptop. I installed all kinds of antimalware programs, worked diligently at correcting problems, and finally got it back online, although slower than it had ever been.

I carefully worked around problems and today I got it running pretty well. But I couldn't figure out what they had done to cause these many problems. Suddenly, light dawned, and I checked...

THEY HAD INSTALLED WINDOWS 8.1!

 

[LordOhSavior]

Looking for a new one myself. Bought this Samsung laptop about two years ago and the thing is falling apart. I'm looking for a good review site.

 

[Vince53]

Bryan, Welcome aboard. I'll give you my standard advice. Buy a cheap laptop from a name-brand company. In two years, you can buy another cheap one that will be far more powerful. Avoid touchscreens; laptops don't need them, they don't work well on a cheap laptop, and for the same price you can get a far more powerful machine that does not have a touchscreen.

 

[EphesiaNZ]

Looking for a new one myself. Bought this Samsung laptop about two years ago and the thing is falling apart. I'm looking for a good review site.

Two sites to look at would be,

Laptop Reviews - Notebook Reviews and Computer News

Laptops & notebooks: Laptop computers, notebook computers - CNET Reviews

I personally go for Lenovo Thinkpads as they are well built and quite economical at the lower end of the range. Got two E520's I purchased directly from Lenovo about 20 months ago and they are as good as new still - possibly because the users dad will get very annoyed otherwise

 

[freezerman2000]

I let the kids at the La Ola Orphanage use my Acer laptop. They love its speed (dual-core, two gigs of RAM, Windows 8) because it is so much faster than the old Windows XP computers they have. But about ten days ago, everything started going wrong with my laptop. I installed all kinds of antimalware programs, worked diligently at correcting problems, and finally got it back online, although slower than it had ever been.

I carefully worked around problems and today I got it running pretty well. But I couldn't figure out what they had done to cause these many problems. Suddenly, light dawned, and I checked...

THEY HAD INSTALLED WINDOWS 8.1!

I was trying to tell everyone the pitfalls of 8.1 in my thread..which I just bumped in case anyone wants to review it and maybe add a few tidbits..

 

[Vince53]

Freezerman, where is this thread? And while we're at it,

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO THE WHOLE LOT OF YOU!

 

[freezerman2000]

Freezerman, where is this thread? And while we're at it,

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO THE WHOLE LOT OF YOU!

http://www.christianforums.com/t7781314/
There ya go..
Merry Christmas to you too!

 

[Vince53]

So you turned on your computer and all of your files are gone. Try to get to "Computer," C Drive, and check "Show Hidden Files."

 

[EphesiaNZ]

So you turned on your computer and all of your files are gone. Try to get to "Computer," C Drive, and check "Show Hidden Files."

What!

Why would all your files get hidden in the first place?

If all your files are hidden then I would get very, very worried as either you have some virus/malware activity or you have been subject to a hacker. In this situation you might best seek advice from a pro or reinstall Windows...

 

[Vince53]

Folks, the price of laptops is going down, because people want touchscreens. I recently bought a brand new 11,000 peso ($836 US) for 6000 pesos ($456) and it is the most powerful machine I have ever owned.

You don't need a touchscreen on a laptop, and if you'll look around, bargains are out there.

 

[EphesiaNZ]

Folks, the price of laptops is going down, because people want touchscreens.

Actually people don't want touchscreens, that's why Microsoft have been forced to make some GUI changes in Windows 8.1 update 1 and will no doubt bring a start menu back in 8.2.

DailyTech - Microsoft Confirms Plans to Repair Windows 8.1

I guess it would be more accurate to say the marketers want people to use touchscreens or fondleslabs as they're more affectionately known as.

 

[paul1149]

My understanding is that MS was desperate to advance its stagnating, if not failing, smartphone share, so they pushed touchscreen on everyone is order to force a marketing segue. But in doing so they seriously violated some basic form follows function principles for desktop and most laptops user alike, and are paying the price - once again.