I'm a techno dino

I am! Totally! Trying to pin down a laptop for daughter-in-law who has just started a small business (Nails). So use would be surfing, ordering supplies, basic accounting, storing photos of nails after treatment etc. Nothing heavy going, no films or music to store. Will be using Wi-Fi for connection. Will need to install a printer.
I've been advised to aim for
CPU 2Gb minimum
Dual core (Quad core if possible)
RAM 4Gb minimum
HDD 500Gb

I was therefore surprised on the Currys site that most laptops up to £200 only have 32Gb eMMC which is surely very low?
Any advice be great.

DRives

If she only stores business stuff, accounts, emails etc it will probably be enough.

seadog wrote:

DRives

If she only stores business stuff, accounts, emails etc it will probably be enough.

Thanks you old seadog.

Can always add a memory stick, could be a security feature,  keep accounts seperate.

pepsipete wrote:

Can always add a memory stick, could be a security feature,  keep accounts seperate.

Yep indeed. Am I also correct (and don't laugh) that whilst printers come with installation CD it can be installed via the manufacturers web site? If I also bought a CD reader as an extra the printer could be installed via that?
Dino's rule!

Don't worry about the printer. The software will be downloadable if you need it but Windows will probably find it anyway. If you get a wireless printer then hooking it up to wifi will be all you need to do. It's no problem. Just turn it on and follow instructions. If there's a scanner involved you'll probably be best off with a disc but it ought to be supplied in the box. If it isn't it'll be on the manufacturer's website but it's far easier with a disc.

As for the rest typically hard drives are vast these days. Almost everything new on sale will be far bigger than is likely to be necessary. In the unlikely eventuality that you fill it up then get an external drive (a very good idea anyway because if a business relies on a laptop it is a sensible idea to have important stuff backed up externally).

You don't want a slow machine though so just buy as much RAM (at least 2 Gb) and as fast a chip (at least 2Gb) as you can. The more RAM and faster the chip the better but it's this that'll bump the price up so if you are on a budget you'll have to compromise somewhere.

All achieved thanks guys with LENOVO IdeaPad 110 15.6" Laptop - Windows 10 / Intel® Celeron™ / Processor N3060 / RAM: 4 GB / Storage: 1 TB HDD (that should be enough!) £230 from PCWorld. Included a free discky thing for something and a flashdrive thingy for going back to factory settings or something. Got 50% off a case as well in girly pink. She's happy!!

W10 might cause a problem.

There is a massive update known as the "Millenial Update" and numbered as 1607 which has basically buggered up my laptop (which is currently at the repairers). I've already had to re-install W10 once and start again and now I'm (or more accurately "he" is) doing it again.

My problem centres around the graphics driver but the bloke sorting my machine out is snowed under by problems of all sorts from wifi connectivity to printer installation. Basically 1607 is a pig's ear and Microsoft are sending out various updates to their update at a rate of knots whilst not actually admitting that there is a problem at all.

So when 1607 comes along, and it will, tell your daughter to save everything to external storage and be prepared for it to take a very long time to install. I'd also recommend that she, or anybody else yet to face it, sets it going at night, goes to bed and then see if it has finished in the morning. It also takes a while to start up once update 1607 has finished installing.

She might be fine though because it went through on my ancient work lappy with no problem whereas on the other hand Mrs D's laptop failed a couple of times before it worked...

Basically 1607 is a capricious son-of-a-bitch.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

W10 might cause a problem.

There is a massive update known as the "Millenial Update" and numbered as 1607 which has basically buggered up my laptop (which is currently at the repairers). I've already had to re-install W10 once and start again and now I'm (or more accurately "he" is) doing it again.

My problem centres around the graphics driver but the bloke sorting my machine out is snowed under by problems of all sorts from wifi connectivity to printer installation. Basically 1607 is a pig's ear and Microsoft are sending out various updates to their update at a rate of knots whilst not actually admitting that there is a problem at all.

So when 1607 comes along, and it will, tell your daughter to save everything to external storage and be prepared for it to take a very long time to install. I'd also recommend that she, or anybody else yet to face it, sets it going at night, goes to bed and then see if it has finished in the morning. It also takes a while to start up once update 1607 has finished installing.

She might be fine though because it went through on my ancient work lappy with no problem whereas on the other hand Mrs D's laptop failed a couple of times before it worked...

Basically 1607 is a capricious son-of-a-bitch.

Thanks SFD. If/when it pops up can she ignore it and just not update? The main use is surfing, ordering supplies, social network, basic accounts and emails. I will tell her to back up anyway. Out of curiosity, I use W8 which is OK, can she get 10 taken off and 8 put on??

Windows10 is a slightly less catastrophically bad version of Windows8. Truly awful.

Microsoft and Samsung respectively, have both scored multi-billion $$$ own goals. Microsoft initially with Windows8, then Samsung with their exploding Notebooks.

And there was Uber-efficient Apple to hoover up all the millions of would-be Microsoft/Samsung customers.

Czarcasm wrote:

Windows10 is a slightly less catastrophically bad version of Windows8. Truly awful.

Microsoft and Samsung respectively, have both scored multi-billion $$$ own goals. Microsoft initially with Windows8, then Samsung with their exploding Notebooks.

And there was Uber-efficient Apple to hoover up all the millions of would-be Microsoft/Samsung customers.

Didn't someone on here use that quote linked with Getty? ''For every loser there's a winner somewhere''

tigertony wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

W10 might cause a problem.

There is a massive update known as the "Millenial Update" and numbered as 1607 which has basically buggered up my laptop (which is currently at the repairers). I've already had to re-install W10 once and start again and now I'm (or more accurately "he" is) doing it again.

My problem centres around the graphics driver but the bloke sorting my machine out is snowed under by problems of all sorts from wifi connectivity to printer installation. Basically 1607 is a pig's ear and Microsoft are sending out various updates to their update at a rate of knots whilst not actually admitting that there is a problem at all.

So when 1607 comes along, and it will, tell your daughter to save everything to external storage and be prepared for it to take a very long time to install. I'd also recommend that she, or anybody else yet to face it, sets it going at night, goes to bed and then see if it has finished in the morning. It also takes a while to start up once update 1607 has finished installing.

She might be fine though because it went through on my ancient work lappy with no problem whereas on the other hand Mrs D's laptop failed a couple of times before it worked...

Basically 1607 is a capricious son-of-a-bitch.

Thanks SFD. If/when it pops up can she ignore it and just not update? The main use is surfing, ordering supplies, social network, basic accounts and emails. I will tell her to back up anyway. Out of curiosity, I use W8 which is OK, can she get 10 taken off and 8 put on??

To avoid 1607 she'll need to dig into Settings and stop automatic updates then she can choose which ones to install and which ones not to.

This in itself will cause problems eventually because some of the updates will be there for good reason... Some of MS's more whizz bang new ideas rely upon 1607 to work at all too.

She could go back to W8 but that was a dog too which is why it was superceded with W8.1 and presumably why they skipped W9 (which has never seen the light of day). She'd need to uninstall W10 and then get W8 from somewhere which means she'd need a product key which means she'll have to shell out good money for obsolete software. If she's going to do that she might as well go back to W7 which was a far more robust animal.

Realistically she's probably best running with W10 but be aware that 1607 might (it won't necessarily) cause issues and be prepared for them if it does. This means keeping back-ups external to the laptop (either on a local external hard drive, memory stick or in the cloud) and making sure there is a recent restore point to return to if things do go nips up (all of which is good practice for important things anyway).

Computer foul-ups are a right royal PITA and bad enough at any time but if a business is reliant on that info then losing a game setting or a few saved passwords hardly compares.

Then again they might not be affected. She may be one of the lucky ones and never have a problem.

There is also this to be aware of: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

No idea if it still applies to new machines though.

Hotmail is a disaster since its switched to Windows 10 as well. I thought it was my latop but same on everyones. If it aint broke dont fix it

harvetheslayer wrote:

Hotmail is a disaster since its switched to Windows 10 as well. I thought it was my latop but same on everyones. If it aint broke dont fix it

I prefer Windows 8.1, Wndows 10 is a nightmare sometimes.