Ask Slashdot: How Do You Choose a Windows Laptop?

jfruhlinger writes "I'm a Mac guy. When our 2004-era Windows XP laptop, which was used primarily by my wife, died last summer, I got myself a new MacBook Pro and she inherited my still serviceable 2008 MacBook. But after about six months, she hasn't gotten used to it, and wants a Windows machine. I don't have an ideological problem with this — it'd be her computer, and we've got a bit of money stashed away to pay for it. But trying to pick one out is my job, and I find the the whole process bewildering. Apple's product differentiation is great at defeating the paradox of choice — you have a few base models, the difference between which is quite obvious, and you can customize each. The Windows world seems totally different. Even once I've settled on a vendor for a Windows laptop (something I haven't done yet), each seems to have a bewildering array of product lines with similar specs. Often models that you find in electronics or office supply stores that seem promising in terms of form factor are exclusive to those stores and can't be found online. Obviously people do navigate this process, but I'm just feeling out of my depth. How would Slashdotters go about picking a solid, basic laptop for Web surfing and document editing that won't be obsolete in two years?"

Comments

Just use the hardware you have

[imashination]

Just install windows on the mac?

Re:Just use the hardware you have

[jedidiah]

> Just install windows on the mac?

That only works if you don't despise Apple keyboards.

Try using the thing first. Then work from there.

Re:Just use the hardware you have

[erroneus]

Yeah, that's probably the best answer of all. Just run Windows on it. Also, I might say "make it dual boot" so that she has something to fall back on when her machine gets trashed and/or unusable... as we all know it will.

Re:Just use the hardware you have

[mjwx]

Yeah, that's probably the best answer of all. Just run Windows on it. Also, I might say "make it dual boot" so that she has something to fall back on when her machine gets trashed and/or unusable... as we all know it will.

Actually it's about the worst answer.

1. the laptop is 2.5 years old. The battery will be almost gone and there will likely be other HW issues developing.

2. the wife does not like it.

I can tell that everyone suggesting you just put Windows on the Mac has never been married, or probably had a LT girlfriend but if the wife wants something, a half arsed solution like slapping Windows on top of it wont help, in fact it will make things a lot worse.

My advice for the OP, let the wife choose. Pick about 5 different models that you know are good (Dell Latitude, Lenovo Thinkpad, Asus and Toshiba, wife will probably like the look of the Asus) put some pictures into a document and let her pick which one she wants. That way the onus is on her to like it, having her make the decision reduces the likelihood that she'll turn around and blame you for any issues (as she is currently doing with the Mac).

Re:Just use the hardware you have

[Mr. DOS]

...so that guys like you don't know the difference.

Then please explain: in implementation (on either platform), what is the functional difference between Enter and Return?

the windows key is useless, no one really uses it.

Unless you're 1) on Windows and 2) like saving time. In my case, Win+E and Win+R get used multiple times per hour, Win+L gets used every time I leave my desk, and Win+Pause is one of the first things I hit when I start work on someone else's computer.

Also, one thing that hasn't been brought up yet (that I've seen) is the misbehaving Home and End keys. They're supposed to move the input cursor to the beginning and end of the current line of input, not... whatever it is they do under OS X – I've never managed to figure out exactly what that is.

Re:Just use the hardware you have

[LodCrappo]

"I can tell that everyone suggesting you just put Windows on the Mac has never been married, or probably had a LT girlfriend but..."

Don't know what kind of women you are dating, but your impression of women as irrational things that should be manipulated so as not to blame you in the future sounds awful.

Re:Just use the hardware you have

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is the best bit of advice in the thread. I went through the same thing 3 years ago. The laptops my wife had previous were all "serviceable" laptops she inherited from me or some junk I was able to get working at the time. She hated nearly all of them which was pretty understandable. Finally the time came and I just took her to Best Buy and let her look at them, feel the keys, see how the size of the screen looked, get a feel for the physical item. I did some research beforehand so I knew which laptops had lower ratings based on a legitimate gripe and told her that those were garbage, but other than that I cut her loose and told her to just pick out whichever one she wanted. She ended up grabbing an HP Net book. She still raves to people about that thing to this day.

I think part of it is that she picked it out for herself, but another part of it is that I would never have bought her that net book. The mouse buttons on the track pad are off to the right and left side instead of being on the bottom. I don't see how anyone can deal with that. The way she operates the keyboard and mouse somehow make sense with the design and really, I think this is the most important aspect of buying a laptop for a normal user. Seriously, longevity on any laptop is going to be somewhat of a crap shoot. Things like solid state/normal, 3 vs 4 GB RAM, number of USB Ports probably won't make a bit a difference to the average user in the long run. Get her a laptop that has the physical feel and OS she is comfortable with. If she is a responsible person the odds are that everything will be just fine with it.

Re:Just use the hardware you have

[Anonymous Coward]

"I can tell that everyone suggesting you just put Windows on the Mac has never been married, or probably had a LT girlfriend but..."

Don't know what kind of women you are dating, but your impression of women as irrational things that should be manipulated so as not to blame you in the future sounds awful.

Not sure why you see manipulation in this suggestion.

Having been in an academic tech support job for a bunch of years (and an equally long-term relationship) and having shepherded though thousands of purchases and then supported those devices, I've found giving the person who'll actually be using a thing (laptop, printer, gps, phone, &c.) a set of known-good options and letting them decide is a great practice. If they really want you to pick it for them they'll usually say so.

Users who select their own systems are almost always happier with the item than those who have a thing forced on them by a know-it-all tech, a CYA policy, purchasing department dictum; or even by their caring, technically adept support service provider, who knows The Best Thing, because it's the thing they (the aforementioned ctassp) would most like to have kicking around the house, office, or department.

So irrespective of personal relationship to the end user, or gender of same, it's just good advice.

Re:Just use the hardware you have

[shikaisi]

Buy the three pack and split it with a couple of friends?

Friends don't give friends MS Windows.

Why hasn't she gotten used to it?

[thinbits]

You say "she hasn't gotten used to it, and wants a Windows machine". Do you mean she hasn't gotten used to Mac OS X and wants to use Windows? Just use Boot Camp and install Windows on your MacBook, problem solved. If you mean she is using Windows on your MacBook and there is something about the MacBook itself she doesn't like, perhaps you should elaborate on what specifically it is she doesn't like about the hardware as that's probably something you should take into account in your next purchase.

Two Words: Screen Resolution

[kdekorte]

These days almost all laptops have sucky screen resolution (13xx x 768). Particularly at the 14" and 15" sizes. Find a machine with a decent screen and you'll find a decent laptop. A few months ago I got my wife a HP Envy 14 with the 1600x900 screen, i5 CPU, and 4GB RAM. Suites her needs quite nicely.

It doesn't matter

[DogDude]

It really doesn't matter which one you pick, unless you're running some kind of new-ish games on it, or something else that's super CPU or video intensive. The hardware is so ahead of what's needed for most people at this point, that just about anything made within the past 10 years works fine for most purposes. When I'm buying PC's (or laptops) for my company, I just find some refurbished model that has 2-4 GB RAM, and a decent hard drive. The rest of the specs really don't matter unless you have very specific needs. I don't know why a PC would be "obsolete" in the literal sense. Most of my PC's and laptops and servers were all made in the early 2000's and all run Windows XP and all do everything I need them to do just fine. I generally shoot for $300-400 for a laptop.

Latitude or Thinkpad

[Animal Farm Pig]

Just buy a Latitude or Thinkpad. You can't go terribly wrong with either.

Business laptop

[loosescrews]

Almost all consumer laptops are terrible. Get a business laptop if you want something that is any good. Some examples are HP's EliteBook and ProBook lines, Dell's Precision and Latitude lines, and Lenovo's ThinkPad line. Generally speaking, if a laptop doesn't have a trackpoint/pointing stick, it isn't worth having. It doesn't matter if you want to use it or not, it is a good indication of the quality of a laptop. Business laptops generally have: Better Battery life Better reliability No crapware More durable designs Higher performance Better keyboards and Anti-Glare screens Better conductivity and support for a docking station Better and longer warranties

You left out the obvious information

[PCM2]

First question to ask yourself is: What does your wife want to do with her Windows laptop?

• Does she carry it around a lot? Take it to the gym in her purse? Look for models with smaller screens that are lightweight.
• How much does she use it while she's on the go? If the answer is "a lot," then maybe you want to look for models with features designed to wring the most life out of the battery, which includes LED backlit screens and solid-state drives.
• Does she like to play CDs and DVDs on her computer? Make sure it's got an optical drive, then (which can increase size and weight).
• What applications does she use? Do they use a lot of RAM? Does she keep all her data on her laptop hard drive? Make sure she has enough RAM and storage (or make sure it's upgradeable).
• Does she pretty much leave it sitting at home all day like a desktop? Maybe she wants a model with a bigger screen, and maybe battery life isn't important.
• Does she do a lot of gaming? Look at models marketed to that audience.

There are a bunch more factors you can consider (for example, maybe you're not planning to give Sony any more money). But until we know what your wife wants a Windows laptop for, it's pretty difficult to point you in any specific direction.

BTW, you might want to make sure she's comfortable with Windows 7, too. If all she wants is Windows XP, you might skip the stores and start looking other places (eBay, Craigslist).

Re:easy

[rolfwind]

?

Buy a MS Notebook, complain about having to pay the Windoze tax, install Linux, configure several small but nonfunctioning items (buttons) for several hours, wonder why it doesn't go out of sleep/hibernation smoothly, rave how awesome Linux is while having Windows booted so you can play that one game you like or use that one piece software that doesn't run on Wine? /jk

Re:Lenovo

[lophophore]

I will throw out my vote for ThinkPads.

If you travel through a major airport, and watch the business people go through security, you will see a ton of ThinkPads. Why? The damn things are nearly indestructible. When it came time to buy my kid a laptop for college, we looked at the deals the school had (a major university) and they had Mac, Dell, and Lenovo. My kid now is using a Lenovo T510 with an i5 and Windows 7. Her friends' Dell machines have all had to be serviced in the first semester. That's right, the Dells did not even make it through a semester.

At work they recently bought me a fancy-schmancy Dell notebook. I compared the build quality to my personally-owned T61 Thinkpad, and thought to myself "this Dell is junk". The Dell did not make it three months before it had to be serviced. I've been using my three year old T61 for the duration, and I cannot imagine why the three year old $1000 thinkpad is superior in almost every way to the brand new $1000 Dell laptop.

Here's another thought. Just like cheap tools are not worth the money, unless you plan to use them only once... cheap laptops are not worth the money, either. Buy a commercial strength unit. Don't buy a consumer-class laptop. You can usually tell the difference by looking for a docking connector. The consumer class laptops don't have a dock, the commercial strength ones do. Sure, it is a few more bucks up front, but after a couple years the consumer grade laptops are junk, but the commercial ones are still kicking.

Good luck with your purchase.

Re:But...

[sessamoid]

You didn't read any more than title did you? She already has a 2008 Mac notebook (which by definition has to be Intel based and therefore Windows compatible).