Laptop recommendations

[outside60]

We are looking to buy our youngest (8 yo) son a laptop for Christmas. It will mainly be used for entertainment and school work which will involve researching Internet sites and writing reports with Word. He is not a gamer. I would love to keep it around $400. I am leaning toward Windows 7 over Windows 8. Any opinions (good or bad) or recommendations on the various brands out there such as Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba or any other brand would be appreciated. Is there any reason why I should not buy an AMD processor? If we get a 64 bit OS then should our current 32 bit MS Office work on it. Do prices drop dramatically after Christmas? Any recommended on line sites? Any and all general comments, opinions and recommendations will be appreciated.

TIA

[Sandee]

I just bought my self one and I called a local repair technician for his recommendation and he said toshiba hands down. They have far fewer repair problems. That was good enough for me so I went to Wal Mart and got mine for $358.

[Hootmon]

I am leaning toward Windows 7 over Windows 8.

Train the youngunwith modern things. Get Win 8 on a new machine.

Any opinions (good or bad) or recommendations on the various brands out there such as Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba or any other brand would be appreciated.

Toshiba, Asus...

Is there any reason why I should not buy an AMD processor?

Not if performance isnt your primary concern, and cost is. AMD costs less then Intell, all else considered.

If we get a 64 bit OS then should our current 32 bit MS Office work on it.

Yes, though 64-bit software will be better performing on a 64-bit OS than 32-bit software, on average.

[Tall Timbers]

I remember a long time ago when I bought my first notebook from Sager. I had to return it twice. Finally, I just asked for a refund. Both that they had sent me were effectively DOA. At some point along the way I bought an HP notebook. It was wonderful. It is ancient now, and despite an old dead battery, will boot right up when plugged in and allow you to work away. Since then I've just purchased HP notebooks for the family and have never had a problem. Dells, Sonys, are good too, Asus, Toshiba, also. I imagine that so long as there is no defect in the notebook then you'll be happy with it. If there is a defect, then good luck... Since a Chinese company bought Lenovo from IBM... well I just don't trust the quality of things that originate from China. A lot of the other stuff is put together there, but to the specs of a different country's corporation. I don't really know about Acer notebooks, but have six of their larger flat screen monitors, which I like. For desktops, I recommend custom build as opposed to Dells, HPs, etc.

I agree with Hootman, by all means get the child Win 8. It's both the present and the future, like it or not. From my brief experience it is an exceptional OS under a poorly thought out interface.

A newer intel cpu (latest generation0 would use less power and generate less heat. If you can't go third generation i3/5/7, then I don't think it matters whether it is intel or amd if you don't have performance in mind.

[outside60]

Thanks all. We went to a Best Buy this morning and purchased an Asus K-Series 15.6" laptop with 4GB memory and a 500GB hard drive. Got the Windows 8 OS. It has an AMD VISION A8 APU with a speed of 1.9Ghz. We did buy an extend 1 year warranty ($80) so we ended up spending $495 total. It's up an running and on the network at this time.

[Tall Timbers]

Thanks all. We went to a Best Buy this morning and purchased an Asus K-Series 15.6" laptop with 4GB memory and a 500GB hard drive. Got the Windows 8 OS. It has an AMD VISION A8 APU with a speed of 1.9Ghz. We did buy an extend 1 year warranty ($80) so we ended up spending $495 total. It's up an running and on the network at this time.

Congrats on the new silicon in the family!

[outside60]

Congrats on the new silicon in the family!

Thanks. Hopefully we will get many years of use out of it.

[outside60]

**** Breaking News ****

This just in. The screen started flickering on the new Asus so we contacted BB. We took it in and the g-squad analyzed it and diagnosed it as a manufacturers defect. They did not have our model on hand so they offered to order a replacement one for us or said we could pick out a different brand. We elected to go with an HP equipped with an i3 processor. We only had to pay the $20 difference in price.

**** End of Breaking News ****

[moosejive]

I've heard that Windows O8 has some problems and bugs that are not worked out so I'm rather leery of buying it....is any of the stuff said about it true? Should I grit my teeth and just buy an Apple?....

[outside60]

I've heard that Windows O8 has some problems and bugs that are not worked out so I'm rather leery of buying it....is any of the stuff said about it true? Should I grit my teeth and just buy an Apple?....

I personally don't know about the bugs myself. We've had our Windows 8 PC for only about a week and I do not even use it. I have an XP laptop. The issue we experienced on the Windows 8 laptop was not do to the OS but sounded more like a hardware issue. There are a few other threads in The Techie Think Tank that discuss Windows 8. When I read customer reviews the Apple products were head and shoulders above the Microsoft products.