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- Joined
- 21 Jun 2011
- Posts
- 1,448
Hello folks,
My good lady wife has an ancient laptop that takes ~20 mins to reach 'vaguely usable' in Vista and complains hugely if you ask it to do something unreasonable, like open the start menu.
She wants to replace it. Current budget is max ~£400.
Uses:
- Getting pictures off phone + cameras + sorting and storing them, limited editing and making photobooks.
- iTunes
- Document editing (usual office stuff, word excel powerpoint)
- web browsing for anything that would be too annoying to use a smartphone for.
NOT required:
- Video editing
- Gaming
- Major computational tasks
So basically, content consumption plus some photo/office stuff.
Based on a visit to PC world (for a hands-on, try some keyboards and trackpads etc) we shortlisted as follows:
HP Stream 13.3"
Pros:
£229 - cheap
Light, attractive (despite my wife being a highly intelligent scientist, a brightly coloured laptop is apparently still a very persuasive thing).
Decent battery life
Should (I think) be 'good enough' for what's needed
All our photos etc are stored on a NAS so should be no problem using it for her photo stuff, but I've heard the wireless is not the best in these?
eMMC - SSD-like speed (compared to a slow mechanical, anyway)
Cons:
Only 2Gb RAM, Celeron processor, might choke if we try and do something beyond the simple
Screen is not amazing
Limited storage - 64Gb minus OS, only expandable by SD card. note: most sites list 32Gb, PCW state 64Gb and I understand the french models are all 64Gb so not sure on this.
HP Stream 14 - not tried one (none in stock anywhere) - is it worth going for this over the 13.3?
Acer Aspire E5-571 (Core i3 4005U, 4Gb RAM, 500Gb Hdd)
Pros:
More complete, higher power
Bigger screen
Cons:
Substnatially more expensive (£379)
Mechanical hard drive - likely slow
We also looked at a couple of HP Pavilion models in this price range, but they are quite similar spec to the Acer, with generally worse reviews (screen and touchpad, usually the negatives).
What do you think?
Will the user experience from the cheaper 'winbook' HP Stream options be better than a budget laptop?
Would you recommend something else in this price range?
Thanks for the time taken.
Edit: forgot to say, I will be stripping the old one down, adding an SSD and re-installing windows fresh, but am forbidden to do so until the replacement is in position.
My good lady wife has an ancient laptop that takes ~20 mins to reach 'vaguely usable' in Vista and complains hugely if you ask it to do something unreasonable, like open the start menu.
She wants to replace it. Current budget is max ~£400.
Uses:
- Getting pictures off phone + cameras + sorting and storing them, limited editing and making photobooks.
- iTunes
- Document editing (usual office stuff, word excel powerpoint)
- web browsing for anything that would be too annoying to use a smartphone for.
NOT required:
- Video editing
- Gaming
- Major computational tasks
So basically, content consumption plus some photo/office stuff.
Based on a visit to PC world (for a hands-on, try some keyboards and trackpads etc) we shortlisted as follows:
HP Stream 13.3"
Pros:
£229 - cheap
Light, attractive (despite my wife being a highly intelligent scientist, a brightly coloured laptop is apparently still a very persuasive thing).
Decent battery life
Should (I think) be 'good enough' for what's needed
All our photos etc are stored on a NAS so should be no problem using it for her photo stuff, but I've heard the wireless is not the best in these?
eMMC - SSD-like speed (compared to a slow mechanical, anyway)
Cons:
Only 2Gb RAM, Celeron processor, might choke if we try and do something beyond the simple
Screen is not amazing
Limited storage - 64Gb minus OS, only expandable by SD card. note: most sites list 32Gb, PCW state 64Gb and I understand the french models are all 64Gb so not sure on this.
HP Stream 14 - not tried one (none in stock anywhere) - is it worth going for this over the 13.3?
Acer Aspire E5-571 (Core i3 4005U, 4Gb RAM, 500Gb Hdd)
Pros:
More complete, higher power
Bigger screen
Cons:
Substnatially more expensive (£379)
Mechanical hard drive - likely slow
We also looked at a couple of HP Pavilion models in this price range, but they are quite similar spec to the Acer, with generally worse reviews (screen and touchpad, usually the negatives).
What do you think?
Will the user experience from the cheaper 'winbook' HP Stream options be better than a budget laptop?
Would you recommend something else in this price range?
Thanks for the time taken.
Edit: forgot to say, I will be stripping the old one down, adding an SSD and re-installing windows fresh, but am forbidden to do so until the replacement is in position.
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