Windows Laptop suggestions

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Being very much an Apple family, I haven't had a Windows machine of my own in about 12 years, other than machines issued for work.

Mrs J has said she wants a "Simple Windows Laptop" as there is something she wants to do that is only on a Windows 10 application.

So, can anybody suggest the best places to look. I just want something like an I5, 4-8GB RAM, 599GB HDD, nothing excessive.
 
Try the Dell outlet - there are some bargains there but do your homework as not everything is great value and the good stuff sells fast.
I've had lots of laptops and desktops from there and they're as good as new.

Don't buy a Windows 10 machine with 4GB unless you plan on upgrading immediately (which may be cost effective).
I bought a 4GB machine for my partner to basic web browsing and play solitaire - it would sometimes grind to a halt with a few Chrome tabs open.
Adding another 4GB of cheap RAM fixed it completely. You don't need a particularly quick CPU but the RAM is necessary for W10.
 
Second hand/reconditioned is worth thinking about - get a 3 year old business laptop and it'll be great.
I use a 2013 Lenovo E540 as a daily, though it's been upgraded with an SSD.

It handles everything very well indeed (in fact, it works better than my gf's 2019 Macbook Pro for video streaming - that goes into fan overload mode super quickly).

Here's one example of something that looks pretty decent: https://www.blackbarncomputers.com/...e-3350-i5-5th-gen-22-ghz-dual-core-laptop-242
Lots on Ebay of course as well.

How much are you looking to spend?
 
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We bought my wife a Lenovo (340s IIRC) from Box last year: i5, 8gb, 256gb nvme, for around £500. It's been fine, reasonable screen, good trackpad and audio, decent performance and reliable. The Ali chassis is nice too. I'd have no qualms recommending one based on this plus use of Lenovo for business between 2002-2009. The only weakness is that the fans can whistle a little under load, but that's usually brief.

Just make sure whatever you get can a)be upgraded and b) has SSD and not HDD.
 
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We've picked up an ASUS 15 inch today, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, and a Ryzen 5 processor. .

I'm having a bloody nightmare trying to set up her Gmail account. Windows 10 wants to do it and keeps failing, and I'm struggling to find how to put all the information in manually. Wundows 7 was never this hard, and nor is my Mac.
 
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We bought my wife a Lenovo (340s IIRC) from Box last year: i5, 8gb, 256gb nvme, for around £500. It's been fine, reasonable screen, good trackpad and audio, decent performance and reliable. The Ali chassis is nice too. I'd have no qualms recommending one based on this plus use of Lenovo for business between 2002-2009. The only weakness is that the fans can whistle a little under load, but that's usually brief.

Just make sure whatever you get can a)be upgraded and b) has SSD and not HDD.
I've had a few Thinkpads over the years - an R40 back when IBM owned the brand (I ran that one into the ground until the fan died), and a rather underpowered Edge model that's still working (it probably deserves an SSD so I can keep using that nice keyboard). I picked up an X1 Carbon at a substantial discount on Black Friday, and it's the nicest piece of computing hardware I've owned - solid feel, still a decent keyboard, a very nice display, and some retro touches like the red Trackpoint (sometimes known by less polite names) that I hardly use but would somehow miss. It's an ultrabook that beats my old desktop hands down. The fly in the ointment was a faulty 4G modem, which I think was bricked by a firmware update. I could have just gone for a refund, but at that price wanted to keep it, so it went in for service (they wouldn't just ship me the part, though it's a 'field replaceable unit'). It took their contractors a lot longer to diagnose the fault than it did me, though I'd told them what the problem was (perhaps in too much detail). Their call centre people are much better than average, probably because they mostly deal with business customers, but of course you can't talk directly to the technicians who are actually fixing the thing. They seem to have acquired a lot of IBM jargon and infrastructure along with the brand - the support website has things like a complete build list for your machine and a service manual with detailed lists of FRUs and SKUs, about as far from the Apple sealed appliance ethos as you can get. Eventually the machine came back with a new modem and seems to be fine (luckily I was in when it was delivered, as the courier just left it on the doorstep!).
 
I've had a few Thinkpads over the years - an R40 back when IBM owned the brand (I ran that one into the ground until the fan died), and a rather underpowered Edge model that's still working (it probably deserves an SSD so I can keep using that nice keyboard). I picked up an X1 Carbon at a substantial discount on Black Friday, and it's the nicest piece of computing hardware I've owned - solid feel, still a decent keyboard, a very nice display, and some retro touches like the red Trackpoint (sometimes known by less polite names) that I hardly use but would somehow miss. It's an ultrabook that beats my old desktop hands down. The fly in the ointment was a faulty 4G modem, which I think was bricked by a firmware update. I could have just gone for a refund, but at that price wanted to keep it, so it went in for service (they wouldn't just ship me the part, though it's a 'field replaceable unit'). It took their contractors a lot longer to diagnose the fault than it did me, though I'd told them what the problem was (perhaps in too much detail). Their call centre people are much better than average, probably because they mostly deal with business customers, but of course you can't talk directly to the technicians who are actually fixing the thing. They seem to have acquired a lot of IBM jargon and infrastructure along with the brand - the support website has things like a complete build list for your machine and a service manual with detailed lists of FRUs and SKUs, about as far from the Apple sealed appliance ethos as you can get. Eventually the machine came back with a new modem and seems to be fine (luckily I was in when it was delivered, as the courier just left it on the doorstep!).

If I were not planning to replace the XPS with a desktop this year then a Lenovo would be high on the possibles list.
 
check out Aldi they have what your looking for it is online buy only
takes two minutes to set up account
 
There is a small company that refurbishes laptops and sells them on usually with Windows 10 and I have had two off them in the past few years and they have given trouble free service. They come with a 6 month guarantee. This company based near Norwich is called Value Computers. Google company they have a sample of what they have on their website. I think they also deal with Apple as well
 
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We've picked up an ASUS 15 inch today, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, and a Ryzen 5 processor. .

I'm having a bloody nightmare trying to set up her Gmail account. Windows 10 wants to do it and keeps failing, and I'm struggling to find how to put all the information in manually. Wundows 7 was never this hard, and nor is my Mac.
Any more information on this? I have two gmail accounts set up on my laptop for me and the other half. Just go into Chrome and sign in to whichever you prefer.

Step 1 would be to install Chrome as your default browser.
 
We've picked up an ASUS 15 inch today, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, and a Ryzen 5 processor. .

I'm having a bloody nightmare trying to set up her Gmail account. Windows 10 wants to do it and keeps failing, and I'm struggling to find how to put all the information in manually. Wundows 7 was never this hard, and nor is my Mac.
If Windows is asking, might it mean the Microsoft account? This can use a third party email address like a gmail address as your account ID, but has its own password. You need an existing gmail account for this to work.
 
So....

I have Office 365 set up in my name, but shared with my wife under her Gmail account. The laptop is set up in her name (i.e. she is the admin). I have downloaded the Office apps onto the laptop. I can log in to Office and it's fine, but when my wife logs in Office is saying that her subscriptions need updating. I can't find a way of getting around this, and, as it's my wife's laptop, she should really be able to use the Office apps in her name...

So any suggestions will be gratefully received.
 
So....

I have Office 365 set up in my name, but shared with my wife under her Gmail account. The laptop is set up in her name (i.e. she is the admin). I have downloaded the Office apps onto the laptop. I can log in to Office and it's fine, but when my wife logs in Office is saying that her subscriptions need updating. I can't find a way of getting around this, and, as it's my wife's laptop, she should really be able to use the Office apps in her name...

So any suggestions will be gratefully received.
Is that a Microsoft 365 Family account, not a Personal account? i.e., this one:
 
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Yes, we have it on our two Mac's at the moment.
When she logs into her MS account via a web browser, does the subscription you have shared show up under 'Services and subscriptions'? Can she sign into Office under her account on the Mac?
 
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She can log into the account on another machine, but when you click on "Services & Subscriptions" it breaks...
 

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Not very helpful of them! Don't know if it's worth trying their help bot:


Or creating a fresh account, or cancelling and re-issuing the invitation...

You might want to ask on the MS forums, ,where they have some related issues (but they generally seem to be unresolved):


I recently spent a whole evening trying to install Office 2016 (perpetual licence). The online installer purchased via an employee discount scheme refused to run, with an error about not installing two versions at the same time (nothing else was installed). Scrubbing all possible traces of Office with MS's cleaner tool didn't work. Eventually I found an unofficial link to a copy of the offline installer on MS's servers, which actually worked with my licence key. But I couldn't find a way to associate the licence with my MS account, so if the machine breaks I may not be able to re-install, except maybe by telephone activation (if it still exists at that point).
 
Not very helpful of them! Don't know if it's worth trying their help bot:


Or creating a fresh account, or cancelling and re-issuing the invitation...

You might want to ask on the MS forums, ,where they have some related issues (but they generally seem to be unresolved):


I recently spent a whole evening trying to install Office 2016 (perpetual licence). The online installer purchased via an employee discount scheme refused to run, with an error about not installing two versions at the same time (nothing else was installed). Scrubbing all possible traces of Office with MS's cleaner tool didn't work. Eventually I found an unofficial link to a copy of the offline installer on MS's servers, which actually worked with my licence key. But I couldn't find a way to associate the licence with my MS account, so if the machine breaks I may not be able to re-install, except maybe by telephone activation (if it still exists at that point).


It's done my head in today, so I'll have another look tomorrow.
 
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