Help With Finding The Right Laptop

My husband is looking to buy a new laptop. He is both a DJ and a photographer so he needs both speed to upload 200 - 300 photos without waiting all day and memory for software like photos(hop. Also needs a cd drive (do they even call them that anymore)? We have no idea what is "enough" memory" vs what is mediocre - used to be if you could find 16 Ram then you were in good shape but now, there is DDR SD RAM which we have no idea what it is. We would love it if we could get something around 800.00 (again, this may be ridiculous). We've seen a few models in either Sam's or Costco which have like 8 GB of RAM and 16 of "Optane Memory" and a 1TB of space - sounds good but they are HP's and we've had a couple of HP notebooks for our son. Seems like we had to call customer service about a problem with both of them and once we did, we started getting "skype" calls to our home phone from people who sounded like they may have been Indian and kept telling us that they found a problem with our computer and that we had to log on and this was when the computer hadn't been used for months so I really don't want to go with HP. Anyone willing to help us learn what all this stuff is?

Thanks.

Tammy

 

A couple of comments. The phone calls you got really had nothing to do with the fact they were HP notebooks. That scams are everywhere and affect every brand. They just some how got your number (perhaps from the Equifax hack) and they assume every house has a Windows computer.

See Fake Tech Support Phone Scam

I am just saying, don't use that phone scam issue as a reason to avoid HP. Other brands you might look at are Dell, ASUS and Acer. I don't recommend Lenovo because the company has a repeated history (not just once or twice, but many) of including malware and spyware on Lenovo computers - again and again. They do make good products - no argument there. But the company seems to be controlled by the Chinese government and just cannot be trusted to have your security in their best interest.

DDR4 is the latest RAM type so look for a notebook that comes with that to ensure you are getting the latest. I do recommend 16GB. 8GB is nice, but 16GB is better and typically easier to buy initially than to upgrade later - even though it will cost more upfront. In fact, if you buy 8GB now and decide to upgrade to 16GB later, finding compatible RAM in 2 or 3 years may be difficult and more expensive than buying it now. So pay more now to save more later.

I also recommend getting a notebook with a SSD instead of a hard drive. Yes, they cost more. But the performance gains is very significant. Plus they consume less power (great for battery run time), they generate less heat (always a problem with notebooks) and they weigh less (also nice with notebooks you have to lug around all the time). Plus the performance gains are very significant (worth repeating!) - especially since you say speed is an important factor.

Look at how much disk space his notebook is using now. You might be fine you can do with a 500 - 512GB SSD instead of 1TB drive. And remember, you can always add disk space with an external drive.

You won't find any notebooks with CD drives. IF they have an "optical" drive, it will be DVD or Blu-ray. But, the trend lately is for no optical drives included. So you might look at getting an external optical drive instead - perhaps as a stocking stuffer or a gift from your son to your husband.

One last thing. You included the purpose for this notebook and your budget and that is great. But another important decision that must be made upfront when considering notebooks is screen size. 15" is probably the most common but many (like me) find that is too small. I like 17" but that's me. But of course, there is a trade off. Bigger screens mean bulkier and heavier notebooks to lug around, and also typically mean slightly less battery run times. But a bigger screen also means you can put more on the screen and what's there is easier to see.

 

Thank you SO Much, this was wonderful. I really appreciate you taking the time to explain this all to us. We will be in a much better shape now to look for what we need and actually understand some of what we see on the stickers.

Hope you had a wonderful Holiday.

Regards,

Tammy

 

You too and good luck. It's Black Friday so today may be a good day for some great deals.