Computers & Electronics

New computer for light use, any recommendations?

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  • Mar 23rd, 2017 4:19 pm
Sr. Member
May 3, 2016
543 posts
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New computer for light use, any recommendations?

Looking to buy a new computer for my wife, she's a light user... only use to go online, create/edit documents with Open Office and that's about it. Saw this on Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/HP-Celeron-Proces ... =hp+laptop
but seems the storage space of 32Mb is too low. Willing to spend up to $500, any better alternatives? Speed I hope to be i3 or equivalent, or above. Doesn't need to be a laptop but the $500 budget needs to include the monitor.
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Dec 1, 2010
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GTA
You want to avoid computers like that, that have 32GB eMMC hard drives in them. I would say a majority of those computers have that eMMC hard drive soldered into the motherboard so you can't swap it out like you would with a traditional hard drive. So your only option for storage is to attach a portable USB hard drive to it, which negates the purpose. Why they make these stupid computers with 32GB eMMC drives is beyond me. When you open it up you literally have no hard disk space left. If they were going to do something so stupid, at least give the public 128GB at bare minimum. WTH can you install with 32GB? Office and Minecraft? and then HDD is full?

And look here:
Image

This eMMC drive in terms of speed is not even that much faster then a traditional high quality 7200 spinner like a WD BLACK HDD. It's faster but not by much.

If you don't want to spend more then $500 then look for a laptop or a desktop that has at least a Pentium Processor. Celeron is way too slow. Pentium at minimum, but i3 would be much better as you can multi-task. Try and get a regular hard drive bay 2.5" 500GB, 750GB, 1TB doesn't matter (on the laptop). You can always replace with an SSD for cheap later on. 250GB is about $100 upgrade and the speed gains you would see are phenomenal, would blow your mind, oh and don't worry to much about RAM. Anything above 8GB is useless for your needs and a waste of $$$.

This site is mentioned quite a few times on RFD if you don't mind Refurbished. The site is called Dell Refurbished Laptops:

https://www.dellrefurbished.ca/laptops?price=200-600

They have all kinds of off lease laptops for cheap, and high specs like i5 processor 3rd gen, (i5-3340M) 2.70 GHz, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, 14" screen, 720p resolution (1366 x 768), some screens are HD+ res (1600 x 900). The only thing is most of these come with Windows 7 Pro operating system, if that doesn't bother you.

But there are hacks on here you can find that you can still upgrade from 7>10 using Windows 10 accessibility upgrade

https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/accessi ... s10upgrade

https://www.howtogeek.com/265409/you-ca ... lity-site/

Some hacks, but other RFD members probably know how to do it as well. If you want brand new, or only from Amazon.ca then list that as well so users can get a general idea of what you want.
Last edited by heyyahblah on Mar 23rd, 2017 12:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Deal Fanatic
Jul 26, 2004
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Definitely budget the SSD into what ever computer you get. Your wife will thank you and you will thank yourself. Or look out for one of those refurb thinkpads Tseries on the hot deals forum, they were around $320ish? .. i5 too I think. and can put a MSATA SSD in there without taking out your mechnical HD.
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Dec 1, 2010
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coilz wrote: Definitely budget the SSD into what ever computer you get. Your wife will thank you and you will thank yourself. Or look out for one of those refurb thinkpads Tseries on the hot deals forum, they were around $320ish? .. i5 too I think. and can put a MSATA SSD in there without taking out your mechnical HD.
Agreed, that's what I would do. I would go for something like this for $350

https://www.dellrefurbished.ca/laptops/ ... 41283.html

Pretty good specs, and pop out that HDD and replace it with a SSD Crucial MX300 2.5" 275GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) $126

https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

and you'll be in heaven when that thing runs.

They also have a model for $319 instead of $350, but you don't get USB 3.0 port on it and no webcam (if that is any concern if you)

https://www.dellrefurbished.ca/laptops/ ... 44603.html
Deal Expert
Aug 2, 2004
38384 posts
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East Gwillimbury
wyho007 wrote: Looking to buy a new computer for my wife, she's a light user... only use to go online, create/edit documents with Open Office and that's about it. Saw this on Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/HP-Celeron-Proces ... =hp+laptop
but seems the storage space of 32Mb is too low. Willing to spend up to $500, any better alternatives? Speed I hope to be i3 or equivalent, or above. Doesn't need to be a laptop but the $500 budget needs to include the monitor.
I have a brand new sealed Asus notebook, model K555-LA-Q32-CB

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/asu ... 51219.aspx

I can sell it for $400 shipped to BC via UPS with tracking

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