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Can you recommend me a decent laptop or ipad device?

My current desktop is about 8 years old, and still works good, but I want to move it and its clutter to a spare room whilst kind of upgrading and downsizing to a laptop if that makes sense.
I was recommended the ASUS Q505UA for $730 at Best Buy, but am open to other suggestions.
 
You mean Laptop or Tablet?

Meh, depends on what you want do with it.
For 99% of the time, i imagine anything on sale or discount would do you fine.

I found my laptop at the dump (true story) works fine.
 
I do think it depends on what you plan to do with it
- email and web browsing
- Gaming, photo/image editing
- Video editing

I gave in and assimilated to the googleverse and my current machine is a chromebook, an HP for ~ $140. Kinda locks you into Google docs/sheets/slides, it is very convenient. I do not worry about malware (the compromise is that Google has the info an I hope their cloud storage is well protected)

The downside is very limited local storage and I am finding moving images from Google to the chromebook to B&B a bit of a pain
 
As pointed out, what you will use it for is a huge factor. If you're going to do a lot of typing, laptop keyboards can be a pain, as can the built-in mouse pad. If you really want a laptop, you might end up with an external monitor and wireless keyboard/mouse combo. That might play havoc with your space-saving plans.

You might like a touchscreen laptop. Our kids prefer these to a standard screen. They can be handy.

There are also laptops that double as tablets. A bit on the heavy side tablet-wise, but they do exist.
 
If you aren't tied to Microsoft because of some must have program that only works with Windows, I say go with a Chromebook. I've been using my Acer R11 for almost a year, and I just converted an old HP laptop to a Chromebook for my mom. It's more than enough for most people, and you can get a good one for under $300. I went with the convertible, but honestly I rarely use it as a tablet. I do wish I would have gotten something with a backlit keyboard.
 
Ok .....

I went away from a dual monitor rackmount raid 5 desktop a few years ago (the good stuff, server grade system).

I got a Lenovo (IBM thinkpad) X-1 Carbon. Uber light. Uber FAST. SSD. Carbon fiber case (think fighter aircraft construction).

I found refurbs on blow out and bought one for SWMBO who loves it too.

They're not cheap. UNLESS you find a refurbished one. I paid the big bucks for mine but I am online 24/7/365 for my business.

I can tell you that I would NOT have anything else.

To qualify this. I am a hosting provider and I live on my machines.

What a went away from

proxy.php
 
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Toothpick

Needs milk and a bidet!
Staff member
Greatly depends on what it will be primarily used for. For me it’s mostly internet - so I have an iPad Pro with Apple’s Smart Keyboard. I can do everything a laptop can do - but LIGHT versions of the work. Light photo editing, light video editing, light gaming (whatever is on the App Store)

If I were heavy in to photos or videos or gaming then a tablet would not be for me. You need a laptop for that, or desktop.

Think about what you didn’t like about your old PC (to slow, not portable, no video software) whatever it may be. And then buy a new PC/tablet that gives you what you disliked about your old one.
 
My 2 cents...

How much gaming are you into? and what are those games requirements? I just read a post over in the X-Plane forum, where he bought an i3-of some kind. Which he thought would be up to the minimum specification. As it turned out, they weren't. He's getting like 17-25 FPS, (Frames Per Second.)

The reason FPS is important in flight simulation software, as I understand it, the software will only recognize inputs from your controller as fast as your frame rate. And you don't wan't there to be that much lag either on a landing or trying to adjust controls on the flight deck. Not to mention the jitters.

Granted you're probably going to use this notebook for flight simulation; as we're a small community of sim pilots. But the same rules apply to the shoot 'em up games. Either way, you are going to need a good frame rate.

So the question is: how much time are you going to spend gaming on this computer?
What do you plan to be doing with this computer for the next 3 years (or so?) That way, if you can define your goals, you can buy a notebook that can grow with you.

Here's some advice I learned many years ago, from a biking forum: Even though you are looking at a Chromebook, take a look at the notebook one level up. Just because you look at it, doesn't mean you have to buy it. Now you have options.

Also, of the games you play, go to their forums, and see the systems (if they list them) in the sig. Ask questions there.

You might have guessed by now, I only have experience with flight simulation software. I'm sure there are different system requirements for f.s.s. than other games. You need "power under the hood," because f.s.s. draws trees, buildings, and sky out for miles and miles. And I didn't want any regrets.

System Specs: Gigabyte Gaming 7 AORUS Z270 Mobo | Intel i7-7700 quad core overclocked to 4.7 GhZ | EVGA GTX 1080ti with 11GB VRAM | Samsung 850 EVO 1TB Solid State Drive

With this system, I am getting 60 FPS, which is double what I was getting from my previous system. Only 60 because, I'm limited to my monitors refresh rate. That way I won't get any "tearing"

I hope this has been helpful.

Duggo
 
As others have stated, it depends on what you want to do. I have two devices, an iPad Pro and a Alienware M17 running Windows 10.

I do my web surfing, emailing, YouTube, and day to day stuff on the iPad. The laptop is for things that require a lot of horsepower, such as Lightroom and Photoshop. I also keep the web surfing on the laptop to only the essentials, such as Smugmug, Adobe, Microsoft Updates. That way any nasties I might stumble into are confined to the iPad, which is unaware of the Windows machine, so the nasties would have to search out and find it on their own.

but, what you need may be completely different and your resources may not allow for almost $3K in equipment.
 
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