Where to start?

Money_Cub

Not sure if I'm in the right place but really need help....

Where on earth do I start. Am buying a laptop for the first time. I don't even have a land line.

I'm at a loss to know what I need/don't need. Totally confused about rams and mbgs, security, providers and something called broadband .

All I can tell you is I'd like is a wireless laptop (so I can use away from home) for email, the net and word etc.

I did ask before and was kindly directed to this techie board, please dont think I'm lazy, I have spent hours looking through the posts but cant seem to find threads for the basics.

Grateful for any help or suggestions (maybe even directions to another site I should check out?), shockingly virgin to all this techie stuff :eek: .

Thanks MSE's

lee634

take a look here http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0351605294.1145963362@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdeaddhijkefgecflgceggdhhmdgmh.0&page=ProductList&category_oid=-27751&fm=1&sm=1&tm=undefined&show_all=true
the advent at £399 although basic will do all that you need

nickmack

OK, so you want it for basic office tasks and basic email and web surfing. Plus you would like wireless 'to use away from home'. Not sure if you understand that you cannot connect wirelessly just anywhere. If you're not within range of your own home broadband router then you need to be in a wireless hotspot (in a coffee shop for example) for which payment is usually required.

You're not looking at anything very expensive, if this is all you want to do, but if you're new to computers and the internet, you might want to think about expandability for the future.

Do you have a budget in mind? I would say, if you had £300-£500 to spend, you could get a reasonable quality laptop with enough power to do what you need.

Have a look at Dell, they always have offers on laptops, you should aim for a machine with 512Mb RAM (this is system memory) and built in wireless (called 802.11g or 54g) support.

I'm guessing you don't yet have broadband, so see other threads for ideas of providers. To get your wireless laptop to work, you will also need to budget about £50 for a wireless ADSL router.

fairytooth

I agree with nickmack, look on dell's website and don't rush to get one. Wait a few weeks and build up an idea of what you get for your money - even if you don't understand what the techie things are. (Basically the higher the number the faster, more memory it will have). After a few weeks there will be a 'special offer' of double memory, etc. so that is when to think seriously about getting one. Check with a friend who has had a laptop for a couple of years.

Compare like for like with PC World but for goodness sake don't buy from them.

There you are - easy as spending money! Hope this helps.

penrhyn

Money_Cub wrote:

Not sure if I'm in the right place but really need help....

Where on earth do I start. Am buying a laptop for the first time. I don't even have a land line.

Whilst looking at the PC manufacturers sites you need to sort yourself a landline (BT or Cable) as without one you wont be able to connect to the internet at home.
It can be done via mobile suppliers but its an expensive route.

fairytooth

penrhyn wrote:

Whilst looking at the PC manufacturers sites you need to sort yourself a landline (BT or Cable) as without one you wont be able to connect to the internet at home.
It can be done via mobile suppliers but its an expensive route.

.... Or you could do a check to see if a neighbour is willing to share a wireless connection with you. After I went and bought my first wireless router I discovered both neighbours had them already and found I could have used theirs (for nothing) !!!

You can buy a wifi locating device here for £7.99 + P+P

http://www.directusbstore.co.uk/cnb/shop/directusbstore?search=wi+fi&op-catalogue-search-null=Go

:rotfl:

Money_Cub

Thank you all, very much - for the suggestions and guidance. I'm in no hurry to purchase, so will take my time and make carefully considered judgements.

I will use the advice you have given, and check out the other websites, a few people at work have come up with fab suggestions too. Anyways, I've learnt more than I knew a few hours ago and it has given me a good start.

You've made me feel looked after :grouphug:, sorry - its a girl thing...

wonderfullife_2

Hi
Check out this link, for all Dell Hot Offers at the moment, its gets updated every week, so its a good site to keep checking.

http://www.dmxdimension.com/

Hope this helps

meclive

One thing I would say with laptops is look at the cache (L1 & L2), if you go in store they always seem to push laptops that have superfast processors but only 256kb cache. Ideally you want it to be at least 1mb

ABH_3

Money_Cub wrote:

Not sure if I'm in the right place but really need help....

Where on earth do I start. Am buying a laptop for the first time. I don't even have a land line.

Ok, I'm confused... how then are you accessing these forums? Why choose a laptop over a desktop? A "landline" is a telephone line, is this what you understand the term 'land line' applies too?

I'm at a loss to know what I need/don't need. Totally confused about rams

RAM (random access memory) comes in a number value, that being MB (megabyte) when using a computer\laptop is best described as being operational space. Imagine you are sat at a desk somewhere you put your workfiles down on the desk, open one, open another and another, maybe you have 4 files open at the same time. In order for you to keep these files open you will need to move them around your desk. If you keep opening files eventually you will run out of space. RAM or memory is just a means of increasing the amount of space available to you. It's like putting another desk alongside your existing desk thus increasing your works space. Now imagine you were to open a draw on your desk, you open it and everything needs to be chronicled in order for you to remember it, the more memory you have the better you will be able to remember whats in the draw.

security,

Alot of people including myself are quite content to use AVG (antivirus) here it's free.

An antivirus is a means of keeping some malicious programs away from your computer and if it gets infected by one such program. Then it will remove it, though you need to keep these programs updated, which they do on their own if you give them permission. It's effectively like a health inspector constantly running around your computer ensuring that everything is as it should be.

Then there is a Free Firewall ZoneLabs ZoneAlarm here

This is effectively a gate, it opens at your discreation but is closed most of the time to protect you.

Another aspect to 'security' is your intention on setting up a wireless network in your home, it needs to be secure otherwise anyone can use the connection. Contrary to the post above regarding using someone else's connection. It's illegal read here and if you don't take the right 'security precautions' such as using WPA over WEP see here. Some people say that WEP is 'quite addequate' but consider that when someone has gained access to your network, they then have access to all your personal documents, bank details etc. Infact, anything that you have put on your computer.

Security also extends to the data held upon the computer. As you may or may not know, just because something is 'on the computer' doesn't mean it is there for easy access at all time. Sometimes harddrives become corrupted, break or just fail to work which means that it costs to retrieve the data held upon them. Also, laptops are easy to steal judging by the number of people who lose their laptops, so it is advisable to purchase an external harddrive and keep this somewhere away from your laptop and safe. As there is nothing as important as the data help upon your laptop. So backing that data up is of paramount importance.

providers and something called broadband

"Providers" is a general term for anyone that provides you a service. In this case there are Broadband which is generally thought of in terms of it can transfer a lot of data (all the pictures\images you see on this site) to your computer faster than a 'land line' (telephone line). So a provider could also be BT or NTL or your mobile 'provider' vodafone\orange etc.

All I can tell you is I'd like is a wireless laptop (so I can use away from home) for email, the net and word etc.

Where are you taking this laptop? What type of environment? Are you purely using this laptop for just what you have described, or are you going to be using it for anything else?

The reason I ask is that a laptop can be many things, it can be portable so easy to carry but not rugged enough for a building site for instance. It can have a powerful processor, but can't have long battery life. If you are taking this laptop to the middle of a field then battery life is important, likewise if you don't have access to a powerpoint whilst travelling, it's going to make it dead weight carrying it around. If you travel with a briefcase and other things, you need to think of how much additional weight you can carry. If you think in terms of size, then that means you can't generally have a good battery life or processor as that means heat buildup and more battery. It's all swings and roundabouts. For everything you may want, there is a trade off we're not at the level of technological advancement where we can put a desktop in a matchbox, but we're getting there.

I did ask before and was kindly directed to this techie board, please dont think I'm lazy, I have spent hours looking through the posts but cant seem to find threads for the basics.

Well you've made a good start. I see you have had some good replies, but they all seem to be focusing on getting you a suitable 'bargain'. Which is all well and good, but untill you figure out 'the basics' as you say, they are about much use as a bar of soap in the desert :rolleyes:

Ok, for more information on laptops, this is what you have:

WhatLaptopForums it's about as simple as it can be made I'm afraid. You need to read through all of the guides listed in order to make an informed decision. Then visit the more general discussion forums here for general advice, personal opinions on particular models. You then need to look at the forums on these two sites:

http://www.notebookreview.com/
http://www.notebookforums.com/
http://www.small-laptops.com/

Especially look at the user reviews and experiences as this is where everyone complains that they should have gone for something their present choice doesn't deliver.

Grateful for any help or suggestions (maybe even directions to another site I should check out?), shockingly virgin to all this techie stuff :eek: .

After all this reading, the above statement is one you won't be saying again for a while. You'll be telling your friends\colleagues your sick to the back teeth of reading\hearing\seeing laptops and you would prefer to not read about anything involving computers for a little while.

HTH

albertross_2

http://www.dmxcomputers.co.uk/content/view/99/64/