New computer recomendations please

Newer OS usually take up loads of space and may grind your old kit to a halt - I fear it's time to upgrade your machine.

Desktops are usually cheaper than portables. Will you ever want to take it with you out of the office? If you might, then think about a small-ish portable.

I would find it difficult to buy an apple computer (as opposed to phone), having used Windows machines for years perfectly happily. So I would stick with PCs if it were me.

After that it's really a question of budget, giving priority to the processor (I have Intel Core i7). Look at the Dell Outlet store online - usually at least 30% off new list price - and then see what looks good anywhere else.

Another PC user & fan here, and my inclination would be to by a new PC desktop or laptop. Bear in mind that the new PC will come bundled with Windows 10 which will at least save you a little money. Applications such as Microsoft Office should be easily transferrable from one device to another if you have the original disc. If you encounter problems, I have found that the Microsoft support desk (the online support messaging service is pretty good) is pretty efficient & helpful.  

I would certainly not recommend running Windows 10 on your 10+ year old IBM Thinkpad.

I think we would need to know a little bit about how you intend to use your device and what sort of applications you will be running on it before anyone can recommend whether a laptop is more appropriate than a desktop, or what sort of specification to recommend. If all you intend to use it for is browsing the Internet and using Microsoft Office, then you really don't need a high end specification. My inclination would be to go for the laptop with the best screen display you can get and a reasonable specification.

A few of things to bear in mind:

Hard Drive: A laptop or PC with an SSD as the root drive for the operating system will be significantly faster than a conventional hard drive, but of course you pay significantly more. If you don't use any complex applications, then you might only really notice a much faster boot up time, which may be a 'nice to have' rather than a necessity. If you do use any complex applications then an SSD drive may provide significant benefits in other areas. If you don't have plans to store lots of data on your PC you may get away with purchasing a laptop with just a reasonable sized  SSD drive. If you plan to store large amounts of data, then you need to decide if speed is particularly important. If, not then save money by going for a laptop with a conventional hard drive. If speed is a priority you could consider an option with both a small SSD drive for the operating system and key software components and a conventional hard drive for bulk data storage. It's all about cost here, and what you are prepared to spend.

CPU/Graphics Card: If you won't be using any power hungry applications such as photo or video editing, or using your device for gaming, you won't need a top of the range CPU or a specialist Graphics card. The CPU itself will have pretty reasonable graphics handling built in. However, even if you don't have any power hungry applications, I would probably recommend going for one of  the Intel Core i5 CPUs rather than the cheaper i3 CPUs. They will normally have better multi-tasking capability. If you do intend to run HD video editing or anything similar on your device, I would personally be looking at an Intel Core i7 CPU with an additional GeForce or AMD specialist graphics card.

There are of course (roughly) equivalent CPUs available from AMD, but I have lost touch with the recent AMD models, and Intel CPUs are probably a slightly safer bet in any case.  

RAM: I would look for a laptop with a minimum of 6 Gb Ram & preferably 8 Mb RAM to run Windows 10.  4Gb would be an absolute minimum for Windows 10 if all you intend to do is run Microsoft Office.       

In the past, I would probably have recommended specific manufacturers, but these days most laptops are pretty good and pretty reliable. Look and feel of the laptop, portability/weight and quality of the screen display are the factors I would take into account by demoing them at either John Lewis or PC World/Currys. Of course, some people prefer Macs and will no doubt recommend them to you. They look great and tend to have pretty good screen displays, but they are likely to be significantly more expensive, and initially at least would not be quite so intuitive to use if you are used to Windows. It's entirely up to you.

And finally, make sure you install a decent Internet Security/Virus Checking software package.

Good luck

Nick, Hmack, thank you for your guidance.

In addition to “Office” which I use extensively, and the internet, I also use photo and video processing to edit my digital pictures and analogue home movies. I still run Flight Sim to practice instrument flying, particularly before my annual revalidation. So I am inclined towards a Core i7 CPU whether laptop or desktop.

Don.

I built myself a PC about 18 months ago, the choice of CPU wasn’t as simple as choosing a CPU, based on speed. I chose an AMD A10 7850 with onboard Radeon R7 graphics card, mainly because the R7 is a very good graphics card. I got good performance without the need to buy a separate graphics card. It handles DXO without a problem. (although opening the program is a bit slow).

Putting the operating system on a SSD is a no brainer. From switch on to desktop in about 40 seconds. I use a 128GB SSD with 2TB SATA.

I use W10 pro with office 2003 special edition, so no problems there.

Thank you Frank. 

I’m not up for building my own but your guidance on size of processor and storage is helpful. As is your comment re w10 and Office.

One thing to remember if you choose to use a CPU (intel or AMD) with a good on-board graphics chip is that the graphics chip will almost certainly utilise a significant amount of the available system RAM, so you need to account for that when you spec your laptop's (or desktop's) RAM . A specialist graphics card will have its own on-board RAM in addition to the on-board GPU, so won't commandeer any of the main RAM or any of the CPU's processing power.

I suspect that your flight simulator won't require much in the way of GPU processing power if it runs on your current Thinkpad, so it should be fine to use your processor's inbuilt graphics chip, but if you plan to upgrade to a more sophisticated version or do much complex video work then it may still be worth getting a device with a separate graphics card.

I too build my own PCs, and like FATCAT use an SSD (500Gb) along with a 2TB SATA drive & run Windows 10 Pro & Office 2010. I have a core i7 CPU with 8GP RAM and a dedicated GeForce GPU card. PC self builds are actually really very easy nowadays (much easier than when I first started building my PCs many years ago), although they don't really save much money these days. My spec is way over the top for what I use it for these days. I did edit my home videos in the past, but tend not to bother nowadays as I have begun to find it to be a chore rather than a pleasure.       

People always overthink these things these days. Gone are the days when it was necessary to decide between enough RAM or enough CPU or enough HDD, PCs are cheap as chips, esp when compared to a 250DR. A fairly routine machine at about £400 will do the job nicely, then splurge a bit more on a GPU as you see fit.

Look for something with an i7 processor, 8GB RAM as a minimum and 16GB for more fun, and an SSD to host the OS and core apps. If enormous amounts of storage are needed get a NAS. Go for W10 because it just works and looks after itself if you prefer that, or you can control updates if that suits better. XP is dead, W7 is going the same way and 8/8.1 was a dead duck from the off. W10 is how it is now; preferring older versions is like preferring analogue tv - it might have been better but it's gone. Go with the flow rather than fighting an unwinnable battle against MS and the rest of the s/w industry.

Hi Don,

I'm currently looking to build a new Win 10 PC for myself; while I realise you aren't intending to build, my research and conclusions on specifications may be useful.

Old Laptop:  It's highly unlikely that this will be capable of running Windows 10 sufficiently well to be usable.

Desktop vs Laptop:  If you're not using the portability of a laptop, then there's no point in paying the extra for portability or having the performance limitations that are inherent to laptops.  From what you have said a desktop will suit you use better.

RAM:  Hmack and Chris are right on this 8Gb is a practical minimum for Win 10, however for your use (no heavyweight gaming or video editing etc.) it's highly unlikely that you'll benefit from having more than 8Gb of RAM.

CPU:  You don't need a massive amount of power here as you're replacing an old laptop, so any current desktop processor will be many times faster.  However there are some practical limitations of Windows 10, particularly when it's running updates and some other internal maintenance tasks.  In practice this requires a true 4 core processor as a minimum.
So recommended processors (in order of preference):  AMD Ryzen 5, Intel i5, AMD Ryzen 3 (this is the practical minimum for Win 10)
Note that the AMD 2200G, 2300G and 2400G include a very effective graphics processor that will be more than sufficient for your uses (including the flight simulator).

Graphics card:  As you're not gaming you don't need a sophisticated graphics card at all, the graphics card in any commercially built PC will be more than sufficient (as they're always built to at least play basic play games).  There are two exceptions to this:
"Office PCs":  Many "Office PCs" rely on the integrated graphics of the Intel i5 chip; this may not be powerful enough for even a basic flight simulator.
If you intend to upgrade your flight simulator software to a much more recent application - than you'd need to check the specs for the new programme.

An AMD Ryzen 2*00G processor will provide enough graphics power on it's own; all the other CPUs I recommend need a separate graphics card.

HDD vs SSD:  SSDs are quite a bit faster (min 256Gb for the OS and applications, but at that size you'll probably need a separate data drive as well), but they are a 'nice to have' rather than an essential

Having recently upgraded my own and my partner's MacBook Pros with more RAM and SSDs, I can vouch for them making an enormous difference in speed - particularly starting up, and using any MS or image software.  So on the face of it, that's a thumbs up for upgrading an existing laptop, however, if your existing Thinkpad only has USB2.0 ports then I wouldn't bother. They will end up as a frustrating bottle neck. 

I recently faced a similar issue to you - an old Toshiba Tecra laptop running windows XP. It was a good dual core machine and could have taken a series of upgrades, but the big handicap was the lack of USB3.0. I could have used an express card, but they can be a bit hit and miss I have found.  So I looked at replacing it with a new Windows laptop with Windows 10, but in the end I went for a Lenovo 530 running Win 7 and an upgraded hard drive.  The Lenovo was in superb condition, cost just around £120, seems well made, and has the all-important USB3.0 on board.  Win 7 works well and allows me to run all my old windows compatible programs such as Office and Photoshop.  I sold the Tecra and that paid for the upgraded hard drive. It should last me a few good years yet, and I'm very pleased with such a upgrade for so little outlay.

I run businesswise a Lenovo X220 from 2011 / WIndows 10 - this friend is working for 7 years now and has joined me on many, many airlines. Since recently, I use my 2008 MacBook again for private use, mostly since it has an optical digital audio out. This is to me an important feature which not many pc's have. Be aware, that newer macs don't have such a toslink out.

I had PCs for many years, both desktops and laptops, but having been persuaded to get a MacBook, I would now never go back.  The Apple operating systems are much more intuitive than Windows (which I still use at work), rarely crash, and the machines are very well built so last longer.  If you still want to use the Microsoft suite, Macs are capable of doing this by running an area of the machine in a Windows environment. I don't think PCs can do the reverse.  I've also found that the Apple equivalent of Word, Excel (i.e. Pages and Numbers) seem to be able to import and convert Word and Excel files much more easily than the Microsoft programmes do with their Apple equivalents.  

Ardbeg10y posted:

 Since recently, I use my 2008 MacBook again for private use, mostly since it has an optical digital audio out. This is to me an important feature which not many pc's have. Be aware, that newer macs don't have such a toslink out.

The current Mac Minis and Mac Pros still have it I believe, but a real shame Apple are cutting corners on other models, and I suspect the OP wants a laptop not a desktop.

Alley Cat posted:

Ardbeg10y posted:

 Since recently, I use my 2008 MacBook again for private use, mostly since it has an optical digital audio out. This is to me an important feature which not many pc's have. Be aware, that newer macs don't have such a toslink out.

The current Mac Minis and Mac Pros still have it I believe, but a real shame Apple are cutting corners on other models, and I suspect the OP wants a laptop not a desktop.

Why do you think a laptop is wanted...

"I haven't used the ThinkPad as a portable device for about 10 years. It sits on my desk and is effectively a desktop computer attached to decent monitor and a Bluetooth Mouse and printer."  For any given spec a laptop will be considerably more expensive, particularly from Apple.

Furthermore changing from Windows to Apple will require one of two things, both adding additional 'hidden' costs:

A)  To purchase again Flight Simulator, Microsoft Office, and most likely other software (such as the photo and video editing suites) and all in full, not as an upgrade!

B)  Purchase of a 'Boxed Retail' version of Windows 10 and you'll also need a more powerful (and more expensive) version of the Mac.  As a Mac has to run a virtual machine to emulate a PC on which to run Windows and the old Windows software, it needs to be more powerful than a real PC just to run the windows software at the same speed as it would run on a real PC.

Huge posted:

Alley Cat posted:

Ardbeg10y posted:

 Since recently, I use my 2008 MacBook again for private use, mostly since it has an optical digital audio out. This is to me an important feature which not many pc's have. Be aware, that newer macs don't have such a toslink out.

The current Mac Minis and Mac Pros still have it I believe, but a real shame Apple are cutting corners on other models, and I suspect the OP wants a laptop not a desktop.

Why do you think a laptop is wanted...

Because I read the OP's post yesterday and had forgotten about that aspect! 

I was really only commenting on the loss of the mini toslink from the current Macbooks/MBPs.

The Intel Macs have been able to run Windows without emulation since around 2006 using Boot Camp installations, though if the OP wants Windows I wouldn't really bother considering a Mac cost wise.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/boot-camp

MDS posted:

I had PCs for many years, both desktops and laptops, but having been persuaded to get a MacBook, I would now never go back.  The Apple operating systems are much more intuitive than Windows (which I still use at work), rarely crash, and the machines are very well built so last longer.  If you still want to use the Microsoft suite, Macs are capable of doing this by running an area of the machine in a Windows environment. I don't think PCs can do the reverse.  I've also found that the Apple equivalent of Word, Excel (i.e. Pages and Numbers) seem to be able to import and convert Word and Excel files much more easily than the Microsoft programmes do with their Apple equivalents.  

MDS, I have changed to all Apple devices in the last twelve months always used Microsoft based computers whilst at work and home (Retired early five years ago) and purchased my first Apple product rather reluctantly last year as the Android device I was using to control my Naim system was causing problems when using the Naim app.

To say I was blown away by the iPad Pro is a understatment mind you it should be good for the price.

After a few months I decided to look at the Apple I Mac and ended up with a 21.5 inch 4K model.

Being Diabetic my eyesight is not as it should be the Apple shop demonstrated the screen settings to help with this and also advised that a Touchpad would help with regard to controlling some screen funtions they also supplied a cover for the keyboard with enhanced lettering so easy to see and use.The help and service from both the Apple Store and Apple Direct was something way above what I have experienced with any other computer product I have purchased.

I've since upgraded to a I phone 8 so everything is Apple the I Mac is just absolutely superb the software supplied is excellent ( Numbers,Pages etc) and as you said you can import all your Word and Excel files etc. When the new I Mac as delivered it was a breeze to set up and connect to other devices far easier than any Windows device I've ever owned.

The way I Cloud  synchronise's  everything on all your devices is a real bonus also being a complete computer numpty I'm finding the Apple range of products a much more rewarding and enjoyable experience to use.

Like yourself I would never go back.

I paid £1,350 for my 13" MacBook Pro with Retina about three and a half years ago and I will always buy Macs in the future IMO they are in a different league and yes you can buy Microsoft Office for Mac.

Bob the Builder posted:

I paid £1,350 for my 13" MacBook Pro with Retina about three and a half years ago and I will always buy Macs in the future IMO they are in a different league and yes you can buy Microsoft Office for Mac.

I seldom use MS Office on Mac but needed to one or twice last years, and in honesty I don't think the Office 365 family subscription is that badly priced, despite disliking subscription models, especially as each user gets 1TB of Microsoft cloud storage.

Don Atkinson posted:

The old IBM ThinkPad is still running Windows XP and doing a great job. But Microsoft support ended about 4 years ago and yesterday Firefox announced that it was terminating browser support for XP.

• Do I simply change the OS system on the ThinkPad to Windows 10 (or whatever is the latest incarnation) or
• Do I buy a new ThinkPad (are they still available ?) with the latest Windows OS installed. In which case will my Office 2003 re-load from the CD ? or
• Do I buy an Apple i-xxxx in which case can I still get Excel, Word, Powerpoint, Access, Publisher to work. or
• What ?

I haven't used the ThinkPad as a portable device for about 10 years. It sits on my desk and is effectively a desktop computer attached to decent monitor and a Bluetooth Mouse and printer.

We have a John Lewis and Currys/PC World nearby, but a bit of guidance before venturing forth seems like a good idea !

Hi Don, I haven't read the whole thread so I haven't got a clue what other folks have said, but here's the answer in simple terms:

Do you change the operating system? - NO, you can't.

Do you buy a new Thinkpad? - DEFINATELY, but they are now made by  LENOVO  who took over IBM's personal computer business. I use Lenovo desktop & laptop computers with Win 10.

Do I buy an Apple...?  NO WAY, they are aimed at a specialist market, and you're not a specialist user.

You can run microsoft Office on a Lenovo computer, but you'll need to buy a new version unless your Office is newer than your Thinkpad, in which case you might get away wuith it... but hey, bite the bullit.

These are my opinions based on many years of working with computers. Some folk will disagree, especially about Apple, but hey, ignore them  

Bob the Builder posted:

I paid £1,350 for my 13" MacBook Pro with Retina about three and a half years ago and I will always buy Macs in the future IMO they are in a different league and yes you can buy Microsoft Office for Mac.

£1350 (+90 for Win 10, + £80 to £300 for MS Office) is a lot to pay.  All these will meet your needs for a lot less:

One of your preferred suppliers was PCWorld
PCWorld:  DELL Inspiron 5675 £550

If you're prepared to go mail order, this is both faster and cheaper than the DELL 5675
CCL Online:   CCL Raven GS (RYZEN 2400G)  £489

Thank you RJ and others for your guidance.

I'm leaning towards a relatively high-spec PC desktop with new software.

I did buy both Mrs D and my youngest daughter MacBook Pro's a few years ago and they both swear by them. One was a 17" and the other a 15". Mrs D's travels back and forwards to Canada about four times a year.

My ThinkPad never seems to leave the desk top ! Mrs D's Mac had to go back to Apple soon after we bought it, ie during its first week, and again a month later. Since then it's been faultless. OTOH my ThinkPad needed a new screen about 5 years ago, so none of these devices seems to be totally reliable - longterm.

Hi Don,

we have an IBM ThinkPad, too. The operating system has been upgraded to Windows 7, but this is most likely as far as you can go with it. A good number of tasks are a lot slower than I want them to be, but we have two programs that won’t run on anything else but Windows. None of them is frequently used, which is why we still have it around.

We have a few Lenovo ThinkPads at the office and they seem to a little less durable. On the other hand the sample size is quite small...

Both my wife and I use Apple devices for most things. I prefer not only the OS to Windows, but Pages etc. over MS Office as well with the single exception of Excel. I very much disagree with Apple as a special market product. That doesn’t mean that I can’t see the appeal of Windows devices, especially if you share Word, Excel or other MS file types with other users. The conversion works a lot better from MS to Apple, than the other way. Simply because of this it’s nice to have the IBM around.

Don Atkinson posted:

The old IBM ThinkPad is still running Windows XP and doing a great job. But Microsoft support ended about 4 years ago and yesterday Firefox announced that it was terminating browser support for XP.

• Do I simply change the OS system on the ThinkPad to Windows 10 (or whatever is the latest incarnation) or
• Do I buy a new ThinkPad (are they still available ?) with the latest Windows OS installed. In which case will my Office 2003 re-load from the CD ? or
• Do I buy an Apple i-xxxx in which case can I still get Excel, Word, Powerpoint, Access, Publisher to work. or
• What ?

I haven't used the ThinkPad as a portable device for about 10 years. It sits on my desk and is effectively a desktop computer attached to decent monitor and a Bluetooth Mouse and printer.

We have a John Lewis and Currys/PC World nearby, but a bit of guidance before venturing forth seems like a good idea !

If you want the best computer the get a 5K iMac. The monitor is an amazing piece of technology that will make any other computer you've ever used look like something from the 80's. I gave my 2013 iMac to my daughter and when I now help her on it (she is learning programming) it just looks "broken".

If you want to still run windows you can buy Parallels ($50) which allows the ability to run Windows as a virtual machine. (I currently run Windows NT, XP, 2008, and 7 without any problems)

Downside? The price is quite a bit higher than a similarly equipped windows system. If the price is an issue, Apple has a refurbished section that often offers significant discount.

If you can afford it then It really is the best option.

orion 8 pack for 30k .....