computers

[rich.]

i use face thingy, its handy for friends & family to see pics of the kids.. as for juice in the keyboard i havent done that.... yet

[JPB]

........anything that has Intel graphics (or AMD/ATI graphics with an AMD processor) won't do "real" games at all.

Intel graphics from GM45 upwards are capable of smooth play but obviously not at the world's most amazing frame rates (down to as low as 11fps in the case of denser sections of GTA - whatever edition they're up to now), but as most notebooks have an extra mini PCI slot where a 3G card can go, a Broadcom GPU can be plugged in and enabled in Synaptic for that slightly less below average game experience. Not that this would matter to me (fingers like potatoes) or the OP (wanting homework machine for his child), and it's still possible to get what is needed in that case for well under £200 with a good bit of life left in it.

When i said the occasional game , they're not 3d..just kids low spec games . Blue ray - not interested . HD -not interested , loud speakers - so long as it can be heard will be ok . Can the toshiba c50 play a cd and dvd as it comes? She will want Word - that'll be £80 on top then?

Any current machine will do HD movies, iplayer content, etc. No need to spend anything on word as Libre Office or open Office "writer" is completely compatible and runs just as well on Windows machines. I see no need to spend more than £300 on something suitable, the industrial examples that Terry mentioned in connection with metal filings getting into the guts of the thing is extreme abuse and both of the LAs for which I currently work spend around that amount for each new bunch of freshers' machines - a mixture of Dell and Meenee most recently - and we rarely get any bother with any of the hundreds that go through the courses with their often somewhat rough treatment so while we get scratched plastics and broken hinges, the cheapies just go on working.

[rich.]

do you know i didnt understand any of that john

[zipgun]

Went looking , i was previously told W8, is , with a touchscreen, lovely..it was .. She liked this ,so did I ..
Must be touch screen , 15" ,with cd / dvd drive ...this fitted the bill ..will i do any better pricewise ? http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-n ... 3-pdt.html

[TerryG]

Not really, it isn't a "bad" spec. It certainly won't be lightning fast or last forever but for a basic machine will do the job.
Windows 8 was designed to be used with a touch-screen so it is certainly more user friendly if you have one. If you have limited PC experience then it is a good route to take. If you have lots of PC experience, it will drive you up the wall.
Personally I see no point in a touch-screen laptop. It has a keyboard and mouse so to touch the screen you have to reach over the keyboard / mouse. Each to their own.
Predicting the future, home PCs will drift towards touch screens and projected / on-screen keyboards, office PCs will retain the keyboard / mouse for a while longer until voice recognition works 100% when keyboards will vanish from the majority of desktops and end up with support staff / developers.

[JPB]

On that machine? Yes, Amazon do that one for a whisker below £404. Only trouble with these as opposed to Dell, Toshiba or Lenovo is that you don't get an OEM dvd included, only a recovery partition that's about as much use as a chocolate teapot if you have to reinstall 8, for example after wiping the HDD following an infection.

It's about as good as it gets for a Windows machine though, and only their use of electrolytic caps made by Toshiba and rated at a fraction of a percent below their actual working voltage prevented the LA considering HP alongside Meenee and Dell when we bought the machines I mentioned earlier. For non-critical use in private hands I believe that HP should do a fair job and they're easy to repair when they need to have furballs removed, which is a routine task in machines that have been used without external cooling and spacing from their surface especially if that surface is the arm of a chair, someone's lap or a bed.

I'd consider one at £404 and Amazon are great at taking things back without question when stuff goes wrong. Currys are not! Trust me, I have discovered this the long way and needed the LA's legal team to get Dad any kind of satisfaction for the warranty work that his 8 month old Samsung laptop needs. I'd let him buy it there because much as I detest Curry's they did the best price for him on that day.

I'm with Terry re touchscreens on laptops though. The non-touch screen Pavilion is very much less expensive from eBuyer or Amazon and is blessed with more RAM and a better processor for a similar, 15.6" version and less to go wrong down the line.

If a touchscreen is a must (really? ) then buy a large tablet and a keyboard for the odd times you'd need that.

[zipgun]

Ooohwa. Didn't know Dell, Toshiba or Lenovo did a 15" touch screen with an optical drive .Bit old fasioned i'm told but we want one for cd and dvd's .None in pc world or currys , apart from the h.p.. This old Dell 3100 i'm on has been pretty good .. i would have another Dell espec if it has a W8 disc with it . Or do Acer do one?

[JPB]

I have no experience of Acer stuff beyond an ancient Travelmate 521TE that used to be Dad's machine and whose original battery has only now started to self discharge after a decade of abuse. They were never exactly high end but that one seems solidly built and still runs XP & MacPup nicely on its feeble 700MHz processor and 512MB RAM, though in the case of that old thing video streaming isn't an option.

Obviously I couldn't suggest in a public forum that you go with the HP if that ticks all of your boxes but then buy yourself an HP brand, OEM copy of 8 from an internet auction site of some sort. Or even a Dell brand one, getting rid of the brand logos is easy once the system's up & running and besides, there's always the option of using decent security and housekeeping products and putting off for as long as possible the length of service you'll get between fresh installs.

Go and have a good play with and feel of the HP in your local Curry's, see how it handles, see how well it responds and smell the plastics, some new ones stink and that's not funny! Then, if you and yours decide that this is definitely the machine you want for her, buy it cheaper from Amazon and enjoy the added security of their warranty. Yes, for me an OEM disc would be a deal breaker but maybe that's because I'd also be a little "constructive" with it.

[Minxy]

I just purchased a HP notebook laptop from

http://www.staples.co.uk/computers-driv ... -computers

Mine is the HP pavilion touchsmart 14 in pearl white, forth row down.

Seemed like good spec for the price but then I know nothing about computers so it might be a pile of poo

Very pleased with it indeed and the colour makes a change from black

[JPB]

That 15.6" Touchsmart at £399.98 is a good buy from Staples but has effectively the same processor as the 2011 Dell Vostro I'm sat behind now and only half of its (upgraded) RAM. I'd consider the option of buying and adding an extra 4GB of RAM to that 15.6" HP if its existing 4GB is only occupying one slot. If that's actually made up from 2x2GB, then that upgrade wouldn't be cost effective unless you were to sell the stock modules at a good price and realistically, you'd see a maximum of £30ish on a good day for a pair of used 2GB PC12800 DDR3 modules. allowing for a potential total cost of the 15.6" machine of around £430-£450 depending on how lucky you'd be with the price of a pair of 4GB modules of RAM to a compatible spec.
Assuming that upgrading in that way isn't an option and all you want to do is switch the thing on and go , then I'd be tempted by the 14" one suggested by Minxy because it comes with 8GB RAM and a processor with a slightly better spec though you'd not notice the latter in general, day-to-day use.

So if you don't mind undoing a screw and spending five minutes swapping RAM then the 15.6" HP is potentially the better buy, but if you want to take the variables around the cost of upgrading that RAM out of the equation and you spend a little extra up front for a machine that's superior in its spec in every way apart from screen size - which wouldn't bother me TBH, and could even be easier to use than a larger display when it's a touchscreen one - then yes, Staples' deal on that 14" machine is a good one.