Have You Heard Of Coda

Have you heard of a PC manufacturer called Coda? Are their machines any good?

I've never had a PC with SSD before. Is 128 GB SSD much or not a lot? The RAM is 4 GB, which I think is on the slow side.

The machine is not expensive and I was wondering about it to replace my current laptop which is showing its age.

 

I would not go there. Their webpage - CODA Computers | Windows 10 Laptops, Tablets & Convertibles - still has 2019 as their latest Copyright registration year. And they say Windows 10 yet Window 11 has been out for 2 years.

Drive size matters the same with a SSD as it does with a hard drive. And no, 128GB is not much. It will hold Windows and most of your programs, but soon your data will fill the rest causing Windows and your apps to become very sluggish. Not good. I recommend at least 250GB, preferably 500GB or more.

It is not that 4GB of RAM is "slow". The problem is 4GB is barely enough for the operating system to run in, let alone your security apps, then your programs, and your data too. I recommend 8GB minimum, preferably 16GB or even 32GB.

 

I didn’t think it would be any good.

My own motto is you get what you pay for and for £89 you’re not going to get much.

I know 128 GB is small but not sure why I thought SSD can store more in its space. Currently, having a 1TB hard drive that’s getting close to full 128 GB is nowhere large enough.

My current laptop has 8 GB RAM and I don’t want to go smaller.

I didn’t mention it in my question but I noticed it comes with Windows 10. I did think may be it could be updated to Windows 11 but there’s the possibility it lacks the specs for that.

My laptop is 3 years old and I’ve looked after it but it’s now getting very slow and sluggish, the battery doesn’t last long, it doesn’t meet the requirements for updating to Windows 11. I use CCleaner and Glary Utilities but running them isn’t really improving it’s performance any more.

It’s annoying it’s coming to the end of its life after only 3 years. Mind you it’s an Acer and only after I purchased it many people said you shouldn’t have bought an Acer.

So it looks like I shall be looking around for a new one.

 

(My bold underline added)

This could be much of your problem. Windows needs a large chunk of free disk space to operate freely in. Some may suggest a percentage of the total size, but that makes no sense. That would mean with a 1TB drive, you would be leaving 100GB free and that is just wasting good disk space. Now with 3 and 4TB drives becoming more common, it would be even more wasteful while providing no advantages whatsoever.

There is no magic number but I typically say we need to ensure we have at least 30GB free, regardless the total size. This is another reason why 128GB is too small.

Leaving at least 30GB free will give the OS plenty of space for temporary files, the page file, and for disk maintenance/optimization. For disk maintenance/optimization on a hard drive, that means automatic, periodic defragmenting. For a SSD, that means automatic TRIM and Wear Leveling.

Now if you have more than 30GB, that's great. That will allow for those maintenance/optimization functions to work more quickly and will help ensure maximum lifespan of the SSD.

If you don't currently have at least 30GB free, you may be "crowding" the OS and that certainly can hinder performance. CCleaner will clean out the clutter but it sounds like you need to take other actions. I recommend uninstall programs you downloaded and installed, but don't use. If you have other storage options, you could move (uninstall and reinstall) those programs to another drive.

Beyond that, I agree with Philipp and migrating from a hard drive to a SSD will provide significant performance gains.

LOL

I promise you, regardless which brand you buy, there will always be people out there who would say you should not have bought that brand. It is important to remember that computers are assemblages of components made by other companies. ASUS, Dell, HP, Acer and all the others still use the exact same Intel and AMD CPUs. The same Samsung and Micron RAM. The same drives, etc. And all these components are designed to support the same protocols, software, and accessories.

And all those laptop makers produce (assemble!) several "tiers" of laptops with multiple models within each tier. No one manufacturer has the best, or the worst, model in each tier across their entire brand.

So for anyone to say, "you shouldn't have bought [fill in the blank]" just demonstrates their ignorance, and not any purchasing mistake you might have made. The exception would be "IF" there is evidence to suggest there is something wrong (or not right) with the company itself (like Coda's website being woefully out of date).

The only valid comparison of "products" requires specific model numbers - not entire brand names. For example, Acer model number ABC123 compared with Dell's model number 321ZYX.

One more thing. I don't want to rehash the lifelong debate over "registry cleaners" and whether or not they are beneficial, harmful, or do nothing. I note both Glary and CCleaner have those features. For cleaning out the disk clutter, fine.

But for registry cleaners I will just say this. I do NOT recommend the use of two such utilities. Pick one, or the other. I prefer CCleaner. And never use one to "fix" a broken Windows. If a registry cleaner is used, it should only be used for periodic, routine maintenance.

And always ensure you have a viable backup of all your data AND you know how to recover with it (regardless if you use a registry cleaner, or not).

 

I want to digest more some of the other things you've said but regarding CCleaner and Glary Utilities I will say a few things.

I use both for the simple reason one may do things slightly better than the other. That's why I have both. May be they do the same equally well so only one is required.

I never clean the registry. I have heard it's really unnecessary so I don't use that function in either of the utilities.

Similarly, I never defrag the registry as I've heard there's little to nothing to be gained from doing so.

If I were going to do anything to the registry I would back it up. However, I've been told on many occasions the registry is best left well alone. So I do leave it well alone.

 

I would not characterize it as slightly "better", but rather slightly "different".

As I noted above, for simply cleaning out the clutter (cookies, temporary Internet files, orphaned files and folders, and similar junk left on the hard drive) having both is fine - though in my opinion, between CCleaner's "Custom Clean" feature and Windows' own, "Disk Cleanup" tool, that's plenty.

I am very familiar with both CCleaner and Glary Utilities, and in my opinion, Glary Utilities is often considerably more "aggressive". That is NOT necessarily a good thing! Being overly aggressive has resulted in problems. CCleaner is a bit more conservative, which is exactly why I like it better.

If you actually "need" the little bit of extra disk space Glary Utilities might provide, you do NOT need a more aggressive cleaning tool. What you need is to do some drastic uninstalling of applications you don't use, AND/OR moving of personal data files to a different drive (see *** below), AND/OR perhaps more significantly, you need to buy more space!

That said, I am not telling you to get rid if Glary - just that you really don't need both (or rather all 3); Windows Disk Cleanup, CCleaner, and Glary too.

Since you don't use the registry cleaning features of either tool, the point about those tools is moot. And that's just fine.

And for 99.99% of the people 99.99% of the time, that is the wisest course of action.

***
One option to help free up space on a crowded boot drive is to move the default location of your Documents folder to a secondary drive.

To move the default location of your Documents folder to another drive, D drive in this example, do the following:

1. Create a new Documents folder on the D drive,
2. Right-click on the new folder and click Include in Library > Documents,
3. Click Start > Documents,
4. Double-click Documents to open and reveal its contents,
5. Drag and drop (or cut and paste) to move the files to the new folder,
6. Right-click in a blank area then click on Refresh, or press F5 to refresh the view,
7. Under Documents Library, click locations,
8. Right-click the new folder and click Set as default save location.
9. [Optional] Once sure the files copied properly, click the old Documents folder and click Remove to free up all that previously used space.​

You often can free up additional space by simply deleting the contents of your Downloads folder. Once the downloaded application has been installed or the downloaded file has been executed, it is no longer needed. You can just download it again, if necessary. But you can also change the default location of the Downloads folder. Just follow the same procedures above, replacing Documents with Downloads where necessary.

You might also search your drive for windows.old folders. These are created whenever there is a "major" Windows upgrade installed through Windows Update and are used to "roll back" to the previous version should something go wrong with the update. These folders can take up a huge amount of space. Typically by default, Windows will automatically delete those folders 28 days after they were created. However, on rare occasions, they may not get deleted.

If you find any windows.old folders AND your computer is working fine otherwise, it is safe to delete the folder to free up that space (even if less than 28 days old).

Just some more stuff for you to digest!

 

What would be the least expensive option for me to follow?

1. Purchase an SSD, get a new battery and have them fitted*;

2. Purchase a new laptop?

*I'm sure you might advise me to fit them myself. That, trust me, is not an option. My brother, an engineer could, but he selfishly lives 10,000 miles away.

 

Well, you can get an entry-level, low-budget, weak performing, laptop for dirt cheap. But then you would have an entry-level, low-budget, weak performing, dirt cheap laptop.

Yes you can replace the battery yourself. That typically involves removing one or two screws from the access panel, lifting off the access panel, lifting out the old battery, plopping in the new battery, replacing the access panel. Your user guide will show you how.

The SSD is a bit more challenging - especially when it comes to migrating Windows and all your data files over to the new drive. If uncomfortable doing that, and no shame in that, it would be cheaper having a pro do it than a new laptop.

Having said that, you already said this laptop is showing its age. Like just about everything, at some point, throwing money at aging devices is no longer economically feasible or wise. But only you can decide if it is worth it to keep throwing money at something that may die completely soon, or if time to bite the bullet and go new.

Either way, make sure you have a current backup of any file you don't want to lose.

 

I now do have a major problem with this laptop.

The keyboard will not respond to any key I press. I can switch it on but I'm unable to enter my password. Any suggestions?

I hadn't moved anything off it yet onto a backup medium. I need to get into this laptop and get things off it.

 

You can try connecting an external keyboard to the laptop and see if that works. If not, then you may have no choice but to remove the drive from that laptop and temporarily install it in, or attach it to another computer then copy off any files you don't want lost.

 

Great minds think alike!

Yesterday, I checked several times to see if someone had answered my question. Just prior to checking and finding yours I thought I've got a spare keyboard I wonder if that'll work. It does!

So thank you for answering my question, I appreciate it.

I can know spend my day transferring everything off this laptop (lucky me).

How likely is this problem to be permanent and is it likely to be the laptop physically is damaged or may it be a software problem? I only remembered prior to the problem getting a message which I think said do you want to enter Safe Mode you're holding down the Ctrl key.

If everything is removed from this laptop so the hard drive will be have lots of space, I then run one of the Windows Repair tools and give the keyboard a very good clean if I might get a bit longer out of this laptop. I hadn't realised how expensive they've become and one hasn't been budgeted for. Everyone is having to draw their purse strings tighter these days so to replace the laptop will need saving up for.

 

There is no way of knowing without knowing exactly what is wrong. All I can say is if a reboot does not clear a problem, the odd it will fix itself are pretty slim.