New laptop - need speed

AnnRo

Hi

I have a neighbour with a laptop with a celeron chip, 1GB memory, and Windows Vista - about 3 years old. It is crawling - even opening emails & word documents and he wants me to look for a new laptop. He said he wants speed - price not a problem if it solves speed problem. I've been looking at PCWorld web site.

SAMSUNG RF511 15.6" Laptop - 749euro

• Intel® Core™ i5-2450M processor
• Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• Memory: 8GB
• Hard drive: 1TB

SONY Vaio VPCEJ2B1E/B.CEK 17.3" Laptop - Black - 849euro

• Intel® Core™ i5-2430M processor
• Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• Memory: 6GB
• Hard drive: 500GB

This laptop would be used for Email, internet, music and Microsoft Office.

Any opinions or other options.

I want to buy in a shop near him (which is PCWorld) so he can go back himself with it if there are any problems.

Thanks.

Alanstrainor

Both laptops are completely overkill imo.

An i3 with 4GB of RAM and any size hard drive would be fine. He honestly will not be able to see the difference between a 500 machine with specs similar to what I mentioned, and the machines you mentioned above. Spending 7/8 quid is ridiculous.

Hell, I bet if you were to upgrade the RAM to 4GB and reinstall vista the machine he currently has would fly.

JustAddWater

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Hell, I bet if you were to upgrade the RAM to 4GB and reinstall vista the machine he currently has would fly.

Or upgrade the RAM and upgrade OS to windows 7

Vista is a huge part of your problem

The celeron is the other...

anything with i5 or even i3 processors are more than fine and for a vista/celeron user they'll notice a huge jump in performance and speed

You have a few options depending on how much you want to spend

BostonB

AnnRo wrote: »

...even opening emails & word documents and he wants me to look for a new laptop....

A celeron with 2MB ram would do that no problem. No point upgrading an old machine though.

But as the other say, he simply needs a new laptop. Even a new basic i3 machine would be like lightening in comparison.

Look for a deal on Microsoft Office. Check version compatibly issues, for how they are using it though.

Once the data's off the old machine sell it. Or keep it as a slow backup.

AnnRo

Thanks people for all your replies.

I know celeron and vista are the main problems but i think even upgrading RAM on this will not make much difference and he is fed up now so he is willing to buy. I'll have a look at the i3 - found this one - what do you think?

TOSHIBA Satellite C660-1LD 15.6" Laptop - 499euro

Intel® Core™ i3-380M processor
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Memory: 4GB
Hard drive: 640GB

There is a Lenova but I don't know anything about this brand - anybody know?

I'll clear the old laptop once I have everything moved off it and restore to factory settings - should speed it up so he can pass it on.

Thanks again.

BostonB

Someone one in the family has a old celeron laptop, 1.6 I think with 2GB of ram and is grand for office and web browsing. Its on XP and kept clean though. Just MSE. I expect W7 would be just as good. another has a dual core 2, 1.6 and 2GB and its the same. No problems with day to day stuff at all.

Thats said a new machine has other advantages, better screen, battery, hd space USB2/3, DVDRW new OS licence, warranty etc.

BostonB

Lenovo and TOSHIBA are two of the better/best brands for Windows laptops. I have no experience of that Laptop though.