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Anyone know Lenovo Ideapads (1 Viewer)

delia todd

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I dislike my current laptop and feel it's really struggling now, so looking for a new one. Told I should look at 8G ram(?) Well think that's right.

I've found this one : Lenovo Ideapad 310 Laptop, Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM, 1TB, 15.6"

Which possibly fits the bill, but I've never heard of the make.

I'm a trained typist and don't like the touch pad, so need one that has a decent keyboard. Three USB slots if possible and a card reader.

I'm on the internet a lot (as you know LOL ) and have loads of tabs open in my browser.

I've lots of pictures on the hard drive, until I've dealt with them when I transfer to an external hard drive. I don't use PhotoShop, as I don't do enough post-processing to warrant the expense (+ I don't understand well enough how to use it). I do some very basic stuff using Paint.net - which is more my level LOL

I also have quite a few Open Office spreadsheets; my laptop struggles if I have 2 of them open. The main one is a pretty big file (Clements).

A Chromebook was suggested.... but not sure I like the idea at the moment. Perhaps I'm getting too old to lean a new operating system, and not sure I like the idea of my files being in a 'cloud'!
 
When IBM got out of the consumer hardware business they sold it to a new company... Lenovo.

I have a Lenovo desktop, my wife's company has loads of Lenovo laptops, and never had cause to complain.

Sounds a good spec for what you want.
 
Delia,
I do not know the laptop, but I just wanted to mention that there are hubs that split a USB port into several.

Good luck with your hunt!
Niels
 
Thanks Mono and Niels.

LOL I did have a hub years ago, but it wouldn't work when I got Win7 (I think) and never replaced it.
 
Hi Delia,
8 GB RAM is the minimum you should go to these days, RAM is much cheaper these days.
If I were you I would get a Laptop with an SSD hard drive; they make a lot of difference in speed and start-up times...and who uses 1TB hard disks anyway?
A 256 or 512GB SSD and an external HD for back-ups would be my call. Lenovo are OK, but I'd prefer HP or Dell.
Good luck with whatever you choose!
 
Thanks John.

LOL though, you're getting a tad technical for me... I don't really know what a SSD hard drive is :gh:

I'm off for a couple of days now, so will look into that when I get back.
 
Personally I like Lenovo, have never had problems with them.
Unlike Dell that seem to be a personal nemesis.
I'm guessing your looking at this.
http://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptop...ideapad-300-15ISK/p/80Q70021US#tab-tech_specs
Looks fine.
Add a second monitor and a usb hard drive for backups and you will be happy for another couple of years.
SSD hard drives are worth looking at, you will see genuine speed improvements, and are not too expensive these days.
Here's more than you need to know about SSD's
http://au.pcmag.com/storage-devices-reviews/8831/feature/ssd-vs-hdd-whats-the-difference
Do you need one, probably not, but it's always nice to know about options.
In five years SSD will be the norm and our current hard drives will look like what Windows 98 looks to us now :)
 
Lenovo is a decent shop and has done a good job keeping the IBM ThinkPad line up to date. I'd think you would be happy with them.
According to Wikipedia, they are the world leader in laptop sales, ahead of HP and Dell.
In your case, 8 Gig of RAM is likely adequate, but I'd strongly second John-W's recommendation for an SSD ([Solid State Drive) rather than a conventional hard drive. It is much faster, uses less power, makes no noise and is much more robust, because it has no moving parts. Only downside is price, they still cost about $0.40/Gigabyte, several times more than the older spinning disk hard drives.
 
Thanks guys.

I'm just in the door, and you've given me some things to consider.
 
Personally I like Lenovo, have never had problems with them.
Unlike Dell that seem to be a personal nemesis.
I'm guessing your looking at this.
http://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptop...ideapad-300-15ISK/p/80Q70021US#tab-tech_specs
Looks fine.

Close but not quite. It's this one: Lenovo Ideapad 310 Laptop, Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM, 1TB, 15.6", Silver

Though I'm now getting confused, as when I Google, some sites seem to say it has 4Gb Ram?

Add a second monitor and a usb hard drive for backups and you will be happy for another couple of years.
SSD hard drives are worth looking at, you will see genuine speed improvements, and are not too expensive these days.
Here's more than you need to know about SSD's
http://au.pcmag.com/storage-devices-reviews/8831/feature/ssd-vs-hdd-whats-the-difference
Do you need one, probably not, but it's always nice to know about options.
In five years SSD will be the norm and our current hard drives will look like what Windows 98 looks to us now :)

LOL Graham... not sure what I'd do with a second monitor.

When you're all talking about the SDD's, are you meaning for my external hard drive? I've a sneaky feeling that the one I have now may be an SDD one. Though I can't see that it says so on it.
 
Hi Delia,
Once you use a second monitor for a while you start to wonder how you ever survived with just one :)
You can have all sorts of things open on it, like phrase express, saves digging it out from under the document you are working on all the time.
The suggestions for an SSD are for your primary hard drive in the laptop.
It makes booting the operating system and just general document handling faster.
Enjoy
 
When you're all talking about the SDD's, are you meaning for my external hard drive? I've a sneaky feeling that the one I have now may be an SDD one. Though I can't see that it says so on it.

A SSD is a new kind of drive without mechanical components.

Hard disks are just that, rotating disks with a "tonearm". Remember vinyl LPs?

Being mechanical components, hard disks are prone to damage from vibration or impact when powered on. And the need to move the "tonearm" to locate data
makes them painfully slow.

SSD "disks" use memory chips to store data. It's just a different kind of computer memory that doesn't lose data when you power ir off. With no mechanical components, SSDs can withstand vibration in use without problems. And, more important, without the need to move mechanical components in order to locate data, they can be up to one hundred times faster than hard disks in typical use.

Actually replacing the internal disk with a modern SSD is the most dramatic upgrade you can make to a laptop. It can even give you more battery time, as SSDs tend to consume less power -no spinning motors-.
 
When you're all talking about the SDD's, are you meaning for my external hard drive? I've a sneaky feeling that the one I have now may be an SDD one. Though I can't see that it says so on it.

It would be surprising if your old computer had an SSD, they were hugely expensive until quite recently and are still not cheap.
As others have said, an SSD really rejuvenates the computer, because it so much reduces the mismatch between the processor unit, which works in millionth of a second and the data storage, which works in some thousands of a second with HDDs. Result is that the processor is waiting most of the time.
An SSD is maybe 100x faster, so everything works quicker. Indeed, you could probably keep your old machine, just swap out the old HDD and replace it with a good sized SSD and your computer would fly.
The only issue is price, a 6 terabyte internal storage HDD costs less than $100 on Amazon, while a 1 terabyte SSD costs around $300.
That is the appeal of an external hard drive, it allows oodles of photos and data to be stored and immediately available, without cluttering up the more costly and smaller internal SSD.
 
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