Which windows laptop?

[treeman]

Father in law needs a new Windows laptop, and I know nothing about Windows machines or makes.

Looking to spend around £400 13" just used for web and word documents mostly.

Anything particular to avoid? Was thinking of Toshiba as its the only make I recognise.

Any advice much appreciated.

 

[sbowler579]

Aoways used Acer and never had any issues.

 

[Nod]

Can't advise as to which makes may be best other than to say that my wife's happy with her Lenovo and I'm enjoying my ASUS. Both are Windows 8 and both are also touchscreens. A friend with Windows 8 on a non-touchscreen laptop doesn't enjoy Win8 as much.

 

[sbowler579]

Install a new SSD and windows7 that would breath new life into the old laptop?

 

[ancient_mariner]

Lenovo tend to be good - Toshiba tended to be terrible, but a lot depends on the spec. and how much crapware then pile on to it. Dell have also been very robust in my experience (with other people's machines).

Good point about the SSD + resh install (can make a slug dance again).

 

[B1ts]

Lenovo then dell then toshiba or samsung.
Also agree strongly that win 8 really needs touchscreen in my experience..

 

[redsnappa]

Acer, then lenovo
I would not buy Dell, we use them at work and out of 30 Vostro 3660's we bought back in September 3 have had to have motherboards replaced. We also had a batch of Vostro 1015's that suffered from high screen failure rates.

Also agree strongly that win 8 really needs touchscreen in my experience

Can you fully explain why you believe windows 8 needs a touch screen?
I use window 8 on desktop computers at home and work without a touchscreen and it works without any problem.

 

[neil_g]

we always buy the dell latitudes at work and reliability rates are fantastic (only real issues are when the users try and drown them). other than the IT dept (us) who have the monstrous precision M6600s.

if you dont like the 8 interface install 8.1 and boot straight to desktop, use metro as the start menu. job done.