Just ordered a new laptop

[dragonslayer2001]

Old one from N Ontario is about 7 years old now, and I picked up a nasty virus that will force me to reload windows, hack registry, try to kill processes that boot up on boot up even in safe mode, etc,.

so I figured I'd bite the bullet, replace the old one, and keep the old as a backup once I get it cleaned (which I didn't want to do until I had a back up to it in case the viri trashes the hd when I clean it).

[dragonslayer2001]

wow. and I used to think (on my 7 year old compaq presario) that TB had slow response. ditto for all the lag and stops and reloads on youtube music vids.

this thing loads a new TB thread in one second. loads up office word, or access, or excell in two seconds flat. and NO lag or timeouts at all with youtube. new laptop screams - will have a much much much better browsing experience now.

[sssarawolf]

Congrats woohoo on the new lap top.

[RJC]

You bought it from Amazon with your Prime account, Right?

[dragonslayer2001]

I had NO idea all the internet slowness was totally due to the old laptop being underpowered and cluttered up. It is an eye opener.

Nope, Costco online, Toshiba, a couple of hundred dollars less than I could have gotten it from ToshibaOnline. A couple of hundred more than I would have liked to spend, but I haven't bought a nice toy for soooooooooooooooooooooooo long, and I've got some extra money from my part time business, and I really wanted the features.

Costco had the best deal by far.

[Tristan]

The "cluttered up" is likely the majority cause of the slowness, although the Web has evolved and has greater requirements than it did six or seven years ago.

If you are keeping your old laptop as a backup for your new one, and your needs are mostly browsing the web and typical desktop apps, you may want to try a Linux distro to clean up the old laptop. If it has 512 megs of RAM and it's about 7 years old, then it'll likely do well with either Linux Mint (perhaps the best end-user experience) or Ubuntu, Lubuntu. Lubuntu is a lightweight Ubuntu and works well on older equipment.

I still have and use a 10 year old laptop with an older version of Mint, and have no troubles with it; it plays videos, music, Editing, Spreadsheets, etc.etc. just fine.

[RJC]

I’m a Costco advocate also as their quality is great and return policy is second to none.

I just received a Toshiba for DW from Amazon. Ordered it on Monday afternoon and received it on Wednesday morning, no shipping or tax with a Prime account.

Unbelievable the speed and function. It came with an abridged Microsoft Office (included was Word and Excel).

You should look at Amazon and consider a Prime account, if you have not, it is a whole new world for those of us that were stuck in a cyber world 7 years past.

[Monty]

If you are keeping your old laptop as a backup for your new one, and your needs are mostly browsing the web and typical desktop apps, you may want to try a Linux distro to clean up the old laptop. If it has 512 megs of RAM and it's about 7 years old, then it'll likely do well with either Linux Mint (perhaps the best end-user experience) or Ubuntu, Lubuntu. Lubuntu is a lightweight Ubuntu and works well on older equipment.

Absolutely, Mint 12 LXDE would be perfect!

Monty (running Mint on a 6 yr old laptop)

[dragonslayer2001]

If you are keeping your old laptop as a backup for your new one, and your needs are mostly browsing the web and typical desktop apps, you may want to try a Linux distro to clean up the old laptop.


I had already backed up the old pc before I got a nasty nasty virus on it. After I get the virus off, and carefully go over what is still left on the old pc, I'll probably just clean the hd and reload the XP OS and use it as a backup, business meeting type machine. Other than the clutter, and the incredible 'can't keep up with all the new stuff out there' it is still a very nice machine.

I checked out Amazon and the prices for this type of machine didn't come close to the special that Costco is running. I got a super computer, however, there are plenty out there at half the price that would also be super computers now with all the quad processors and 4-6 gig of memory. The older compaq presario had one gig and it really showed.




Just checked Costco, wow, lol. I might have gotten the very last one:

Out of Stock

Toshiba Satellite® P775 Laptop
Intel Core™ i7-2670QM 2.2GHz
Blu-ray ROM
Harman/Kardon® Stereo Speakers
WebCam and Microphone
802.11 b/g/n WLAN
Intel® HD Graphics
Item # 639142

RatedOverall Rating: 4.8 out of 5 Rating Snapshot (4 reviews)
5 stars 34 stars 13 stars 02 stars 01 star 0(out of 4 reviews) 4 of 4(100%)customers would recommend this product to a friend.
reviews ) Review this product Share this Product: $799.99
After $200 OFF

You can't even get the specs now, but one of the reviews I read had this to say about it. It is beefy and loaded and was several hundred cheaper at Costco than I could find anywhere else:

Wow!Pros: great specs for the price
Cons: bloatModel

Number: P775-7165"Amazing laptop for the price! It's very fast, beautiful graphics, nice keyboard/ touchpad , great speakers (with lots of volume) and battery life is as stated...a bit more than 4 hours. It also runs cool even during heavy graphics rendering.

There is a ton of Toshiba bloatware. I uninstalled most of it.

A bit more detailed specs than Costco had:

OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Version 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601
System Model Satellite P775-S7165
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2670QM CPU @ 2.20GHz, 2201 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date TOSHIBA 1.80, 12/14/2011
SMBIOS Version 2.6
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 7.91 GB
Available Physical Memory 5.87 GB
Total Virtual Memory 15.8 GB
Available Virtual Memory 13.6 GB
Page File Space 7.91 GB
Name Intel(R) HD Graphics Family
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_0116&SUBSYS_FC001179&REV_09\3&115 83659&0&10
Adapter Type Intel(R) HD Graphics Family, Intel Corporation compatible
Adapter Description Intel(R) HD Graphics Family
Adapter RAM (250,249,216) bytes"38 of 39 people found this review helpful.Was this review helpful to you?YesYesNoNo(Report Inappropriate Review)(Report Inappropriate Review) Share this Review

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[dstraito]

I keep saying I'm going to get a MAC laptop but they are SOOO expensive compared to Wintel. That being said on this laptop that is just a little over a year old I've had to restore it several times because of viruses.

I think the concept of the Windows Registry SUCKS. I might just convert this to Ubuntu and be done with it.

[dragonslayer2001]

I think the concept of the Windows Registry SUCKS I wasn't too pleased when they went this route, looking like the Mac System. But MS has a much bigger virus problem however a great deal of that has to do with the much larger market share, and where you are browsing.

[michaelteever]

I keep saying I'm going to get a MAC laptop but they are SOOO expensive compared to Wintel. That being said on this laptop that is just a little over a year old I've had to restore it several times because of viruses.

I think the concept of the Windows Registry SUCKS. I might just convert this to Ubuntu and be done with it.

dstraito,

C'mon now, somethings wrong here, either you have no regard for basic computer security or you're visiting sites which are waiting for you. Doesn't mean much to me if you don't use them, but the tools to keep yourself safe have been around and on this forum for awhile. It's either lack of concern or a desire to continually rebuild what you already had.

Frankly, in my opinion I'm going to utililze the free tools available to keep my butt covered. I have neither the the time or desire to clean up later.

If nothing else, download and install BillP's Winpatrol "scotty the watchdog". At least then you'll be aware of when changes are happening and have some control.

Michael