2015 - Which Microsoft laptop to get?

[guzziguy]

My 4 year old HP Pavilion DM4 is starting to die.  It's had too many bluescreens recently and the OS can't detect the DVD player (the BIOS does).  So it's probably time for a replacement.  Could you please suggest laptops, matching the following criteria, that you would recommend.

 

Important:

 

$500 to $750 tops

8M memory

Either has SSD or can add one

1T disk

 

Not important:

 

Screen size (I mostly use a monitor)

Weight (I don't travel much with it)

Battery life (I mostly plug in)

 

Thanks in advance for all your input.

[n_maher]

If you can stretch the budget a bit this looks pretty decent.

http://computers.woot.com/offers/hp-omen-15-6-intel-i7-gtx-860m-laptop-11?utm_source=Daily+Digest&utm_campaign=1f3105bd92-Daily+Digest+-+20150720+-+Shirt.Woot&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c5ca76da11-1f3105bd92-281438606#tracked

[grawk]

If you're not gaming, I'd go with whatever the cheapest laptop that has everything you want. Last year I bought my daughter an asus laptop with a 15" screen for $200 from the microsoft store that is remarkably usable. I don't know that it has a dvd player tho. I'd get a usb bluray drive, and rip whatever you're wanting to watch when travelling.

[Dusty Chalk]

Either has SSD or can add one

1T disk

Not too many laptops have two drive bays, unless you mean mSATA for the SSD.  As an alternative, you can always put in a hybrid drive, which is basically both in one.

[guzziguy]

I think that Dan has definitely described my situation.  I'm not a gamer and only need 8M memory because I  leave too man tabs open in my browsers.  So if anything, I'll tend to try to hit the low end of my budget.

 

Anyway, I just got back from an appointment to find my computer dead.  It reboot but it's probably closer to the end than I thought.  So I'll visit Staples, Costco, Best Buy and maybe Office Max and purchase the best deal I can find.

 

Thanks again for all the input.

[cetoole]

8gb is for people who close their tabs. 16gb minimum, and 32 preferred.

[skullguise]

Probably not worth TOO much effort, but do you have restore disks?  If your Blue Screens are SW related (and having BIOS recognize the optical drive but the OS not makes me wonder/think that), maybe a restore and Windows Update keeps you going for a bit longer......

[guzziguy]

Stupidly, I don't have Restore disks.

 

Is there a reason this Asus wouldn't work just fine for me?

[Dusty Chalk]

I think that Dan has definitely described my situation.  I'm not a gamer and only need 8M memory because I  leave too man tabs open in my browsers.  So if anything, I'll tend to try to hit the low end of my budget.

 

Anyway, I just got back from an appointment to find my computer dead.  It reboot but it's probably closer to the end than I thought.  So I'll visit Staples, Costco, Best Buy and maybe Office Max and purchase the best deal I can find.

 

Thanks again for all the input.

If that's the case, there was a small discussion that Ed, Peter, and I had regarding Chrome being such a memory hog, and there's a plugin you can install that disables tabs that aren't active.  Don't remember the name of the utility, perhaps ask Ed (edwood) and/or Peter (iron_dreamer).  The discussion was on Facebook, and I'm vehemently Facebook-tarded regarding searching older threads.

 

Once you do that, you'll definitely be fine with just about anything, if all you do is browse and email and whatnot.

 

Also, a trick I do before I learned of the utility (or rather, still do, because I haven't installed the utility yet) is copy my profile (%LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default) to another directory (backup disk) (while Chrome is down), and then I can close all the tabs.  If I want to come back to them later, I just swap this backup back in (it's all guitar porn and funny pictures and pics of cats and the occasional sexy picture of Oh Land and Kylie, anyway).  And that way I don't lose any of my logged in sessions anywhere.

[guzziguy]

Well, I bought the Asus.  I'm charging the battery now.  The "manuals" are very basic.  The "Quick Start Guide" is a single 6" x 8" sheet of paper folded in half.  The first page is just the title.  There are three instructions (in 5 languages each), one on each of the remaining pages.  The Instructions are:

 

1.  Change your Notebook PC. (for 3hours before first use)

2.  Lift to open the display panel.

3.  Press the Start button.

 

There is a small diagram for each instruction.

 

Hopefully, there will be a canned script to set things up on first power up.  I'll also look for more detailed manuals on line.  The only other "manual" was about warranty information.

 

My current dying PC has a dual core I5-2410M @ 2.3 GHz.  So I doubt that I'll notice any real change in performance.

[Dusty Chalk]

...or a hybrid. 

 

You might notice a small performance boost, due to starting with a new image, but that will be negated by the bloatware, so the first thing I'd do is uninstall all the bloatware.