Another new laptop help plea

badger09

Vitor said:

- Could you expand on ‘‘and its Windows 11 Home which may not matter to you’’? -

For a laptop which you take out and about, Windows Home lacks the full disk encryption with BitLocker which Pro supports. The other reduced features don't really matter to most users outside of a business. 

- My current Dell doesn’t have a backlit keyboard & can’t say I’ve missed it - 

It's one of those things that once experienced you can't go back.

Thanks again Viitor
As a casual home user I don’t need anything so sophisticated & it’s unlikely to leave my home. 

The choice is overwhelming, especially if you don’t understand the terminology. And even when you’ve made a choice & try to buy it, the items linked are often different configurations so it’s back to square 1. It’s exhausting!
In the absence of anything negative I’ll go for the Acer from John Lewis with 2 years warranty

Thanks to all who helped. 

matelodave

Frozen_up_north said:

Looks fine to me, although I am typing this reply on a Dell laptop with backlit keys... And I wouldn't consider a laptop without the illuminated keyboard.

While looking for laptops, avoid those with silver keys, my OH has a silver Asus with silver backlit keys, white letters on silver keys is plain hard to see except in near total darkness. White on black is fine.

I totally agree, I find it really difficult to use the keyboard on my ASUS VivoBook unless I can angle it correctly. It looks good but I will never have another baclklit silver keyboard. Black lettering on silver might be OK

Frozen_up_north

badger09 said: 

The choice is overwhelming, especially if you don’t understand the terminology. And even when you’ve made a choice & try to buy it, the items linked are often different configurations so it’s back to square 1. It’s exhausting!
In the absence of anything negative I’ll go for the Acer from John Lewis with 2 years warranty

Thanks to all who helped. 

The options are pretty straightforward, price, size, run time on battery, processor, memory, storage, reputable brand and supplier, etc.

You likely end up with the Acer from JL as the price is good, as is the specification. As previously mentioned the only slight downside is the lack of a backlit keyboard, but that isn't the end of the world.

GDB2222

I’m curious about one thing. You chose a particular Dell laptop, and apart from a hardware fault you were happy with it. Why didn’t you just get them to swap it for the same model, but without the faulty hardware? 

Nothing wrong with the JL one, by the way.