Laptop Choice ?

[Psi]

Maybe check out Framework.
http://frame.work

At least then you know it's something that can be fixed easily if it breaks.
(All parts available to order)

I always try to support them whenever I can.

[Mechatrommer]

When OP says "A family member wanted some help" without further explanation, CAD and EDA is not the first thing that crosses my mind!

family member can be broad range, the worst is a careless person who opened 100 tabs browser watching video without a rat arse knowledge about what a computer resources are., they only know either it works or its broken. when they think it broke, they will send it to the nearest techies they know. my kids are briliant! they installed an auto click app that opened whatever icon under the mouse, that caused me pretty much headache to restore the PC's functioning. so if you want to define what a "family member" is, then it will be endless debate. i can pretty much sure i can hit 8GB ram by opening unreasonably many browser tabs like some people are happy doing without the eda and cad.

What I know is people who buy HP and Asus and those kinds of laptops seldom use them for long.

here the problem is usually the software/OS bloated, not the hardware. if its hardware, its because they dont know how to upgrade (or not aware it can be done) the bottlenecked 4GB RAM they purchased built-in since day one with budget tight in mind.

I have *never* had a fruit-brand laptop fail.

there is recent thread about broken LCD/GPU, only 8 years old laptop, i wanted to chime in but then i think its not worth my time and its not going to be helpfull anyway. few months ago a family member came to me with her broken macbook that cannot turned on with some led/beep sequence. maybe 5-10 years old device from the look of it. she was clever enough to google youtube about reflowing and asked me to do it since she doesnt have the skill and equipments. few bad experiences during the repair attempt starting from the damned screws holding the casing. reflowing with hot air doesnt fix it so i returned it to her asking her to find the nearest fruit service center. i never fix other laptop with such intense skill requirement. the few that i fixed are usually disintegrated plastic casing with missing keyboard pads of 10 years old or more of unknown china brand from government subsidized/donation units. but then i have to say, i hate fixing laptops, regardless of any brand. dont tell me one of the key in your keyboard is not functioning because you dropped a coffe or a pin underneath, i hate esp that, the laptop keyboard.

[coppice]

Ability to expand is later is useful, but I wouldn't pay a lot for it. In 30 years of owning laptops (first was a PowerBook 100), the vast majority of which were upgradable, I can't recall ever actually upgrading one more than a week or two after initial purchase (i.e. planned to buy cheap 3rd party RAM or disk from the outset). Usually by the time any pinch is felt there is something with vastly better CPU etc anyway.

In notebooks I have:

• Added RAM
• Replace a hard disk with a bigger one
• Replaced a hard disk with an SSD for improved speed and robustness

I think these are the types of things quite a few people want to do. The only item there which requires any special qualities is the RAM. Some machines make RAM expansion difficult or impossible. Check for a spare RAM slot, and you should be good to go.

[Helio_Centra]

ThinkPad T or older P series were the only good laptops ever made. But if you want something modern, probably Framework.

[fourfathom]

Any advice for me?  I am currently using the cheapest, lightest laptop I could find a few years ago (HP Stream) and it only has 4G ram and 30G disk.  I have a big micro-SD in the reader slot to hold documents, etc.  I knew the computer had too little of everything when I bought it, but it was something I could throw in my backpack when traveling and I just use it for web and email, and little else.  It did that job for a while...  I'm definitely not trying to do CAD on this thing. 

Now Windows keeps trying (and failing) to update it and, even a little program-bloat causes problems.  So it's time for a new one.  That's fine with me, I was expecting this -- I wanted to see how cheaply I could go, but that experiment is over.

So what's the recommendation for me?  RAM: 16G, SSD: 256G-1T?  I don't need blazing speed or fancy graphics, and don't plan to open the thing up to ever add anything.  It does need to be small-ish, and lightweight, and somewhat rugged -- this will be my airplane-travel, non-work laptop.  I would like a useful number of USB ports so I don't have to carry a hub with me.  No RJ-45 ethernet port is needed, I can use WiFi.  Sub-$1000 (US) would be nice, but I am flexible.  I have a bigger, much better, laptop I sometimes use, but don't like lugging it around.

Brand and model recommendations would be appreciated!

[Ed.Kloonk]

I don't need blazing speed or fancy graphics, and don't plan to open the thing up to ever add anything. 

Brand and model recommendations would be appreciated!

Not sure if this is still the case but the advice I used to give for this type of upgrade is just make sure it doesn't have any hardware that is known not to play nice with Linux.

Even if you don't use Linux now, you might someday want to sell or off load the laptop. Nobody wants an old windows laptop. As you've found out.

[fourfathom]

I don't need blazing speed or fancy graphics, and don't plan to open the thing up to ever add anything. 

Brand and model recommendations would be appreciated!

Not sure if this is still the case but the advice I used to give for this type of upgrade is just make sure it doesn't have any hardware that is known not to play nice with Linux.

Even if you don't use Linux now, you might someday want to sell or off load the laptop. Nobody wants an old windows laptop. As you've found out.

I'm not worried about resale, or even re-useability so much.  Although I have wiped a few of my old laptops and run Linux on them, it's not a priority.  Right now I'm just looking for an appliance, nothing more...

[Mechatrommer]

if all you do is browsing while travelling, imho your old HP is still perfectly fine, you just need to wipe it and install clean windows (the older the better, or else the linux the lightweight OS since the beginning) my key to "doing more with lesser laptop" is to keep OS installer around (locally saved) so i can do clean install anytime myself. or else, backup the OS with backupper tool somewhere else while it still clean so quick restore can be done later. sometime non-fruit laptop comes from shop already bloated or with some annoying brand specific settings, so knowledge to do diy clean install is important. older windows need antivirus imho to ensure data security. newer windows with 4GB ram wont cut it anymore, 8GB is minimum, but since its normal in every newer laptop today, i think you can buy anything budget range with known name brand (good reviews in the net) and be happy with your browsing. if you dont want to put technical knowledge in your belt, then i suggest work hard, get good money and go for fruit grade laptop/OS and learn all of its inverted nomenclatures/notions wrt windows. ymmv.

[fourfathom]

if all you do is browsing while travelling, imho your old HP is still perfectly fine, [... some good advice ...]

I've done clean installs before, and while my particular laptop didn't come with much bloatware (not enough room on the disk), I did remove everything that I didn't need before I started using it.  My problem is that Microsoft keeps trying to upgrade / bug-fix the OS (but I still want to use Windows).  I don't want to spend a lot of time messing around with it, I just want it to work.  Once I get a replacement I will probably put Linux on the old machine, but I want the main travel-computer to be something my wife is also comfortable using -- I don't want to try to show her how to use a Linux box.

So: Windows, more-than-adequate RAM, big enough SSD, lightweight, rugged enough, useful # of ports.  That's what I'm looking for.

[David Hess]

I just ordered a Lenovo ThinkBook 15 Gen 3 with 16G RAM.

Pros:

- Lots of External Ports
- IPS Anti-glare LCD Display
- SD Card Reader
- 1 x SO-DIMM memory expansion, so up to 40GB with a 32GB SO-DIMM.
- Supports Second 2.5" HDD or M.2 2280 SSD
- Supports 3 external displays plus native display.

Cons:

- Low Battery Life
- Integrated Battery
- 1 x SO-DIMM Memory Expansion instead of 2 x SO-DIMM Memory Expansion
- Chiclet keyboard, but all laptops have these now.

[brucehoult]

6 cores or 8?

That's not what "chiclet" means. Chiclet is a TV remote control or calculator style keyboard. Key pointL if you press on the edge of a key, it tilts.

This is scissor-switch.

I've got a 2-3 year old Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 2 (6 core Ryzen 5 4500U) and the keyboard is absolutely fine. Not as good as my MacBook, but close enough that I don't care.

[David Hess]

6 cores or 8?

It has the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U Processor (1.80 GHz, up to 4.30 GHz Max Boost, 8 Cores, 16 Threads, 8 MB Cache).  I would have preferred a lower power processor with fewer cores, but they all draw the same amount of power.  Performance is limited by the thermal solution.

That's not what "chiclet" means. Chiclet is a TV remote control or calculator style keyboard. Key pointL if you press on the edge of a key, it tilts.

I am old enough to remember the CoCo and various other early personal computers.  I call it a chiclet keyboard, others call it a chiclet keyboard, even the manufacturers call it a chiclet keyboard.  It resembles the chiclet keyboards on personal computers in the 1980s and has all of the same disadvantages; the keys are not cupped for self centering, the travel distance is too short, and there is not enough tactile feedback.

I've got a 2-3 year old Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 2 (6 core Ryzen 5 4500U) and the keyboard is absolutely fine. Not as good as my MacBook, but close enough that I don't care.

For years I have been testing various laptop keyboards whenever I visit Micro Center or some other store with laptops on sale, and laptop keyboards are all horrible.

A couple years ago I finally gave up on wireless rubber dome keyboards and went back to mechanical keyswitches and corded keyboards.  It is such an improvement.

[brucehoult]

That's not what "chiclet" means. Chiclet is a TV remote control or calculator style keyboard. Key pointL if you press on the edge of a key, it tilts.

I am old enough to remember the CoCo and various other early personal computers.

Good for you.

I taught myself 6502 machine code programming on an Apple ][ in 1980, and z80 machine code on a Sinclair zx80 in 1981. I've used the CoCo and the Spectrum. Thankfully, I never used or even saw a PC Jr.

I think I know the horrors of a chiclet keyboard, and the modern Thinkpad keyboard is NOT THAT, no matter what you or anyone else calls it. Which I think, incidentally, you might find is "chiclet style" (i.e. appearance), not chiclet mechanism and feel/action.

I'm pretty fussy about keyboards and have been known to drive colleagues crazy by bringing a 1980s IBM Model M (I have them in both AT and PS/2 style) along to work. I also have a collection of 1980s Apple "Saratoga" ADB keyboards.

[rsjsouza]

.I think I know the horrors of a chiclet keyboard, and the modern Thinkpad keyboard is NOT THAT, no matter what you or anyone else calls it. Which I think, incidentally, you might find is "chiclet style" (i.e. appearance), not chiclet mechanism and feel/action.

I have the same opinion as brucehoult here: chiclet keyboards are rubber keyboards present in Z80 Sinclairs and other ultra cheap 1970s/1980s home computers. The main feature of them is that it is impossible to type in any sort of speed, as there is very poor mechanical feedback and the keys are too loose to warrant any sort of typing accuracy. I think the only thing worse was a membrane keyboard present in one of Sinclais's Brazilian clones named TK82C.

However, it seems the term was too good to leave it in the past: searching for chiclet keyboard I found a large number of hits that nowadays modernized the term to incorporate the modern laptop keyboards in the shape of chiclets (square with rounded edges and very poor tactile feel).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiclet_keyboard

However, the modern "chiclet" laptop keyboards are nothing like the older ones: they are usable, while the older ones were absolutely not.

Learned something new today...

[David Hess]

I taught myself 6502 machine code programming on an Apple ][ in 1980, and z80 machine code on a Sinclair zx80 in 1981. I've used the CoCo and the Spectrum. Thankfully, I never used or even saw a PC Jr.

Pretty much the same for me, except it was friends who had the CoCo systems.  I had a ZX80 and later worked on the Apple ][ and had an Apple ][e.  In that era, I think the best computer keyboard I used was the sculpted keyboard on the Apple 3 which had narrower keytops more like a Selectric.  I learned 6502 on the Atari 800 and Apple, and 8080/8085/Z80 on S-100 CP/M systems and the Apple Z80 Softcard.

I think I know the horrors of a chiclet keyboard, and the modern Thinkpad keyboard is NOT THAT, no matter what you or anyone else calls it. Which I think, incidentally, you might find is "chiclet style" (i.e. appearance), not chiclet mechanism and feel/action.

Multiple key mechanisms were used in the past, including the scissor switch.  I do not care what the mechanism is when the travel distance is so short and the keys are not cupped.  These aspects of keyboard design are driven by the desire to make the laptop as thin as possible and not ease of use.  Apple and many others now make chiclet desktop keyboards for no other reason than consistency of style, and to make the laptop keyboards seem not so bad.  Does a desktop need a thinner keyboard? I can touch type on them, and could even get used to it, but the combination of short travel distance and flat keys is fatiguing.

I'm pretty fussy about keyboards and have been known to drive colleagues crazy by bringing a 1980s IBM Model M (I have them in both AT and PS/2 style) along to work. I also have a collection of 1980s Apple "Saratoga" ADB keyboards.

I have a few Model Ms and some Model M clones but I have not used them in a long time.  I accepted rubber dome keyboards for the sake of wireless operation, but finally decided that the tradeoff was not worth it.  I stopped using wireless mice also.

[nctnico]

I'm pretty fussy about keyboards and have been known to drive colleagues crazy by bringing a 1980s IBM Model M (I have them in both AT and PS/2 style) along to work. I also have a collection of 1980s Apple "Saratoga" ADB keyboards.

Same here. I like the old 'noisy' keyboards with a 'click' when you press the keys best. I'm still using a PS/2 style keyboard (with USB adapter). The keyboard is very worn though; some keys and parts of the surface have been polished like a mirror.

[David Hess]

I'm pretty fussy about keyboards and have been known to drive colleagues crazy by bringing a 1980s IBM Model M (I have them in both AT and PS/2 style) along to work. I also have a collection of 1980s Apple "Saratoga" ADB keyboards.

Same here. I like the old 'noisy' keyboards with a 'click' when you press the keys best. I'm still using a PS/2 style keyboard (with USB adapter). The keyboard is very worn though; some keys and parts of the surface have been polished like a mirror.

I am currently using a Logitech G413 Carbon which is tactile but without a pronounced click.  I would prefer a keyboard with more of an upper frame, but this one was cheap.