Laptop for university

lonestarfan

What is the full model number of the Toshiba? It may be possible to breathe new life in to it.[/QUOTE]


The Toshiba has served us well. I bought it April 2008. So its 5 yrs old today! I bought a new battery last year after 4 years and have had the heat sink cleaned twice etc. only problem with Toshiba is they run hot and it is very bulky and heavy.
So I bought him a cooling pad and actually that does work for us. However even with a new battery it has to be plugged into the mains virtually all the time so its not portable in any way really.
Allegedly according to the local pc shop, the temperature at idle was as high as 88 but they got it down to 53 and at full load from 95+ down to 60.
I'm going to let his younger brother have it.
Just for the record its Toshiba a210 - 1b1 model PSAFHE-00800PEN.
Hardly spent any money on it.
I'm no good with laptops myself as I'm better at taking the lid off the desktop and can see what I'm doing.
When i took the laptop apart - big mistake :eek:as my posts will prove!
Found it better to pay the bloke £15 to sort it out by the time I fought with 30+ screws lol;)

NiftyDigits

lonestarfan wrote: »

What is the full model number of the Toshiba? It may be possible to breathe new life in to it.

The Toshiba has served us well. I bought it April 2008. So its 5 yrs old today! I bought a new battery last year after 4 years and have had the heat sink cleaned twice etc. only problem with Toshiba is they run hot and it is very bulky and heavy.
So I bought him a cooling pad and actually that does work for us. However even with a new battery it has to be plugged into the mains virtually all the time so its not portable in any way really.
Allegedly according to the local pc shop, the temperature at idle was as high as 88 but they got it down to 53 and at full load from 95+ down to 60.
I'm going to let his younger brother have it.
Just for the record its Toshiba a210 - 1b1 model PSAFHE-00800PEN.
Hardly spent any money on it.
I'm no good with laptops myself as I'm better at taking the lid off the desktop and can see what I'm doing.
When i took the laptop apart - big mistake :eek:as my posts will prove!
Found it better to pay the bloke £15 to sort it out by the time I fought with 30+ screws lol;)

Similar to what I'm using now. A Toshiba Satellite L300 1G5. A mere four years old. Though I upgraded mine to Windows 7, removing all of the bloatware. A definite improvement. No problems with overheating. Doesn't even feel warm at the moment.
Keeps working, so no reason to take my newer Toshiba out of it's box. Still getting up to a couple of hours out of my battery.

Are you running the latest BIOS on the Toshiba?
I think that it's a matter of unzipping the contents and then running the 32 bit option as Administrator(Right click and Run as Administrator)....shutting down as many applications and processes as you can beforehand.

NiftyDigits

lonestarfan wrote: »

Good approach to take. Thanks. So nifty thinks the Acer might not be specified correctly so it leaves the dell.
My dell e521 has been fine but grandmas dell e521 bought at same time has been a nightmare for 6 years. Just read my history of posts and you'll see. Should've sent it back within 1st year but it was intermittent faults, ha to I'd entry etc I didn't send it back and its been a pain. Not sure how I feel about buying him a dell now that I think about it. But if we think its the best spec for what we need then ill give it a go.
What would be a good av and anti malware?
I only use Microsoft essentials.

Have to say that I'm still unclear about that ACER.
The processor is better, it has more RAM, it has a BluRay player and it has Bluetooth. The two things in question are the screen, which may be 1600 x 900(standard, so not really a problem and the graphics card. If it's not the GT630M, then it should go back). Perhaps they have different models. Maybe a call to the Outlet may help.
Problem is if you take a look at the ACER, your money is tied up until you've sent it back and received your refund, if you so choose. Then you might miss out on the DELL.

cootuk

Your budget might also include a version of Microsoft Office, or are they going to use OpenOffice?

System

What I did for my daughter was to get a laptop that was fairly light - 14 inch screen and then a 25 inch monitor for the room.

Laptop is light enough to lug around all day and connected up to the monitor in the room it made a good 'TV'

Anne_Marie_2

Another thing to consider is portability. Some laptops are pretty heavy, and lugging them around on a daily basis, might just be a tad too much when you have to include study books as well. Personally, I would consider an ultrabook, which are a tad lighter. Might be an idea to get him to go into one of the pc stores and test out the weight of several laptops, before you go and buy one. Then you can get an idea of the weight he would like, and go from there.

securityguy

You get a massive discount on Apple kit: from memory, 18% on the hardware and 75% on three years' AppleCare (I think it works out at about 35 quid). iWork is perfectly usable for all University purposes, and you'll find that in some departments, Macs are virtually ubiquitous (in computer science, for example, almost every member of staff will have one).

NiftyDigits

Example of something lighter with a SSD and longer battery life, but a smaller screen. Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M3-581TG for £500. You may be able to pair it with one of these extended warranties. Here or here

lonestarfan

!!!!!! wrote: »

What I did for my daughter was to get a laptop that was fairly light - 14 inch screen and then a 25 inch monitor for the room.

Laptop is light enough to lug around all day and connected up to the monitor in the room it made a good 'TV'

Thanks. That's what I considered - part of my post in the forum about whether he needed a tv licence.
Might still consider that but not sure whether too.

lonestarfan

NiftyDigits wrote: »

Example of something lighter with a SSD and longer battery life, but a smaller screen. Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M3-581TG for £500. You may be able to pair it with one of these extended warranties. Here or here

Thanks. I think he does want a larger screen though but I'll put it on the list to consider.