Want to buy a laptop to write a book

Fionne

I've always been threatening to write a novel, or at least attempt it. I've been looking at the laptops on Dell's website (a friend has one and loves it) but I'm a bit clueless when it comes to what memory, etc I need. I would need it to have Microsoft Word I guess so not sure if 2GB memory is enough, 500GB Hard Drive.

I really just want the laptop purely for writing on, have tried writing longhand but it's just too darn slow and the length of time to go from brain to paper is too long and I forget half what I'd meant to write.

I also won't be carrying it around much so a bigger, heavier one is fine. I remember someone on the radio saying that heavier models are sometimes cheaper?

Any suggestions/recommendations?

Alanstrainor

FonE wrote: »

I've always been threatening to write a novel, or at least attempt it. I've been looking at the laptops on Dell's website (a friend has one and loves it) but I'm a bit clueless when it comes to what memory, etc I need. I would need it to have Microsoft Word I guess so not sure if 2GB memory is enough, 500GB Hard Drive.

I really just want the laptop purely for writing on, have tried writing longhand but it's just too darn slow and the length of time to go from brain to paper is too long and I forget half what I'd meant to write.

I also won't be carrying it around much so a bigger, heavier one is fine. I remember someone on the radio saying that heavier models are sometimes cheaper?

Any suggestions/recommendations?

How much do you want to spend?

Bigger machines aren't necessarily cheaper, perhaps in days gone by this would be the case, but generally that isn't the case these days.

However if this is a laptop that will spend its time sitting on a desk then bigger would be better. Having a larger screen would be nicer to sit in front of.

Something like this would be a good choice:

http://www.dell.com/ie/p/inspiron-17-5759-laptop/pd?ref=PD_OC

The one for 679 would be the best choice here. 8GB of RAM is what you should be aiming for, although for your usage anything should be fine. The main thing you should look for is a nice screen and comfortable keyboard. Both of which should be covered well with the above.

mordeith

As said above, a good screen and keyboard are the essential components here. Ideally you would need to physically try out keyboard first. I have a PC Specialist laptop and while it's mostly for gaming and music production I am also attempting to write a book. The keyboard is far too soft for accurate typing though. My old Dell had a much better keyboard.

Shapey Fiend

Any old computer will do for word processing.

However cheap modern laptops tend to have horrible keyboards.

I'd buy an old Thinkpad off ebay cos they have the best keyboards.

Then just remember to back up to the cloud with Dropbox or whatever because you don't want to lose your work for any reason!