Could you help me chose my new Laptop?

bsod

There seem to be a lot of threads on moneysavingexpert that ask a question, but never act on, or perhaps even read the answers, then the same person comes back months or years later and asks a similar question again, usually along the lines of what new laptop to buy. The little army of robots that answer are real people with real lives with presumably better or more productive things to do.

This machine could have been backed up, re-installed and be working happily a 100 times over in the time it's taken to go off on this wild ssd and ram hunt which was never necessary in the first place.

somersethillbilly

"Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday." - Napoleon Hill

NiftyDigits

bsod wrote: »

There seem to be a lot of threads on moneysavingexpert that ask a question, but never act on, or perhaps even read the answers, then the same person comes back months or years later and asks a similar question again, usually along the lines of what new laptop to buy.

This machine could have been backed up, re-installed and be working happily a 100 times over in the time it's taken to go off on this wild ssd and ram hunt which was never necessary in the first place.

Nothing wrong with upgrading for the sake of it. It will bring improvements to the performance.

Of course before proceeding, the OP should create Toshiba Recovery Discs.

See section 1-11 here

NiftyDigits

Posting it again, in case the OP misses it:

Of course before proceeding, the OP should create Toshiba Recovery Discs.

See section 1-11 HERE

Not necessarily the best way to reinstall the OS to the SSD, but worth having anyway.

bsod

NiftyDigits wrote: »

Nothing wrong with upgrading for the sake of it. It will bring improvements to the performance.

SSD will, ram won't give much bang for the buck. The original post didn't seem to cry out for an ssd solution imo. The odds of this saga ending well or in a timely fashion aren't looking good right now.

NiftyDigits

bsod wrote: »

There seem to be a lot of threads on moneysavingexpert that ask a question, but never act on, or perhaps even read the answers, then the same person comes back months or years later and asks a similar question again, usually along the lines of what new laptop to buy. The little army of robots that answer are real people with real lives with presumably better or more productive things to do.

This machine could have been backed up, re-installed and be working happily a 100 times over in the time it's taken to go off on this wild ssd and ram hunt which was never necessary in the first place.

To be fair, I'm reasonably sure that I read that the OP was out of town for a while and the OP has moved from a point of not believing they could do the job by themself, to planning to do the job by themself.
So let's not be too harsh.
Perhaps I'm stating this, as I have an SSD and RAM upgrade sitting next to me that I haven't bothered to fit as of yet, as I can still use the laptop efficiently without them.

NiftyDigits

bsod wrote: »

SSD will, ram won't give much bang for the buck. The original post didn't seem to cry out for an ssd solution imo. The odds of this saga ending well or in a timely fashion aren't looking good right now.

I've already written as much. More than once.
I only priced in the RAM to match the spec of the new laptops considered by the OP.
To show that it could be done for much less.
The SSD 'solution' is effective, as it encourages the OP to run a clean install in order to upgrade the system to 64 bit, make the system more responsive and to upgrade Office to beyond 2003(with a cleanly installed package) if that is their wont.
The OP is happy enough to spend the money on an upgrade and it will certainly make for a better user experience.

Mr_Warren_2

@bsod and all. I am grateful for all your input and advice. I'm in Africa at the moment !!! and won't engage in any kind of download/swap/replacement until I get back to the UK.

As an aside, you might be all fluent with doing that kind of upgrade/RAM swap and SSD install but please bear in mind that I am NOT computer literate (hence me originally contacting the local IT shop for help and support).
We are all specialists in our own field of expertise and we should learn to be "patient" with other non-experts in those same fields.

The hardware change seems straight forward thanks to the video links you provided. I am at the moment struggling working out how I am going to install my new software without losing any of my settings/files etc.
I don't even know how to go about saving everything on a separate portable drive to re-import once everything is finally done. Hopefully, with your help I will get there.

NiftyDigits

Mr_Warren wrote: »

@bsod and all. I am grateful for all your input and advice. I'm in Africa at the moment !!! and won't engage in any kind of download/swap/replacement until I get back to the UK.

As an aside, you might be all fluent with doing that kind of upgrade/RAM swap and SSD install but please bear in mind that I am NOT computer literate (hence me originally contacting the local IT shop for help and support).
We are all specialists in our own field of expertise and we should learn to be "patient" with other non-experts in those same fields.

The hardware change seems straight forward thanks to the video links you provided. I am at the moment struggling working out how I am going to install my new software without losing any of my settings/files etc.
I don't even know how to go about saving everything on a separate portable drive to re-import once everything is finally done. Hopefully, with your help I will get there.

To what 'settings' do you refer? Your 'files' will still be on the old HDD, you can have access to them at any time.

Mr_Warren_2

Hi nifty. If I physically remove my HDD (as shown in picture) and plug-in the new SSD, how do I get the info from removed HDD onto new SSD ?? My HDD is where all operating systems/files etc. are stored and the SSD will be free of all content. That's what I meant. Thanks.