Recommend a laptop

garymicheal

garymicheal

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Where to start choosing a laptop I've got an older family friend who is not at all up on computers or other technical stuff she is 75 an now wishes to start with a laptop can anyone one recommend an decent laptop that's also fairly easy to learn / use and also a point and shoot camera to use with it many thanks in advance
 
Budget? there's a huge difference between a £250 laptop and a £1250 laptop.

What does she want to do with a laptop? - if it's nothing more than reading, browsing and the occasional email I'd very strongly suggest a tablet rather than a laptop. Most tablets will come with a very simple point and shoot built in that's very easy to integrate with the web aspects.
 
Budget unlimited she's a millionaire it will be used mostly for browsing she use to study photography in her younger days and she would like to try her hand again with a camera
 
Much as it pains me to say it, a Macbook of some kind would be ideal because she'll want something that will minimise the number of possible options while telling her how it will be - windows would want too much user input to work as well.

Point and shoot? A Panasonic Lumix compact for compact flexibility, or a Sony RX100 for potentially better image quality.
 
Someone is no doubt going to have to help fix it when it's not working properly. So on the strength of that, if the helpful techy person is familiar with Apple products, buy a macbook. If said techy person is more familiar with Windows, go for a Dell XPS15.

I would say get the largest screen possible, given her age. She might not have the best eyesight.
Unless it absolutely needs to be portable, a desktop might be better with a larger display and an actual physical keyboard and mouse.

FTR, my mum is of a similar age, didn't really use a computer until a few years ago and she has no trouble using Windows.
 
If she is sociable and doesn't mind going out I would recommend a MacBook (Pro) as well, but also to get a years one-2-one subscription. Apple stores do brilliant one to one and project based training. I've learned a lot doing photo work there with their genius educators who were showing me very different ways.

It's also great to work on a project and they are there to help and assist.
 
dejongj said:
If she is sociable and doesn't mind going out I would recommend a MacBook (Pro) as well, but also to get a years one-2-one subscription. Apple stores do brilliant one to one and project based training. I've learned a lot doing photo work there with their genius educators who were showing me very different ways.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, One to One has been discontinued.
 
afasoas said:
Someone is no doubt going to have to help fix it when it's not working properly. So on the strength of that, if the helpful techy person is familiar with Apple products, buy a macbook. If said techy person is more familiar with Windows, go for a Dell XPS15.
Click to expand...

Macbook plus Applecare. Job done.

When I worked for Apple, I told my mother that I was contractually bound not to support Windows machines. When she finally got a Macbook Pro (a week before I left the company), I insisted she buy Applecare. Now I just refer her to Applecare. :angelic:
 
Andy Taylor said:
Unfortunately, One to One has been discontinued.
Click to expand...
Oh no. Really? What a shame I really liked it, £72 per year was great value as well.
 
I'd likely recommend the latest Toshiba Chromebook with the HD screen and a Fuji X-T10.18-50 OIS combo. First, everything is there from Google and the logic of Cloud based stuff is easy to get, esp if familiar with Android phones. The Fuji does the job very nicely and looks cool. It can generate great JPGs right from camera too and the two will talk wirelessly for image transfers. The OIS lens might help any shake. Yes, the Apple stuff is great ... but is it right for someone who may just want an easy option?
 
If all she does is basic computing then i would recommend a chromebook. They are good value for money and designed so that you can't really mess up anything by accidentally downloading or deleting something or changing a setting.

It even has basic photo editing apps such as pixlr and polarr which are not as powerful as lightroom of course but for some basic editing is fine and are actually quite comprehensive.

If you do opt for a chromebook, buy one with 4gb of ram.
 
I would recommend a MacBook Air. I work with staff who are older and they find Mac easier to use than Windows. Every is different, this is just from my experience at my workplace. Maybe get one with an SSD and loads of RAM, possibly 8GB.
 
My parents have Chromebooks, zero support queries so far (3yrs later!!). I also told them I could not support Mac, cutting the options down ;)
 
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