Acer Aspire 5810T laptop. Upgrade to Windows10 or stay with Windows7?

Belenus

Hello, I have a eleven years old little used and in perfect condition Acer Aspire 5810T laptop.

Windows7 Home Premium 32 bit upgraded from Vista

Intel Core(TM) Solo CPU U3500 1.4 GHz

4 gb ram 2.93 usable (2 x 2 gb using both slots))

500gb hard drive.

I plan to give it to a relative who needs a basic laptop for web browsing, word processing and other simple tasks.

Windows7 is no longer supported.

Should I install Windows10 on it for him?

Can I do that for free based on an existing Windows7 license?

Will it cope with Windows10 with that processor and without upgrading the memory to 8gb (2 x 4gb)?

What version of Windows10? 32 bit or 64 bit?

I have a 250gb SSD that I might install in it or I might get him a smaller SSD as he doesn't need 250gb.

Any other advice or suggestions?

Thanks

mksysb

Linux should run fine on it.  Choose a lightweight distro such as mint with xfce,

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3930

Belenus

Thanks but I don't want Linux, He isn't technically savvy and he is used to Windows.

[Deleted User]

I know this is a money saving forum so don't want to sound negative about recycling an old laptop but that processor really isn't up to scratch and will be painfully slow with Windows 10 even just browsing websites.

Hence the Linux suggestion from the poster above, that really is the only way to eek some life out of it but I also understand the concerns of someone not familiar with it, however for only using a browser and a free word processor, you won't even notice that it is on Linux anyway - just two icons to click on eg Google Chrome and Open Office and it will look identical to Windows when running them.

If you factor in £120 for a retail version of Windows 10 home, £30 for a smaller SSD and 4GB of RAM £15 and the fact the battery is probably useless at that age, then I'd say you were throwing good money away personally.

For that same money (£164) I bought a relative a 2nd hand Lenovo Thinkpad x240 i5-4300U 2.50GHz 8gb ddr3 ram 128 ssd which will far outperform what you are starting with. (CPU mark 2487 vs 265 for your Acer).

You can probably get £40-50 for selling the Acer as well to contribute.

As for staying on Windows 7 - personally I don't recommend it, hackers are going after Windows 7 machines and there are no more security updates, I wouldn't give that risk to a relative who isn't technical.

Neil49

If you can upgrade to Windows 10 for free then I would be inclined to install the ssd and do a fresh install. If it doesn't do the job then option 2 is a bit more radical and will probably get me a lot of flack!

Option 2 is to install the Chromium operating system which is close to making it a Chromebook. 

https://www.androidcentral.com/how-convert-windows-laptop-chromebook

The big advantage is that it's easy to use. Quite how good it is I haven't the faintest idea but if you are stuck indoors due to lockdown why not give it a go. 

J_B

Belenus said:

Should I install Windows10 on it for him?

Can I do that for free based on an existing Windows7 license?

Yes to both of the above (technically) - will leave the mechanical capabilities to more knowledgeable folk.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/23354-clean-install-windows-10-directly-without-having-upgrade-first.html

HereToday

[Deleted User] said:

I know this is a money saving forum so don't want to sound negative about recycling an old laptop but that processor really isn't up to scratch and will be painfully slow with Windows 10 even just browsing websites.

Hence the Linux suggestion from the poster above, that really is the only way to eek some life out of it but I also understand the concerns of someone not familiar with it, however for only using a browser and a free word processor, you won't even notice that it is on Linux anyway - just two icons to click on eg Google Chrome and Open Office and it will look identical to Windows when running them.

If you factor in £120 for a retail version of Windows 10 home, £30 for a smaller SSD and 4GB of RAM £15 and the fact the battery is probably useless at that age, then I'd say you were throwing good money away personally.

For that same money (£164) I bought a relative a 2nd hand Lenovo Thinkpad x240 i5-4300U 2.50GHz 8gb ddr3 ram 128 ssd which will far outperform what you are starting with. (CPU mark 2487 vs 265 for your Acer).

You can probably get £40-50 for selling the Acer as well to contribute.

As for staying on Windows 7 - personally I don't recommend it, hackers are going after Windows 7 machines and there are no more security updates, I wouldn't give that risk to a relative who isn't technical.

Why such ridiculous suggestions?
£120 for Windows 10 Home when it's a free upgrade?? A smaller SSD costs from £17, not £25. Why spend more on RAM?

There is a reason for not doing it and it has nothing to do with ridiculously inflated estimates; that is the CPU.



That will struggle, even with an SSD.

HereToday

[Deleted User] said:

I know this is a money saving forum so don't want to sound negative about recycling an old laptop but that processor really isn't up to scratch and will be painfully slow with Windows 10 even just browsing websites.

Hence the Linux suggestion from the poster above, that really is the only way to eek some life out of it but I also understand the concerns of someone not familiar with it, however for only using a browser and a free word processor, you won't even notice that it is on Linux anyway - just two icons to click on eg Google Chrome and Open Office and it will look identical to Windows when running them.

If you factor in £120 for a retail version of Windows 10 home, £30 for a smaller SSD and 4GB of RAM £15 and the fact the battery is probably useless at that age, then I'd say you were throwing good money away personally.

For that same money (£164) I bought a relative a 2nd hand Lenovo Thinkpad x240 i5-4300U 2.50GHz 8gb ddr3 ram 128 ssd which will far outperform what you are starting with. (CPU mark 2487 vs 265 for your Acer).

You can probably get £40-50 for selling the Acer as well to contribute.

As for staying on Windows 7 - personally I don't recommend it, hackers are going after Windows 7 machines and there are no more security updates, I wouldn't give that risk to a relative who isn't technical.

Why such ridiculous suggestions?
£120 for Windows 10 Home when it's a free upgrade?? A smaller SSD costs from £17, not £25. Why spend more on RAM?

There is a reason for not doing it and it has nothing to do with ridiculously inflated estimates; that is the CPU.



That will struggle, even with an SSD.

getmore4less

If you have a spare SSD why not give it a try and see if it is good enough.
Can always swap in a smaller/cheaper one if OK and you want to keep the bigger one. 

W10 20H2 iso installed quickly on a machine I updated last week. 

CEX, DDR3 4GB stick £6 just before lockdown 2.
(if it takes them, quick look one site said 2x2GB max).

interstellaflyer

Belenus said:

Hello, I have a eleven years old little used and in perfect condition Acer Aspire 5810T laptop.

Windows7 Home Premium 32 bit upgraded from Vista

Intel Core(TM) Solo CPU U3500 1.4 GHz

4 gb ram 2.93 usable (2 x 2 gb using both slots))

500gb hard drive.

I plan to give it to a relative who needs a basic laptop for web browsing, word processing and other simple tasks.

Windows7 is no longer supported.

Should I install Windows10 on it for him?

Can I do that for free based on an existing Windows7 license?

Will it cope with Windows10 with that processor and without upgrading the memory to 8gb (2 x 4gb)?

What version of Windows10? 32 bit or 64 bit?

I have a 250gb SSD that I might install in it or I might get him a smaller SSD as he doesn't need 250gb.

Any other advice or suggestions?

Thanks

I updated my old Toshiba laptop to Windows 10 AMD E1-1200 1.4ghz, 8GB Ram and SSD and am having no problems with it and as of August the free upgrade was still available although Microsoft don't tell you, all I did from the download page was click 'Upgrade this PC' and it worked.

Neil_Jones

The E1-1200 is a dual-core, but the U3500 is only a single core.  Even a low budget dual-core is better than a lot of single core processors.