After about six years, my lil “family room” notebook that I use while sitting with my Wonder Woman in the evening (she on hers, me on mine–unless we’re reading or on occasion watching TV or a video or have someone over) finally bit the dust. Onboard video system died. Really not worth the effort and cost to replace the Mobo, so. . .
Amazon’s delivering a new lappy toy tomorrow. It is NOT a top-end notebook, not even close. That’s just not needed for this lappy’s use. But it does at least have a full sized notebook keyboard with a numeric keypad, a reasonable processor and video subsystem, a reasonable display for a notebook (15.6”–just right for my viewing and much better than the lil 10” netbook I’ve used as a backup for the last couple of weeks), and the memory’s easily–and inexpensively–upgraded (the 4GB that comes with it is not enough for even casual my computing).
I’ve made a break from my past lappy purchases. This one’s not an Asus but a Toshiba. *shrugs* Six of one. . . for this class of computer? Not a lot of difference.
Yeh, yeh, comes with Win8.1, but I can fix that any number of ways (Classic Start, other things, or–likely–Linux Mint in a VM. Gets around a few issues and has essentially the same usability as running it natively, etc.), maybe even accept the “free” sorta upgrade to Win10 ( and fix the everlivin’ HECK out of it–the phoning home’s its worst part, IMO, followed by the “push” “updates:–Classic start, of course, etc.).
First task: Classic start. Next: PC Decrapifier. Then locking the thing down, getting it working well with ALL the resources on our lil LAN, installing my personal choices of software, etc. Typical computer setup fun.
But now, off to see if I can get more than 4 hours of sleep tonight. Could be. It’d be nice.
Mostly happy with this lil lappy for the uses I will put it to.
Could use a better keyboard, but this one is. . . OK.
“Decrapified” it and added Classic Shell, so Win8.1 became useful quickly.
Ditched the “trial registration” of the bundled anti-virus. Not a “mission critical” box, so got a “good enough for this” freebie anti-virus (‘cos Windows Defender isn’t).
Needs more memory, but I have the sticks picked out, and the upgrade’s easy-peasy (and inexpensive!).
Installed Win7 Freecell, so I can do my “Freecell Zen” thingy (also transferred my 7900 wins to 0 losses score from dead lappy *shrugs* Why not?).
Several hundred Win 8.1 updates and a “Jack Russell Terrior” Win 10 update “reminder” nagged at me, so I did the updates–that’s enough for now.
Updated the preinstalled software that came from Toshiba outdated (naturally).
Between Ninite and my own “usual suspects” list, I have most of my usual suite of software installed, well, usual for the uses I plan for this lil lappy.
Seems to be all right.
I’ve had a Toshiba netbook with Win7 for several years, still just a little workhorse! My big laptop is also a Toshiba with Win8.1. Took awhile to acclimate, not biting the Win10 bullet yet, just can’t do it. I’m like a computer kindergartener compared to you, but am kind of the go to tech geek for church and use it in my own ministry, mostly just because I do it all the time. Substitute teaching keeps you ready to handle anything from blackboard and chalk to smart board and doc cameras and audio and video equipment of all kinds. They haven’t stumped me yet :-). So most of the time I understand what you are doing with your “compy” talk. I am learning. Anyhoo…love my “shiba’s”.
Yeh, I mainly jumped onto the Win10 choo-choo on this lil lappy for two reasons:
1. Not a “mission critical” machine (really just some web stuff, media, things like that) and
2. handy reference for Win10 troubleshooting and maintenance hardware similar to what most folks would have.
I, too, like Toshibas. I’ve always tended to buy Asus notebooks (well, for the last 10-12 years?), but the lil Toshiba Satellite we bought my Wonder Woman in 2003 was a real workhorse. Came with WinXp Pro, I transitioned it to Win7 and doubled the memory past what Toshiba said it could handle (Toshiba lied *heh*). Toshiba also said it wasn’t appropriate hardware for Win7, but it really flew with that. Eventually, pieces started to die, after 12 years of use, and we got her another Toshiba. So, when it came time for me to get another casual use computer, it just seemed fitting that Toshiba had this one that best suited the use I intended for a new “family room” notebook.
Having a few irritations with Win10 since the post, but it just gives me some things to sharpen up on, so it’s also fun.