Advice for a girl that wants to be clued up.

[Peekachuuu]

Hey guys, girls more superior. Please share your knowledge with me. I'll start off with saying this is a relatively long post so please don't skip through and write tl;dr hahaha. So I had a mac. It was a present before you point fingers Due to fate/bad luck/natures's way of saying you can do better, the laptop is no longer user friendly. During the next month and a half I would like to purchase a new laptop. This is where you guys come in. I am not clued up. I used to be someone who would look at a laptop or camera and want to buy it based on face value and over the past while I've been made aware that there is much, much more to look for. I'm still kind of confused and know there is a lot to learn but what should I be looking for when purchasing a new laptop? I want to get value for my money. I would like to buy a second hand one and my price range maxes out at R4000. I don't want a little notebook laptop and would prefer a standard size one. What is a good make? What make should I avoid? What specs should I be looking out for? I would be using the laptop for standard use: doing assignments, browsing the web, I'd like a built in camera but it isn't a must-have, rather a would-like-to-have, also I'd like to play LoL here and there on it too. If you have any advice or anything you can share with me I'd be more than grateful maybe I'd even share a pokeball with you but probably not thanks for taking the time to read this, I hope it didn't give you aids Sweet! X

 

[Joshua_Weiss]

Samsung, lenovo,Asus and acer.
Those are my preffered brands.

Specs: for about R4 k you could prob get
i3-i5
500 gig HDD
15" screen
2-4 gigs ram

Hope that helps, each brand has their advantages

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4

 

[Joshua_Weiss]

http://www.carbonite.co.za/showthread.php?p=413363

This is pretty nice

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[4567319]

Eish. Read that whole thing and might need to get tested now..

Most laptops are fine these days. I have a small IT consultancy that also sells hardware on request and the only laptops with a higher than average return rate are the Lenovo's.

Things to look out for:

1. Warranty. Laptops can be expensive to fix so make sure that you have about 3 months to test it and get it sorted out if you find something odd.
2. Dedicated graphics. You might be able to find something with dedicated graphics if you shop around long enough. Laptops that don't advertise amd or NVidia graphics usually run with slow Intel gfx that battle with most games.

Its best if you post the name & model number of anything that you are interested in here so all the forum members can chip in with advice.

 

[Peekachuuu]

Thanks! Much appreciated! Josh I'm still trying to figure out what HDD means? Do you mind explaining i3 i5, how ram works. Laugh away if you must

 

[Off-The-Chart]

we don't easily laugh at some1 when they come ask for advice/help... we do, however, when they start questioning the advice/help given to them...

if you are not familiar with terms or what specifically to look at, maybe give an indication of what you would like to do, or what you plan to do with it...

this way the guys responding can give exact details on what you will need and maybe even link to ones that may be available here...

doing assignments, browsing the web, I'd like a built in camera but it isn't a must-have, rather a would-like-to-have, also I'd like to play LoL here and there on it too

 

[Peekachuuu]

As mentioned before, I don't understand the terms. How am I supposed to know what cpu does? Or is? Or the best ram? I don't know. I'm not questioning the advice, I'm asking what it means so I can understand what he's talking about. It's all very well looking around for the specs provided, which I will. But I'd also like to learn in the process.

 

[crackOlicious]

Eish, best you perhaps Google a few answers to find out how a pc.... er computer works. You know Google right? Sorry if I sound rude but it's not often a new member comes here not even knowing the simplest of acronyms for pc parts.

Good luck with the learning part though

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[Off-The-Chart]

my apologies... that comment wasn't aimed AT you... you would be surprised at how many people come and ask for advice/help, and then question what they are given, so again, not aimed at you...

and then by all means, if you would like to learn what each thing does, no problem... I just thought that if you don't already know what the things do, explaining it may get a bit long and drawn out,
when all you need to know about what to get, could already be provided for you...

following for example the link that Joshua provided, you could get a rough estimate of what you would be looking at.

Dell Inspiron core i3-2365, 2Gb Ram, 500Gb HDD, 15.6" screen with numerical keyboard, Windows 8

that is from Joshua's link provided so:
Dell Inspiron < brand
core i3-2365 < would be your CPU/processor
2Gb Ram < would be your memory/RAM
500Gb HDD < would be your HDD (hard drive, where you store things)
15.6" screen < your screen size

 

[Peekachuuu]

Vitriolic is my bf and yet I know absolutely nothing about computers I have heard of google but sometimes it's nicer to speak to someone. Reading some articles now so hopefully I'll be clued up about the basics soon

 

[Peekachuuu]

Oh and if anyone knows any good websites/articles that are good reads for beginners plox don't hesitate to let me know.