Laptop for author

S0litaire

forgotmyname wrote: »

Don't you just love common / poor folk?

Writing desk indeed...

Nothing less that a solid Oak Chesterfield Writing Bureau surely???

Nothing like a freshly plucked goose feather sharpened to a nice point and dipped a well of the finest "Indian ink" scratching on parchment...

were

Another way is to an android phone, or tablet and get a full size usb folding or non folding keyboard, or go for a 'Bluetooth Virtual Laser Keyboard Mouse' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0qARDGJj1w

Kingsoft once did a free version of office for phones, and save your files on dropbox.

Personally would go the laptop route

pendragon_arther

psychic_teabag wrote: »

Not sure I would try to combine these two purposes on a single machine. If laptop is being carried about, it has a bit of a risk of being dropped / damaged. (Or stolen if taken outside.) Don't really want all the photos to go too. I'd be looking to use at least one, and preferably two, external disks for that. Or perhaps dvds, but haven't had good experience of reliability of those.

For writing, I'd have thought a good keyboard would be fairly important. Even going so far as plugging in a proper one, rather than using a laptop's built-in one.

I know what you mean. I'm on my fifth laptop this year because I'm clumsy and careless. I suppose I'll have to lug a desktop around next time.

Jivesinger

S0litaire wrote: »

Nothing like a freshly plucked goose feather sharpened to a nice point and dipped a well of the finest "Indian ink" scratching on parchment...

Shouldn't it be vellum?

SouthUKMan

Whatever you do, please don't buy a laptop with just 32Gb of built in storage, as it is not enough to use as a primary drive. Five years ago, fine. Today, no. The laptop I'm using to type this on (a cheap Acer bought new from Tesco 4 years ago for £150) only has 32Gb and it is forever causing me issues with Windows update reporting there's not enough free space etc. By the time you account for the Windows installation, the Windows backup image which most laptops have pre-installed and a few programmes and files - 32Gb is very quickly filled. The limitations and the hassle 32Gb places on you is not worth it.

As others have mentioned, you should always have a current backup in place. My comfort zone is to store everything (within reason) on the laptop, then have an external drive backup of everything, and then have a cloud backup of photos and other precious data.

In terms of a laptop that will be used mainly for writing, pay particular care to the keyboard. You can only do this by getting hands on with different laptops and finding the one that feels right. Again, the laptop that I'm using doesn't have a full size keyboard...the keys are slightly smaller. It is fine, but not as comfortable as my work laptop. Also, the keys simply feel cheap and horrible. It is not a particularly pleasant keyboard to use for any extended period of time. Fine for typing a quick email, but not for long documents. I only thought about this and discovered how 'cheap' the keyboard feels though using it...that's why it is important to get hands on with the different models in a shop.

AnotherJoe

You need to start with the keyboard. Find one that that she gets on with. No point everything else being good if she hates the keyboard.

However I'd say your budget is far too low for what you want unless you buy second hand and then get a tower or an all in one like an iMac or a Dell XPs to get a decent sized screen as well.

Not that I'm offering but my 4 year old iMac would I'd guess go for maybe £500 s/h and for that you'd get 500gb solid state drive and a 27 in screen so if you dropped down a screen size I would think you could get to say £300.

32gb of disk is too low and won't do going forward.

The app for writing is irrelevant don't let that guide your purchase there are lots of apps available from freee to low cost you don't need to pay for a full blown office suite.

forgotmyname

Not found a really comfortable laptop keyboard. Currently using an old IBM keyboard, but it could do with a bigger wrist rest like my old keyboard.

But so far it works for me, until i find something better.

Really fussy with mice also. Must have the forward and back buttons on the left thumb, but no need for 20 buttons that never get used.

Why have a DPI selection where it forgets the settings when you unplug it?