Need computer advice!

[yotano211]

Your welcome

Yes a SSD drive is lighter than a mechanical hard drive but not by much. If you are thinking of losing some weight with a SSD upgrade then I am afraid you are mistaken. It won't cut, say, 1 pound off the weight of the laptop.

You will have to down grade to a smaller screen laptop to save anything over 1+ pound. But it depends on your needs, price budget, and the specs of the smaller vs bigger laptop.

Bigger laptops usually have better cooling systems cuz they have more room to dissipate heat away from the components. But some smaller laptops do have very good cooling systems and some even run cooler than larger laptops. It depends on the efficiently of the cooling system.

[GreenBean]

Thread is stickied to benefit everyone

[Lheonard]

Try to find a laptop with a matte screen if you're planning to use your it outdoor.

Glossy screens are unreadable outside because they reflect the sun.

[yotano211]

Laptops with matte screens are rare but they are mostly found in business grade laptops, like the HP's elitebook and probook brand and Dell business line laptops.

Some custom built laptops like Sager or Clevo brand which are mostly boutique brands have Matte screen. You can choice the glossy or matte screen with Clevo brand laptops.

Screens are the most under looked piece of the laptop that people watch for. They mostly look at the speed of the processor or amount of memory but never look for the quality of a laptop screen. I personally don't get it, laptop screens are the first thing that comes into your mind when you turn the computer on.

Most screens are TN brand with horribly color contrast ratios, the blacks look more like watched out gray, the whites look more like light blue than white. They have horrible viewing angles and are not very bright. For an extra $40-50 added to the laptop, laptop manufacturers can add a much better screen, LG screens. But no, they rather have that little speed boost added to the processor and say, "look we have a fast processor".

I have a personal thing with screens, I once owned one of the best laptop screens available to this date. I kept that laptop 1 year longer just because I couldn't find a replacement for it. To this day, I am spoiled when it comes to laptop screens.

[JJGold]

Originally Posted by stanislav

I will check in my bios setting, it might be actually SATA! Currently I am looking at Samsung 830, 250GB SSD.

Samsung 830 128GB $84.99 with free shipping. Lowest price ever for a great SSD.

Newegg.com - SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC128B/WW 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Use coupon code: EMCYTZT1974

[Lheonard]

Originally Posted by yotano211

Most screens are TN brand with horribly color contrast ratios, the blacks look more like watched out gray, the whites look more like light blue than white. They have horrible viewing angles and are not very bright. For an extra $40-50 added to the laptop, laptop manufacturers can add a much better screen, LG screens. But no, they rather have that little speed boost added to the processor and say, "look we have a fast processor".

This is nearly impossible to find a non-TN laptop screen, the idea is of course to cut the cost but also because PVA and IPS especially have higher power consumption. Also narrower viewing angles are less problematic on laptop.

I hate TN as much as the stupid 16:9 trend, I'm using a 24" IPS 1920 x 1200 to work from home instead of the ****ty laptop screen.

AMOLED looks promising.

[sergfro]

SSD is very nice
I boot to windows in 12 seconds.

[nameisyou]

The current unit you have will do all there is for you to do at great speed, it's your configuration which is hampering you.

I run 2 older P4 Dells with 1GB ram and 40GB HDD and they will school over most doing ebay listing, snap bidding, pic's, uploads etc.

Before you spend any money take my advice I design, build, config and rework PC's and large Networks for a living for the engineering community and I deploy these same rules for my ebay accts.

1 Only use the device for ebay/paypal peroid (no time killing web surfing nor downloading of entertainment anything)

2 Only run apps for ebay listings (photo, word, excel, acrobat, etc)

3 Do not run any anti-virus, system optimizer, spyware on start-up (they load when windows loads) ok to have the program on the systems just don't auto run them. If you download a file open your anti-virus at that time scan the file and if it's safe then run/use it

4 Use a cookie cleaner when first entering the desktop, when logging off user and when finishing your sessions on ebay/paypal, EVERYTIME and don't fret over having to enter your user name and password (better safe then starting over)

5 Run just the basic drivers for your hardware (printer driver only not the resource hog system killing dummy pop-up panels, video driver only not the manufacture tools, digital camera driver only not their lam web accessing software, etc.

6 Setup firefox not save any of your history (it's in option) no password, no history and turn off the updates also do not load any of the web killing tool bars like bing, yahoo tool bar, google tool bar etc. just stick to firefox standard toolbar

Do a clean install, implements the above instruction then come back and let us know how this works before spending any moola

Hope it helps

[nameisyou]

Forget ONE very important one TURN OFF WINDOWS UPDATE

Everytime a program, website or piece of hardware needs an update it will let you know

Cheers

[jojo2012]

I know a Solid state drive is way faster and more reliable It works like a flash drive rather than a disc. but if you need space you will pay dearly, I want one myself but I think I may wait until the technology is a little newer and the price drops. Did I mention I am a cheapskate?

[jojo2012]

Originally Posted by nameisyou

The current unit you have will do all there is for you to do at great speed, it's your configuration which is hampering you.

I run 2 older P4 Dells with 1GB ram and 40GB HDD and they will school over most doing ebay listing, snap bidding, pic's, uploads etc.

Before you spend any money take my advice I design, build, config and rework PC's and large Networks for a living for the engineering community and I deploy these same rules for my ebay accts.

1 Only use the device for ebay/paypal peroid (no time killing web surfing nor downloading of entertainment anything)

2 Only run apps for ebay listings (photo, word, excel, acrobat, etc)

3 Do not run any anti-virus, system optimizer, spyware on start-up (they load when windows loads) ok to have the program on the systems just don't auto run them. If you download a file open your anti-virus at that time scan the file and if it's safe then run/use it

4 Use a cookie cleaner when first entering the desktop, when logging off user and when finishing your sessions on ebay/paypal, EVERYTIME and don't fret over having to enter your user name and password (better safe then starting over)

5 Run just the basic drivers for your hardware (printer driver only not the resource hog system killing dummy pop-up panels, video driver only not the manufacture tools, digital camera driver only not their lam web accessing software, etc.

6 Setup firefox not save any of your history (it's in option) no password, no history and turn off the updates also do not load any of the web killing tool bars like bing, yahoo tool bar, google tool bar etc. just stick to firefox standard toolbar

Do a clean install, implements the above instruction then come back and let us know how this works before spending any moola

Hope it helps

I just received a generic email from pay pal telling me that pay pal & eBay use cookies for "security" and that while we are not required to retain these cookies they find it suspicious and may decide not to do business with such users.

[MM78]

With Ebay and Paypal the Idea is too Keep cookies for each account so it looks like you are the only user on the account. The best idea is to have Separate User Accounts per Stealth. Clearing cookies, etc is not a good idea, just have separate user accounts and you should be fine.

[yotano211]

Originally Posted by jojo2012

I know a Solid state drive is way faster and more reliable It works like a flash drive rather than a disc. but if you need space you will pay dearly, I want one myself but I think I may wait until the technology is a little newer and the price drops. Did I mention I am a cheapskate?

The prices on SSD drives have been dropping like crazy this year.

I'm a cheapskate too but I don't cheap out on my ebay selling laptop. I cheap out on everything on the laptop besides the memory and hard drive. I bought it stock and upgraded the components myself with good fast components.

Just buy a basic 128gb SSD drive and have an external drive with all your movies and other junk. A very good SSD drive can be found for under $80. My laptop turns on within 8 seconds flat from the time I push the power button.

Some things are not worth cheapening out on.

[harrys]

find a laptop with a high spec because you are going to have a lot of user accounts

[newjerseymax]

SSD Drives is the way to go....

$100 for 240GB is the sweet spot for me (not yet)... I have caught them as low as $129 on rare occasions...

The start-up is MUCH faster for those that switch user accounts. That time really adds up....

[yotano211]

Originally Posted by harrys

find a laptop with a high spec because you are going to have a lot of user accounts

lol, that is the worst advice in the world. If you lived in the US, Best Buy must be your favorite place to shop.

my ebay selling laptop, i3 cpu and SSD drive. No high specs there, boot up time, 8 sec.

[rsot]

@Stanislav, what did you end up buying?

[slim jim]

oh man best buy, the worst place in the world

[yotano211]

Originally Posted by rsot

@Stanislav, what did you end up buying?

yea, did you buy something new or keep the old laptop. I would have kept it.

[Mr. Invisible]

4gb memory, i3 or i5 dual core cpu, 64-128gb SSD, then find lowest price.

[havefund]

Originally Posted by GreenBean™

To me, Samsung are slowly becoming like Toshiba.

Not a bad thing at all

My old faithful Toshiba still does its job.

yes i too like Toshiba , laptop very good. and i'm too like Macbookpro :D

[DoubleA]

Apple is great.