Options? Laptop or Desktop for home office?

niceirishfella

hi,

Well, My wife needs a new solution for her home office computing as she works from home. The Laptop she has is giving awful trouble so she wants to buy this weekend.

Here's what she wants to do -

Surf the net, use her internal work web based email.
Email off digital work photos for work.
Create word documents for faxes/reports etc.
Print off efaxes and documents to a lazer printer.

Thats it really - that all she does. Should she go for as laptop or desktop as she does'nt have to have a portable machine.
Which is cheaper?
and where to go to buy?
What spec?
I asked her budget and the answer i got was "As little as possible!" She's skint after xmas.;)


Thanks in advance.

Rgds,

NIF

Unregistered.

niceirishfella wrote: »

Surf the net, use her internal work web based email.
Email off digital work photos for work.
Create word documents for faxes/reports etc.
Print off efaxes and documents to a lazer printer.

Thats it really - that all she does. Should she go for as laptop or desktop as she does'nt have to have a portable machine.
Which is cheaper?
and where to go to buy?
What spec?
I asked her budget and the answer i got was "As little as possible!" She's skint after xmas.;)


Thanks in advance.

Rgds,

NIF

Based on your questions, go for a desktop! If you were compare a desktop and a laptop with the same specs from the same manufacturers, then ~99% of the time the desktop will be cheaper. You pay for the mobility of a laptop. plus with the desktop you can use your own monitor or compatible tv, saving a few bob there.
You may find that a netbook may be cheaper than desktops nowadays, but they will be much lower spec and I wouldn't recommend them as practical if she will be doing anything other than surfing the net surfing the net or writing docs. Like storing digital photos for example.

Desktop is your best bet IMO.


U.

niceirishfella

Thanks Unreg,

Appreciate that. Tell me, what brand is best for a desktop?........I heard Dell as poor....true?
Also, Re; Word doc's - will it be expensive to get one with word on it?
And what do I expect to pay for a good desktop?
Thanks.

cmcsoft

I agree, a desktop sounds like the best option for her to be honest. Desktops are realtively cheap at the moment. I wouldn't say Dell are bad, I often recommend them.

This looks like a good machine, comes with a 20 inch monitor.

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?reconfigure=true&vw=list&cart=ActiveCart&id=feca1117-a245-4e2e-8460-f7d74581397c&ecomm=ecomm.euro.dell.com&c=ie&l=en&cs=iedhs1

There is also the inspiron range just below the spec of this range and a bit cheaper

PaddyTheNth

niceirishfella wrote: »

Thanks Unreg,

Appreciate that. Tell me, what brand is best for a desktop?........I heard Dell as poor....true?
Also, Re; Word doc's - will it be expensive to get one with word on it?
And what do I expect to pay for a good desktop?
Thanks.

For a simple business machine it's very hard to beat Dell on price. Adding MS Office for small businesses will add on about €260 ex vat if you get it with the machine from Dell.

A basic Vostro 220 would look after her needs pretty well, although I'd probably upgrade the RAM to 2GB. The bog standard machine with 2GB RAM is €279 and not including Office. A 17 inch widescreen display would set you back €190 from dell...all that is ex VAT though. You might have a look at Lidl/Aldi...they carry decent monitors quite frequently which would cost a bit less.

An alternative to MS Office is Open Office. Open Office programs are a bit slower to startup than the MS equivalent, and don't scale up as well. However OO is free, and I've found its compatibility with MS Office documents is pretty damn good. You can create/edit documents in MS formats as well as read them.

niceirishfella

PaddyTheNth wrote: »

For a simple business machine it's very hard to beat Dell on price. Adding MS Office for small businesses will add on about €260 ex vat if you get it with the machine from Dell.

A basic Vostro 220 would look after her needs pretty well, although I'd probably upgrade the RAM to 2GB. The bog standard machine with 2GB RAM is €279 and not including Office. A 17 inch widescreen display would set you back €190 from dell...all that is ex VAT though. You might have a look at Lidl/Aldi...they carry decent monitors quite frequently which would cost a bit less.

An alternative to MS Office is Open Office. Open Office programs are a bit slower to startup than the MS equivalent, and don't scale up as well. However OO is free, and I've found its compatibility with MS Office documents is pretty damn good. You can create/edit documents in MS formats as well as read them.

Thanks, Re MS open office. If she gets documents by efax lets say in Word doc format, would she be able to open them in OO and print them off?

cmcsoft

niceirishfella wrote: »

Thanks, Re MS open office. If she gets documents by efax lets say in Word doc format, would she be able to open them in OO and print them off?

Yep open office will open word format no problem. Open office has all the basic functionality of MS Office

ttm

niceirishfella wrote: »

hi,

Well, My wife needs a new solution for her home office computing as she works from home. The Laptop she has is giving awful trouble so she wants to buy this weekend.

Here's what she wants to do -

Surf the net, use her internal work web based email.
Email off digital work photos for work.
Create word documents for faxes/reports etc.
Print off efaxes and documents to a lazer printer.

Thats it really - that all she does. Should she go for as laptop or desktop as she does'nt have to have a portable machine.
Which is cheaper?
and where to go to buy?
What spec?
I asked her budget and the answer i got was "As little as possible!" She's skint after xmas.;)


Thanks in advance.

Rgds,

NIF

I'd really want to know what the awlful trouble with the old computer was before spending money on a new one. As an example I have a 4 year old Dell laptop that will do eveything on your list, but fill it full of viruses and malware and you'd want to throw it through a window.

niceirishfella

Well, its always lettin her down. Unrecognising external hardware that is the lazer printer, not recognising the digital camera she wants to use to upload pics from her work stuff to email off. It affecting the ability to get her job done.
I've done all i can, remove drivers and software, reload them to no avail. What else can i do? i'm no expert see.

Its an Acer Aspire laptop btw, about 2 years old.

calex71

niceirishfella wrote: »

Well, its always lettin her down. Unrecognising external hardware that is the lazer printer, not recognising the digital camera she wants to use to upload pics from her work stuff to email off. It affecting the ability to get her job done.
I've done all i can, remove drivers and software, reload them to no avail. What else can i do? i'm no expert see.

Its an Acer Aspire laptop btw, about 2 years old.

Normally wouldnt suggest this without further investigation, but might be better spending time rather than money reinsalling the OS and software needed over the weekend (backing up doc's etc 1st) A clean slate so to speak could give the laptop the kick it needs to be honest rather than just running out and buying a new one.



As I said i normally wouldnt tell someone to do that off the bat like that but over 2 years its bound to be cloggged with crap. And you'd most likely spend more time fixing stuff / removing stuff / reinstalling stuff than you would just reinstalling windows to be honest.


But to answer your question , Id go with a desktop as suggested.


Edit: just a note on the not picking up hardware side of things.

If she unplugs a device from the usb port try to make sure she reconnects it to the same one , i've often seen some things look for drivers if they get plugged into a different port. As for the camera , id'd recommend a card reader as it needs no additional software installed to transfer images

ttm

niceirishfella wrote: »

Well, its always lettin her down. Unrecognising external hardware that is the lazer printer, not recognising the digital camera she wants to use to upload pics from her work stuff to email off. It affecting the ability to get her job done.
I've done all i can, remove drivers and software, reload them to no avail. What else can i do? i'm no expert see.

Its an Acer Aspire laptop btw, about 2 years old.

Back everything up! Get an external USB HDD (100euro) and at least copy my documents to it and export email so you have a backup of most of your stuff. Then double check you have all the CD's you'll need and go and do a full system restore (that will wipe everything so you'll loose anything thats not backed up !!!!!!!), install antivirus upadate it then do a full MS update online, reinstall any apps you have like MS Office and see if the problems are still there? If they are you need a new machine if not you don't.

I am a bit tongue in cheek here but you do need to make sure the digital camera is turned on before the computer will recognise it :P, no honest seen that too often to be funney.

The not seeing printers cameras etc is often a problem with a system thats got in a bit of a mess, I'd uninstall all the devices that don't work and run a free reg cleaner on the system, many of those problems are caused by having multiple (often 100's) of registry entries for the same device.

BUT I'd prefer to do a system restore

niceirishfella

Thanks. I don't think i can do a system resore as i dont have any of the original Cds that same with the laptop.
Tell me more about running a free reg cleaner - can you recommned one online please?
might help.

Ta to all for the help thus far,

NIF

Lazarus2.0

Try hitting Alt + F10 when you turn the laptop on - that should give you access to the recovery partition , from where you can restore the laptop to factory settings . D2D may need to be enabled in BIOS (F2 on startup) for this to work . Do not proceed with the recovery until you have backed up everything you might not want to lose . Magic Jellybean is a handy utility for finding the product key for installed software http://magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/ . It's got to be worth trying if the alternative is going to cost €500 or so ...

Reg cleaners are dangerous things to use . I'd steer clear of them as they wont improve system speed but they can cause a lot of damage .

Unregistered.

If she can hold off for the weekend, then it would be worth trying to fix any issues with the old laptop.
I have a two year old dell, which i recently reclaimed ~ 10GB on the hard that was complete trash, got rid of programs i NEVER use or used once, as well as got rid of unwanted start-ups. It is faster than ever now(since i got rid of startups and background programs that were always there.
I would advise that maybe you guys do the same and see how it goes!

Startup Faster is really useful, I've used it. Clean up registry and temp files using something like McAfee's QuickClean or your A.V. software's equivalent.

A disk-clean up and defragmentation are a must, if you don't already do 'em regularly.

Also, you may find this site useful if you're going for an O.S. reinstall.
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sg_clean.asp

Don't forget to check out dell oulet before you buy!

ttm

nessyguin wrote: »

Reg cleaners are dangerous things to use . I'd steer clear of them as they wont improve system speed but they can cause a lot of damage .

LOL most are nothing like as dangerous as I can be in the registry :rolleyes:

They don't speed anything up much but I didn't think that was the issue? They tend to be a bit conservative as they don't want to make a problem worse but they are better than telling a user who has no idea what the registry is to manually make changes.

Try http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm for one I use as a freebee and hasn't caused me any problems.

Lazarus2.0

ttm wrote: »

LOL most are nothing like as dangerous as I can be in the registry :rolleyes:

They don't speed anything up much but I didn't think that was the issue? They tend to be a bit conservative as they don't want to make a problem worse but they are better than telling a user who has no idea what the registry is to manually make changes.

Try http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm for one I use as a freebee and hasn't caused me any problems.

Most reg cleaners are aggressive , in my experience . I certainly wouldnt describe them as generally conservative . That's not to say the cleaner you recommend falls into that group - I doubt it does , given that you use it on your own PC . However , I'd rather give a user step-by-step instructions on a manual edit than suggesting they download whatever cleaner , run it and click OK to repair the 168 problems found ! Neither option is appealing though

OP , sorry for going off-topic (or at least close to it) but a system recovery will eradicate any registry or other problems - be prepared to run Windows Update ad nauseam if you do go that route though !

PaddyTheNth

ttm wrote: »

They don't speed anything up at all

Fixed that for you.

Use one of you're really having troubles installing a program in case there are any strange conflicts going on, or if you've got left over context menu entries/start menu options which you can't get rid of, but don't use them in an attempt to speed things up.

niceirishfella

nessyguin wrote: »

Most reg cleaners are aggressive , in my experience . I certainly wouldnt describe them as generally conservative . That's not to say the cleaner you recommend falls into that group - I doubt it does , given that you use it on your own PC . However , I'd rather give a user step-by-step instructions on a manual edit than suggesting they download whatever cleaner , run it and click OK to repair the 168 problems found ! Neither option is appealing though

OP , sorry for going off-topic (or at least close to it) but a system recovery will eradicate any registry or other problems - be prepared to run Windows Update ad nauseam if you do go that route though !

Thanks, but can i run a windows update if i don't have the original Cd's that came with the machine?

Lazarus2.0

That goes back to whether you can access a recovery partition by holding down Alt and tapping F10 when you first switch the laptop on . If you can do that then you can restore your laptop to how it was on the day you bought it .
Again , bear in mind that you will lose everything you have put on the laptop yourself , including any software you may have purchased/installed since then , as well as photos , documents , etc. See post #13 for a tool that will identify your product key for installed software such as MS Office etc .

It might be an idea to try accessing the recovery partition (you can exit without proceeding) as if it's not present I'm leading you on a wild goose chase !

ttm

So did you buy a new one, fix the old one or just put up with the problems?

niceirishfella

Hi,

Thanks for asking. Well, currently putting up with the problem.
I have been advised that its probably a usb hardware failure on my acer laptop thats to blame - and to fix it will not be economically viable - anyone ever hear of this or am I getting a sales man pitch here to buy a new one?

ttm

Yes the USB can go on a laptop and not cause any other problems (very rare) but just try plugging in a USB mouse or USB keyboard to check if the ports are working. Unless Windows is well screwed up then it will detect and use its own USB drivers for the mouse and work without any user intervention. Also you can see if a USB keyboard does the same and if the ports are OK and the option is on in the BIOS then you should be able to test the USB port by seeing if the USB keyboard can be used to enter and change the BIOS during boot up - if it does this then its doing it before Windows is loaded so the problem is probably down to Windows. (Thats the techie may be may be not perhaps use of the word "probably" means Im sure but just in case I'll include some conditionality :D:D)

Decent Technicians will given advice quite freely but they are in demand therefore rarely found seling computers so I doubt if the salesman had a "Bulls Notion" of what he was on about.