Buying a new laptop

[NOKYAI]

I have a feeling he won't be around for long .....looking at some of his posts so far! Name could be apt as seems a c*ck

[Nereus]

Somebody recommended "ASUS" brand to me a few days ago. They have some high spec units along with basic ones, but some reviews I read on a US blog claims that they are junk.

Anybody have one, or know about them?

The same bloke has a 'Lenovo", and is ready to throw it in the Klong!

[NOKYAI]

I have a 7 " Asus! Ooo er missus! Phone pad.
Only had it for 2 weeks but very happy so far, especially at only B4000 from the top floor of the shopping mall. I use it with a kindle app and it works well. 2 sims are useful as I have my UK and Thai in so don't mis ant messages. Battery life is about 3 days with reading about 3-4 hours daily. I use it more then my iPad as its so much lighter.

[VincentD]

Also have an ASUS which came preloaded with Win8. As I'm not a power user - it has 2G RAM and some 30G storage on board it's good enough for watching movies and using the full websites on line. It's about the size of an ipad and is light enough to tote around. Also touchscreen so am quite pleased as it does what I need it to with reasonable battery life. However it does not come with a CD drive but an external drive does not cost an arm and a leg and I don't use it often so less weight. Cost was less than ten thousand baht.
Given up on ACER and DELL which both cost almost twice as much. Similar spec Sony was three times the cost.
Bottom line is, know what you want to do with it then go shopping.

[buksida]

My aging Lenovo Ideapad netbook is getting a little long in the tooth, very slow at just the basic functions, and I've had it for 4 years so time for an upgrade is approaching.

Now the question is to go back to a full-size laptop or get one of these two-in-one hybrid laptop/tables. I want something with more grunt than a netbook but dont want to carry a dead weight around when travelling. I need a full keyboard for coding and like the idea of the detachable tablet but not sure I'd use it. Hate the idea of Windows 8.1 but dont have much choice in that matter as new hardware does not have drivers for Windows 7.

Does anyone have one of these hybrids and what are their views on it?

Budget it upto 15k, was thinking of something like the ASUS Transformer T200: https://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultraboo ... ok_T200TA/

Naturally these things are more expensive in Thailand than elsewhere and the ones listed on stores here seem a lower spec (only 2 gigs of RAM) so I'd have to buy overseas or pay a premium here.

Thoughts on a postcard ...

[JamesWest]

windows 10 coming in late july... i am running windows 7 pro on a macbook pro using Parallels. no problems at all even with USB hardware. good luck with your choice. i wish i could help. i spent three days shopping for a notebook in hua hin and then gave up. remember to first ask the magic words "you have in store now?"

i would look for at least one USB 3.0 port so you can have a fast external hard drive. i would only do 500 mb internal hard drive and save the money for 2t exterenal drive for backup and media. 4 gigs ram and as large a display as you can afford.

are you going to sell your old computer?

[buksida]

The old one isnt worth much, it is a low powered netbook so I'll probably give it to the kids.

Was looking for feedback from those that have one of these hybrid machines. Will probably buy online rather than wasting time in Hua Hin's "mai mee" shops.

[JamesWest]

do you know about invade IT on soi 6?.

http://www.invadeit.co.th/search/notebo ... rice/desc/

[buksida]

Yes, over-priced, under-spec models.

This is only $340 on Amazon:

http://www.invadeit.co.th/product/table ... 1-p020731/

[caller]

A couple of years back, I got a hybrid acer and I was warned here about the limited memory at the time, it only has, in Buksi's words, '2 gigs of RAM' and therein lies the problem. The salesman assured me that was just fine. It's not really.

I'm happy with the concept and when I go away, I take the whole computer for use in the hotel room and then when I'm wandering out and about, I just take the tablet.

I'm heading back to the UK for 2/3 weeks in the next couple of months and planning to buy another hybrid whilst there, this time with more memory, if available?

[Norseman]

Yes I agree caller.
I have a Packard Bell notebook and a IBM Thinkpad notebook - both with 2 gigs RAM.
Both are totally useless and kept updated only for emergency use but it is of course possible to search the internet, do some light Excel, Words work, but to even think or believe that a 2 gig memory will work in any environment is simply not true.
If you can't increase to four GB just forget it.

[hhfarang]

I don't think it's within your budget but I was recently looking for a laptop that would replace my desktop (in power) as well as my netbook for travel and in doing my research I discovered ultra books. They are very lightweight thin laptops that are very "heavyweight" on specs (and price). After exhaustive research I decided on what I think is the best one; the Dell XPS 13. It's a 13" laptop with a screen with almost no bezel (like phones) so that it is very small. It's actually thinner than my Asus netbook, about the same weight, about the same depth, but about 2 inches wider for the wide screen. Given the size, it's just as easy to travel with as the netbook but has a wide 13 inch screen instead of a 10 inch, a larger easier to use keyboard and it is more powerful than my desktop. I use it at home too by hooking it up to the desktop keyboard, mouse and display via a switch. For something this size it is incredibly fast and powerful.

It comes in two versions, with touchscreen and without. As I already had experience with a windows tablet, don't like it and almost never use it, I saved a few hundred bucks by getting the non touchscreen version... that runs about $1000 here direct from Dell. Most other companies make an ultrabook too but none with comparable specs were as small as the Dell XPS 13.

[hhfarang]

Most reviewers (like this one) rate this as one of the best laptops out there:

https://bgr.com/2015/07/02/dell-xps-13- ... omparison/

I've got the 8GB memory non touch screen version (cost about $1000) and it beats any computer I've ever owned (or even used) in all respects.

[margaretcarnes]

After 9 years of faithful service my acer laptop is croaking. No surprise there. But I now run Linux Ubuntu OS on it, so am looking for a replacement machine which is pre-installed with Ubuntu.
There is a good looking deal available here in the UK on a HP 255 G3 quadcore laptop with Ubuntu pre- installed, which would be fine. Except that I would prefer a Net book and can't pin down one that is Ubuntu pre-installed.
It seems that Ubuntu and Netbooks don't really get on with each other, but I'm going by online reviews which are up to 7 years old. No recent reviews seem to exist on the subject.
Any up to date info and experiences would be appreciated please. Just don't expect instant replies from me - as this damn machine is doing my head in!

[buksida]

Why bother with pre-installed when you can just download a Ubuntu distro and install it from a USB stick. You would just need to check in advance that it has all the drivers for the specific model of netbook you want.

One thing to note is that netbooks are pretty under-powered, you may want to go for an ultrabook which is netbook sized but laptop spec, naturally they're more expensive.