Laptop , Cloudbook or Chromebook ?

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
Any advice on which sort to buy greatly received ......

Need to get a new Laptop as this one is going so slow. Got no idea what I'm looking for. Just looked on the Argos site and it's brought up Cloudbooks , Chrome books and Laptops...... Never even heard of Cloudbooks and Chromebooks before!

Which one is best to go for ? Just use it mostly for browsing websites , banking, emailing , Word & Excel , Watching football on Amazon Prime and linking to printer/scanner to print off and scan documents to pdf.

(Need to be able to plug a mouse into it as well , as I hate trying to use the pad on the laptop. )
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
If you're used to windows then stick to a real laptop, whats your budget? I'll have a look around if I know the ballpark to aim for.
 

proactive

Enjoying a drop of red.
Chromebooks all the way. If you have an Android smartphone, which I think you do, then you can use a Chromebook easy as it's all based on the Google Chrome web browser. Easy to use, never goes wrong, updates on it's own without getting in the way and cheap as chips compared to a Windows laptop.

Ideal for email, web browsing, internet shopping and light office work.
 

Sk84goal

Well-Known Forumite
Any advice on which sort to buy greatly received ......

Need to get a new Laptop as this one is going so slow. Got no idea what I'm looking for. Just looked on the Argos site and it's brought up Cloudbooks , Chrome books and Laptops...... Never even heard of Cloudbooks and Chromebooks before!

Which one is best to go for ? Just use it mostly for browsing websites , banking, emailing , Word & Excel , Watching football on Amazon Prime and linking to printer/scanner to print off and scan documents to pdf.

(Need to be able to plug a mouse into it as well , as I hate trying to use the pad on the laptop. )


Make sure you check that the operating system of the device you choose supports the printer/scanner you have. Having to buy / not buy a new printer can sometimes change your initial choice ;)
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Never even heard of Cloudbooks and Chromebooks before!
Get with the times.

I got a Cloud Book in Oxfam - only thirty bob and I haven't had to charge it since.

DSC_0116.JPG
 

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
Thanks for replies @tek-monkey , @proactive & @Sk84goal .

Not sure on budget til hubby gets home and finds out we're buying one :D but nothing too expensive . He was planning on us buying one as a joint xmas present to each other , but don't think this one will last that long!

Only just bought a new printer , so good point about making sure it supports that @Sk84goal

Just accidentally woke son up after his late shift (oops) and he's advised to stick with a laptop. He knows when we do buy one he's going to have to take it over remotely again and get it set up properly for us.
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
Personally I'd go with a laptop, and max out your budget if you can and go for a 17 inch screen minimum and the best spec you can get. But this is purely a personal choice.

My laptop is now 7 years old, but I went for a Samsung Quosmio Gaming laptop at the time. 15 seconds from power on to logon screen for Windows 10, core I7, 16 Gigs RAM and operating system on an M2 solid state disk that plugs directly into the motherboard. Two normal disk drive bays available for SSD drives for data. Plenty of USB 3 ports and both VGA and HDMI video ports, (I used to watch Netflix on it via my pre-smart TV back when I got it.)
At that time it was single band WiFi but upgrading it to dual band was easy, just plug in a small replacement card onto the motherboard and away it went.

I'm not saying you need a gaming laptop, they are quite expensive. I'm not a gamer my self but I like the response of this machine and I followed the rule that if you're buying a laptop, buy the highest spec you can afford. They last longer, are upgradeable, and a pleasure to to use. (Keyboards for example vary mightily in quality.)

When I bought it Windows 8 was the operating system, something of an abortion in my opinion. But it sucked in Windows 10 without a hitch and it's behaved well ever since..
 

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
Personally I'd go with a laptop, and max out your budget if you can and go for a 17 inch screen minimum and the best spec you can get. But this is purely a personal choice.

My laptop is now 7 years old, but I went for a Samsung Quosmio Gaming laptop at the time. 15 seconds from power on to logon screen for Windows 10

Gosh , mines taking about half an hour to even get to logon screen. Took over an hour to get a website up earlier. Left it running to try to to get 4 websites up whilst out at the chemist and only just started loading them when I got back.

Son has come to visit tonight and has looked at laptop. Apparently got several anti-virus programs running together (which I thought I'd deleted ) as well as Malwarebytes scanning about 7 times a day . I thought I'd only got it programmed to run on start--up. And when I looked at schedule that's all I saw on there....son has found a page showing it's got multiple scans scheduled each day.

He's now knocked off all the antivirus not needed , as well as a host of other stuff which has been constantly running , with the storage capacity thingy previously being 100% full.. Now working quicker than it was ....

He's told me to look for a laptop with SDD rather than HDD , and a high Ram (was it ..?? )
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
SSD = Solid State Drive. No whirly bits inside, faster.
RAM = Random Access Memory. 8 Gbytes minimum for Windows.
Older versions of Windows were 32 bit so could only address a range 4 Gbytes of RAM (2 to the power of 32.)
Modern versions are 64 bit (2 to the power of 64) which is a gigantic number. Here RAM limit is set by the motherboard, usually 8, 16 and 32 Gbytes. You want at least 8 for Windows, the more the merrier.
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
I'm assuming you're running Windows. It's quite often useful to look at the performance now and again via the 'Task Manager.' If you press Cttrl + Alt + Del simultaneously you'll be able to click on 'Task Manager.' This can be very useful for examining what your computer is up to. There are several Tabs but if you click on 'Performance' you get a graphical representation of how busy the CPU is, (it was probably going flat out before your son cleared out all the unwanted stuff) and how much of your RAM memory is being used in real time and several other things. :)
 

Glam

Mad Cat Woman
It really depends on what you need to accomplish with your laptop.

If you want to do simple web browsing, emails, or editing documents/presentations/etc. (And you don't use the Microsoft suite) I strongly recommend a Chromebook.

ChromeOS is very lightweight, therefore it can run on lower hardware. And this means a cheaper price, so Chromebooks are really good for the budget-oriented.

If you want to do anything else, (programming, gaming, etc.) then get a Windows laptop.

(Link removed).
Don't click that link! Your computer will get the clap!
 
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FreeITstafford

Well-Known Forumite
Our guys will give you reasons why each one of those is the best. Some of them will even recommend macbooks. 🤮

Save yourself a ton of money and give what you have a bit of an update.

Have your current drive cloned on to an SSD, things will be exactly as you left them but you will be blown away by the speed difference.

Buy an extra stick of RAM if there's a spare slot for it, or buy one that's double the capacity of what's there.

If your lad is competent, those are fairly easy to replace. Or pay the 'computer nerd next door' some beer money.

Total cost call it around 100 squids. And it will be just as good as new.
 
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FreeITstafford

Well-Known Forumite
(Plug)
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