Any recommendations for best business laptops/PCs

[joefut2]

Thats just about it. Small start up retail business, using QBs. Wont be using the computer for much else besides social media/website. Based on budget issues, we are looking at spending less than 500. Any suggestions are appreciated.

[PayForWords]

Gateway DX Series Desktop....best bang for your buck within that price range!

Here's a good one:

Gateway DX4375G A6-5200 Quad Core 6GB 500GB Radeon HD 8400 Windows 8 Desktop PC - Rakuten.com Shopping (http://www.rakuten.com/prod/gateway-dx4375g-a6-5200-quad-core-6gb-500gb-radeon-hd-8400-windows-8/259087432.html?listingId=341392074&scid=pla_google_Hardware&adid=29963&gclid=CjkKEQjw5qmdBRCn--70gPSo074BEiQAJCe7zc7mLcMEaaKNRmBAaejXF8Jimmn3RHhS sOa8O0pZJTrw_wcB)

And a monitor to go with it:

Acer V206HQL Abd 19.5" LED Backlit LCD Monitor UM.IV6AA.A02 (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=983524&gclid=CjkKEQjw5qmdBRCn--70gPSo074BEiQAJCe7zUCyby9LMXaVjR5t7L2AUJeMxYryxwgr vhzXvCQKLfjw_wcB&Q=&is=REG&A=details)

$20 under budget ;)

[Freelancier]

Pretty much any PC from your local office supply, best buy, costco, etc. will do. Just get a big enough monitor to keep you happy. Disk space likely won't ever be an issue if you stick to business usage.

PCs at that price range are disposable, so don't over-spend. The monitor isn't as disposable.

[Harold Mansfield]

Thats just about it. Small start up retail business, using QBs. Wont be using the computer for much else besides social media/website. Based on budget issues, we are looking at spending less than 500. Any suggestions are appreciated.

I needed to buy a laptop back in December that I really only needed for a few weeks. So I was in the same price range.

I got a Toshiba, 15.6" screen, Windows 8.1, 500GB Hard Drive, and 6G RAM ( which I upgraded to 16G). Total price including the after market RAM upgrade was $500.

That model is discontinued and it was a blow out sale from multiple vendors for $379, but my point is to look for deals like that. I would say to get a core set of specs that you want for that budget and then shop around. You have to start with a base. You can get something nice with decent power for $500.

For instance, you can get more computer for less money if you fore go the touch screen. You can get more RAM, if you give up hard drive space. (250G to 500G's should be plenty for a casual user).

My specs were that I wanted at least a 15.6" screen, Windows 8, and at LEAST 6G of RAM, touch screen wasn't important, and that I did not want a Dell or Gateway. Once I had that, it was much easier to shop and find what I wanted. Otherwise you'll be looking at 100 computers of various screen sizes, memories and so on and it'll be overwhelming.

It took a while but I finally found an electronics store in New York on Ebay selling what I was looking for, for $379 ( he must have sold at least 1500 of them in about 5 days). I missed that opportunity, but at least I knew what make and models to start looking at and I finally found the same deal at Best Buy.

The model that replaced mine has similar specs, but only 4G of RAM and the price is a little higher. There's a ton of Toshiba Satellite models that all have similar specs:
Toshiba Satellite S50-ABT3N22 Laptop (http://www.toshiba.com/us/computers/laptops/satellite/S50/S50-ABT3N22?src=ANEM&cm_mmc=SF_GooglePLS&CAWELAID=400007100000002740&catargetid=1820091744&cadevice=c)

In that price range most are going to have only 4G of RAM, and Max 15.6 screens, unless they are running Windows 7 or slower processors. You shouldn't have to accept anything under 1.8Ghz for processor. Probably can get 2.6 Ghz on almost any model.

However, maybe you see a machine with 4G of RAM for just under your price range that has everything else you want, and you can upgrade or double the RAM for a few bucks more.

You can check Crucial (Crucial.com - DRAM, solid state drive (SSD) memory upgrades for Dell, Mac, Apple, HP, Compaq, Lenovo, Acer, ASUS (http://www.crucial.com/)) to see if the RAM on any model can be upgraded and for how much.

Look for non touch screens. You'll get more of something else. You will not be happy with a 4G RAM touchscreen laptop.


Probably more information than you wanted, but there are soooooooo many laptops out there, and so much garbage in that price range, I thought I'd share with you how to weed through the nonsense and get something decent.

As I said, I don't have much need for a laptop, I just needed one to travel with. Today that laptop still works great, is plenty fast, and is permanently hooked up to my TV. Which is a perfect way to reuse it.

[MyITGuy]

Sorry, I wouldn't have any recommendations for that budget. If you can up it...I would recommend the Dell Latitude E6540, and if you find yourself at the same location day in/out I would recommend a docking station with external keyboard/mouse and monitor(s).

Other than that, I'm really looking at/liking the Surface Pro 3 (Along with docking station and external devices if needed).

[Harold Mansfield]

Other than that, I'm really looking at/liking the Surface Pro 3 (Along with docking station and external devices if needed).

So am I. I think it's finally ready.

[billbenson]

I bought an MSI gaming laptop for both my wife and I within that last year. It's really way overkill unless you need the processing power. I tend to keep a lot of tabs open all the time so I use the processing power. Nice machines, but a lot more expensive than what you are talking about.

If you go with a laptop, I strongly agree with MyITGuy about an external monitor and a regular keyboard and mouse. Right now I'm actually using a 42 in LED TV for my monitor and a wireless keyboard and mouse. I like the setup.

Another thing that wasn't mentioned above is if you are going with a desktop computer, there are some good deals on barebones kits. The nice thing about that is you can customize it as you are building it to meet your needs. I've built a few of them over the years.

[Brian Altenhofel]

I strongly recommend looking at refurbs and closeouts (and ideally, refurbs on closeout).

[billbenson]

I strongly recommend looking at refurbs and closeouts (and ideally, refurbs on closeout).

Brian, I live in Florida. We get a lot of lightning i.e. power surges. These often times have a derogatory effect on electronics. Particularly with the low voltage IC's of today. I've had TV's die in January that were almost certainly damaged by summer lightning.

I agree with you on the closeouts. But I don't think a refurb is a good idea if it has the original motherboard. Just my opinion. :)

[MyITGuy]

Brian, I live in Florida. We get a lot of lightning i.e. power surges. These often times have a derogatory effect on electronics. Particularly with the low voltage IC's of today. I've had TV's die in January that were almost certainly damaged by summer lightning.

I agree with you on the closeouts. But I don't think a refurb is a good idea if it has the original motherboard. Just my opinion. :)

Sounds like you need some proper protection then. Look to FPL to provide a whole home surge protector at the meter, or contract with an electrician to install a surge protector at your electrical panel.

These would be the basic steps, you would also want to implement UPS's for devices that can be affected by brown/blackouts...along with power conditioners for electronics that are sensitive to the amount of voltage they get

Then there's also the "get what you pay for" mantra. The cheaper electronic items are going to have lower grade parts which can easily be susceptible to power surges and etc, where a higher end device may have a higher build quality/parts.

I've been in FL for over 20 years now and never had an item damaged by power surgest, lightning or etc...

[MyITGuy]

I strongly recommend looking at refurbs and closeouts (and ideally, refurbs on closeout).

I always check out the Dell Outlet when making a purchase (Desktops, Laptops, Servers and etc...) - Dell Outlet | Dell (http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/22/campaigns/outlet)

[billbenson]

Sounds like you need some proper protection then. Look to FPL to provide a whole home surge protector at the meter, or contract with an electrician to install a surge protector at your electrical panel.

These would be the basic steps, you would also want to implement UPS's for devices that can be affected by brown/blackouts...along with power conditioners for electronics that are sensitive to the amount of voltage they get

Then there's also the "get what you pay for" mantra. The cheaper electronic items are going to have lower grade parts which can easily be susceptible to power surges and etc, where a higher end device may have a higher build quality/parts.

I've been in FL for over 20 years now and never had an item damaged by power surgest, lightning or etc...

I've been thinking about the FPL protection. Also, I'm going back to the 90's for my analysis. Still, I don't seem to get more than a couple of years out of a monitor or TV these days. I have a couple of good UPS's, but they won't handle all of the electronics I have.

It does go back to the point I was originally making about refurbished though. You don't know what kind of environment a refurbished computer has been in. It could be in FL with no surge protection. I'd be really hesitant to buy a refurbished machine.

[Harold Mansfield]

Brian, I live in Florida. We get a lot of lightning i.e. power surges. These often times have a derogatory effect on electronics. Particularly with the low voltage IC's of today. I've had TV's die in January that were almost certainly damaged by summer lightning.

I agree with you on the closeouts. But I don't think a refurb is a good idea if it has the original motherboard. Just my opinion. :)

You shouldn't be expecting any electronics to take the brunt of a power surge or fluctuations. You need to protect your gear. If the weather is that extreme, I highly recommend that you bypass the regular $8 old power surge strips and get serious about it.

We don't even get rain here, let alone lightening. But in the summer we will get short power outages. Not only that but unless you have a high end voltage regulator (I may be using the wrong terminology) in your home, power fluctuates slightly all the time. Ever see the lights dim or jolt for a split second when the washing machine switches cycles, or the A/C unit kicks in on a hot day?

I have these and have been very happy with them:
In my office: Amazon.com: CyberPower CP1500AVRLCD Intelligent LCD UPS 1500VA 900W AVR Mini-Tower: Electronics (http://www.amazon.com/CyberPower-CP1500AVRLCD-Intelligent-1500VA-Mini-Tower/dp/B000FBK3QK/)
In my living room: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009TZTGWK/

If you have computers, and HDTV's, I highly recommend that you protect them with something. It only takes one time.

As far as buying refurbished, it just depends on who you buy from. I'm not a big fan of buying refurbished from stores like Best Buy mainly because the customer service on new stuff is pretty shoddy. But from the manufacturer, or retailer like Amazon or New Egg you can usually get some kind of warranty for a couple of years.

Not saying you should buy refurbished, just saying there are reputable companies to trust.

[Brian Altenhofel]

Brian, I live in Florida. We get a lot of lightning i.e. power surges. These often times have a derogatory effect on electronics. Particularly with the low voltage IC's of today. I've had TV's die in January that were almost certainly damaged by summer lightning.

I agree with you on the closeouts. But I don't think a refurb is a good idea if it has the original motherboard. Just my opinion. :)

We have serious electrical issues here - not uncommon to get voltage drops sub-100 and surges 130+ on most days, especially during storms. I've never had any issues with electronics being damaged, even when the antenna tower took a direct hit.

All I buy are refurbs, and almost always I buy them on closeout. I've only had one time where a refurb had a failure within the first 24 months (and it was a seized bearing in a rotary drive), and generally if you're buying in the sub-$1K MSRP range you're looking at replacement every 18-24 months anyway to stay in whatever tier you're in. Almost every refurb I buy has a 12 month warranty, while some parts have a 90 or 180 day warranty. If you consider that they are generally close to half off, you probably come out ahead even with a non-warrantied replacement. It's not uncommon for refurbs on closeout to reach 70% off sticker.

I was considering replacing my desktop late this year or early next year. Then I looked at the new Mac Pros. Current desktop is well over a year old, yet still has more computing power and cost 25% as much - made me feel a lot better.

[billbenson]

@ Harold, yes I have good UPS's on everything. Power strips don't work. If you get close lightning strikes, the surge still gets into your house. The Tampa bay area claims to be the lightning capital of the world. I don't know if that is true, but we do get a lot of lightning and if it's close the surges can come in around the ups's etc. Real close and stuff that is unplugged can be damaged.

@ Brian - makes sense. The way I work I keep a ton of tabs open and reboot once every two weeks. But that is just me. If I didn't work that way, I could go down in price a lot on pc's. The one thing I do is maintain a backup pc that is identical to my main pc. If my computer goes down I can't work and don't make money. It's worth it to me to have the backup. One order will pay for it.

[Brian Altenhofel]

@ Harold, yes I have good UPS's on everything. Power strips don't work. If you get close lightning strikes, the surge still gets into your house. The Tampa bay area claims to be the lightning capital of the world. I don't know if that is true, but we do get a lot of lightning and if it's close the surges can come in around the ups's etc. Real close and stuff that is unplugged can be damaged.

@ Brian - makes sense. The way I work I keep a ton of tabs open and reboot once every two weeks. But that is just me. If I didn't work that way, I could go down in price a lot on pc's. The one thing I do is maintain a backup pc that is identical to my main pc. If my computer goes down I can't work and don't make money. It's worth it to me to have the backup. One order will pay for it.

If a "surge protector" doesn't come with a usable warranty to cover equipment plugged into it, then it's not worth buying.

The current /usr/bin/uptime on my desktop is "19:11:54 up 222 days, 13:30, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.05". 3 27" monitors, 4 desktops per monitor, who knows how many browser instances and tabs open, IRC client running, Spotify running, on browser rotating through tabs as a status kiosk, a couple dozen remote shells, 10 LibreOffice docs open, Gimp running, Synergy running (so i can share this keyboard and trackball with my laptop, too), Jenkins running, and Dropbox.

[westom]

If a "surge protector" doesn't come with a usable warranty to cover equipment plugged into it, then it's not worth buying.
Best automobile warranties are on GM cars. That proves GM products are superior to Honda and Toyota? Of course not. Biggest warranties on protectors are often an indication of most inferior protectors. And are promoted with numerous find print exemptions so that the warranty need not be honored.

For example, one APC warranty said any protector in the building from any other manufacturer voided their warranty. Ralph Architzel in a discussion entitled "UPS Systems.." learned this the hard way:
I was pursuing on principal alone and finally determined my time was worth more than hassle trying to get the warrantee honored.

Protection is always defined by the answer to this simple question. Where do hundreds of thosuands of joules harmlessly dissipate? If any protector cannot answer that question, then it is selling an obscene profitable product that does not claim to protect from destructive surges. Protection is always defined by what absorbs hundreds of thousands of joules. Otherwise, superior protection already inside every appliance is the only protection. Even superior to adjacent protectors that hype a mythical $75,000 warranty.

Anyone can read the manufacturer specification numbers for UPS protection. A UPS typically claims even less protection than a power strip. How many joules does it claim to absorb? Hundreds? So where do hundreds of thousands of joules harmlessly dissipate? Many educated by advertising forget to first read the only facts that matter - numeric specifications. And do not read the fine print exemptions attached to big buck warranties.

[Freelancier]

Best automobile warranties are on GM cars.
I thought it was the Hyundai, with their 10 yr, 100,000 miles. Of course, the point is the same.

[westom]

I thought it was the Hyundai, with their 10 yr, 100,000 miles. Of course, the point is the same. Superior products offer lesser warranties (Hyundai is apparently an exception). In surge protection. that means direct lightning strikes without damage even a protector. Adjacent protector or UPS does nothing for the OP's concerns. Best is to hype a big warranty so that some consumers will never read the near zero numeric specifications.

Protection for electronics is about where hundreds of thousands of joules harmlessly dissipate. Any recommendation that does not say that is not doing effective protection. Which explains the big buck warranty (and many fine print exemptions).

Best protection means nobody even knew a surge existed. This soution typically costs tens of times less money per protected appliance.

BTW, how many knew such protection has long existed (and is required by standards and codes) on cable, satellite, and phone lines. Sometimes this is missing due to poorly trained linemen. But the 'whole house' solution is also provide here because it is the best solution and because it costs so little money.

[David Hunter]

I'm still using my Sony Vaio from 2009. It runs like new (probably because I've never been to a porn site on this thing... thank you iPad)! Fast, reliable, and lots of storage (though I always recommend backing up everything onto an external hard drive).

[Brian Altenhofel]

Best automobile warranties are on GM cars. That proves GM products are superior to Honda and Toyota? Of course not. Biggest warranties on protectors are often an indication of most inferior protectors. And are promoted with numerous find print exemptions so that the warranty need not be honored.

For example, one APC warranty said any protector in the building from any other manufacturer voided their warranty. Ralph Architzel in a discussion entitled "UPS Systems.." learned this the hard way:

Protection is always defined by the answer to this simple question. Where do hundreds of thosuands of joules harmlessly dissipate? If any protector cannot answer that question, then it is selling an obscene profitable product that does not claim to protect from destructive surges. Protection is always defined by what absorbs hundreds of thousands of joules. Otherwise, superior protection already inside every appliance is the only protection. Even superior to adjacent protectors that hype a mythical $75,000 warranty.

Anyone can read the manufacturer specification numbers for UPS protection. A UPS typically claims even less protection than a power strip. How many joules does it claim to absorb? Hundreds? So where do hundreds of thousands of joules harmlessly dissipate? Many educated by advertising forget to first read the only facts that matter - numeric specifications. And do not read the fine print exemptions attached to big buck warranties.

I think you missed the "usable" adjective on warranty...

[westom]

I think you missed the "usable" adjective on warranty...
How is a warranty "usable" when they routinely deniy claims using a long list of fine print exemptions. How is a warranty that indicates ineffective products also "usable"?

[MedTutor]

Spend a few hundred more and get a good laptop - below $500 you are buying laptops/pcs that have been on the market at least 2 - 4 years already, which makes them very OLD. All new programs and platforms require more power. For example, if you have like 10 browsers open while you're updating all your social media and answering emails, you don't want your computer freezing on you or slowing down due to 'high pc usage'. So, save yourself a lot of time and hassle and just get a good, recent computer for about $1000 - $1400

[bigcat1967]

If you are just going to be "surfing", you should be able to get by with a cheap laptop. I bought one from Best Buy for less than $500.

However, if you are going to be installing MS Office or something else, you still can get by with a "light" laptop that doesn't have much memory.

[billbenson]

Spend a few hundred more and get a good laptop - below $500 you are buying laptops/pcs that have been on the market at least 2 - 4 years already, which makes them very OLD. All new programs and platforms require more power. For example, if you have like 10 browsers open while you're updating all your social media and answering emails, you don't want your computer freezing on you or slowing down due to 'high pc usage'. So, save yourself a lot of time and hassle and just get a good, recent computer for about $1000 - $1400

In this situation, you can adjust how you work. I always have a ton of tabs open and 3 instances of Firefox open. I have one instance of FF open that has this forum open as well as CNN and Yahoo. Also any other thing I happen to be surfing. The killer is really the videos that are running in the background. CNN is a big offender, but if you keep sites open that have a lot of video, it's going to use up memory. I don't feel like messing with this, so I have a computer with a bunch of RAM.

There is no reason, however, that you can't simply put these in favorites and open and close them. You will still need to do periodic reboots, but you won't need the large amounts of memory and processor speed that the expensive computers have.

The exception here is if you use a memory intensive program. It doesn't sound like you are doing that.

[DennisChang]

Dell laptops would be cheap and good.

[samfisher]

You can try coupon marketing and register tape network marketing. These advertisement techniques are very effective in bringing local crowd to your business.
You must also list your business over local directories a.k.a. Power Placements to gain visibility over internet.
Sites like couponeasy should be useful to you.

[JayPack]

Given that you need your laptop just for QBs and social and media networking, $500 should be more than enough to obtain a decent laptop. Don't worry much about hard drive size (it should be at least 200 GB though), just focus on the speed of the processor and memory. You basically just need a computer that functions fast. And if you search the refurbished market, you should be able to get a really good run for your money.