MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Mrs Panic needs a new laptop.
So a couple of months ago we were in Costco and had a gander at the shiny in there. Her needs are basic (web, email, Word/Excel/Publisher), methinks that I'll be spending 4, 5 or 600ish on something nicer than she actually needs.
After sampling all the keyboards / screens she settles on the Macbook Pro at £920!
I don't do Mac, and it'll be me that ends up supporting it. She's used to Win and I'm trying to tell her nicely that I think the differences will frustrate her, so we didn't come away with it.
I know I'm right about this, but the resentment has been bubbling under for the last 2 months.
Suprise Suprise this morning she comes back from the shops with a Mac for beginners magazine. After reading it for half an hour she decides I was right and it would be too different & can we go look again please...
So there we were this afternoon in PC World (just to get a feel) and the one she liked was a £1k Samsung ultrabook, but one of the Vaio's at over £1.1 was also OK.
Should have known better.
She's right the Mac is a better choice.
Dell XPS are stunning laptops.
I've got the XPS 13 and it is far better than the MacBook Air it replaced.
pyrrhic victories - can't beat 'em (or, rather, you can 😀 )
Umm, she didn't like the XPS (though I did 🙂 )
She's not very IT friendly. The Mac may (or may not) be the better device but the learning curve would be too steep I feel.
Apart from that though she's basing her like/not like on things like how the keyboard/trackpad feels and screen quality so we'll keep on looking.
We'll give John Lewis a try, and Currys (shudders).
Win 8 - you so can't win here 🙂
Edit: pun unintended unfortunately
Her needs are basic (web, email, Word/Excel/Publisher)
She's not very IT friendly. The Mac may (or may not) be the better device but the learning curve would be too steep I feel.
Chrome/Firefox, MS Office, gmail etc. all pretty much exactly the same whether Mac or PC. It's actually easier for beginners to troubleshoot problems themselves on a Mac IMO because the configurations are all pretty standard so you just google your problem and generally get an easy solution. Even my mum (late 60s) has got it figured out now and she's as technophobe as they come!
Got one these Lenovo jobbies from Johnnie Lewis:
[url= http://www.johnlewis.com/lenovo-ideapad-u310-ultrabook-laptop-intel-core-i3-4gb-ram-500gb-24gb-ssd-13-3-graphite/p231740084 ]Lenovo Jobbie[/url]
[img] http://johnlewis.scene7.com/is/image/JohnLewis/231740084?$prod_main$ [/img]
Quite nice, better than the misguided reviews. But I had to get to grips with Win8, which wasn't nice. A bit like going from XP to Win7 a few years ago.
Why does that Lenovo look like a knock-off MBP?
She's used to Win and I'm trying to tell her nicely that I think the differences will frustrate her
I doubt it
The Mac may (or may not) be the better device but the learning curve would be too steep I feel.
Eh? You haven't used a mac have you. Got two Macs in our house and my girls just started using them without any direction. My wife is useless at anything IT and she has no problems whatsoever.
What Zilog said - the major apps all look and work in the same way and file formats are now pretty much cross platform so you can't use that as an excuse either. Macs are basically nicer to live with.
You're just being cheap and really you should go back to Costco and buy the Mac - you can always take it back within 90 days if you don't like it (PC world ain't going to do that for you) so why not?
Her needs are basic (web, email, Word/Excel/Publisher)
is it just me then who would have expected a basic laptop to come in well under £500??
why all the talk of macs (paying for the name) and 1k windows laptops when theres plenty good enough sub £500?
just a thought (and i dont know the answer) but can you buy 'blank laptops' these days and load linux on them for free, so cutting out windows?
i use linux mint and found it a seamless change from windows, and as i said before......its FREE 🙂
Chromebook?
But aye - you're wrong about the mac.
Mrs TRH uses one of these with the appro apps installed.
[img] 
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She hasn't shouted at me for ages so it must be right.
According to a test by one of the big mags a few months ago, the best laptop to run Windows on is a Macbook Pro. Get a Mac, run dual boot into OS or Mac and you've go the best of both worlds.
sharkbait - MemberEh? You haven't used a mac have you. Got two Macs in our house and my girls just started using them without any direction. My wife is useless at anything IT and she has no problems whatsoever.
I must be a real thicko then, because I tried to use a friend's mac laptop for a spot of browsing and couldn't do a thing with it. Just about opened an internet window, tried to open a new tab; couldn't. Somehow minimised everything and then couldn't get it back etc. Gave up after a while.
I keep reading how intuitive Apple stuff is, but my brain must work differntly because I just couldn't work it out.
I am sure I could learn to use it, but it wasn't obvious.
Johnny Panic - MemberSo there we were this afternoon in PC World (just to get a feel) and the one she liked was a £1k Samsung ultrabook, but one of the Vaio's at over £1.1 was also OK.
So basically she wants an expensive laptop? I wouldn't be happy forking out that kind of money for something that is going to be used for a bit of web, e-mail and Office....but I reckon you are fighting a losing battle. She's paying for it though, right?
My parents got windows 8 on a laptop and can't get used to it. Took weeks to figure out how to turn it off properly and they're quite IT savy! Compared to that Mac's are intuitive!
Next time you want a new bike, let her decide on the model and budget.
Or treat her like and adult and let her choose whatever she wants.
There definitely is a learning curve with using macs, especially if you're used to Windows. I've worked in IT sales, support and as a software engineer and I still find things that annoy me with OSX even though I own one and use one every day.
As stumpy said, it sounds like she doesnt want something 'cheap' at the £500/£600 and instead likes the higher build quality and sleekness of the higher end laptops, be they windows machines or Macs. You cant win this one. Best to keep her happy and get which ever one she likes best. (Though, In my experience the Mac will probably keep its value better if you want to flog it in 3 years time)
Eh? You haven't used a mac have you. Got two Macs in our house and my girls just started using them without any direction. My wife is useless at anything IT and she has no problems whatsoever.
What Zilog said - the major apps all look and work in the same way and file formats are now pretty much cross platform so you can't use that as an excuse either. Macs are basically nicer to live with.
Personally can't stand Macs, they never quite work how I expect them to - but I do have to agree that for learning the basic stuff your wife wouldn't have much difficulty. Certainly I installed Ubuntu on the home computer, and my technophobe wife got the hang of it very quickly. Any modern OS is easy enough for a normal user, it's when you're a bit more demanding that the little differences matter.
Next time you want a new bike, let her decide on the model and budget.Or treat her like and adult and let her choose whatever she wants.
If she's the one that'll be fixing the punctures, bleeding the brakes and truing the wheels then yes, she can decide (or at the very least have an opinion!).
why all the talk of macs (paying for the name) and 1k windows laptops when theres plenty good enough sub £500?
Women...cheap = crap....expensive = good is the logic I believe is being used by Mrs JonnyP.
I get the same headache from my Mrs occasionally.
[s]Women[/s] Bikes...cheap = crap....expensive = good
FTFY
To the OP - Our £300 Samsung laptop is now 5 years old and does all the things you listed. It had a new battery after three years. It does feel a bit plasticy though and is now starting to get a bit temperamental but I'm glad I didn't waste/spend any more money on it.
I got my dad to buy a mac because I was fed up of him calling me for the basic stuff.
Within the first week he'd stopped calling and loves his mac. Even uses virtual Windoze machines when he needs access to specific windows things. It all just works for him.
My Dad stopped calling me when they moved to W7.
Get her a mac
then using IOS bootcamp, comes in the box,
dual boot it and load windows on to it.
looks pretty but still has windows
Sad to hear that his move to Hanwell has made him uncommunicative, Molgrips. 🙁
the left trackpad button is broken on my wife's laptop.
she can still use the trackpad to click, or a mouse.
but no, she needs a new laptop, probably a mac because that's what her Dad and brother have, or maybe an iPad.
I give up.
whatever the overclockers £300-400 "special" is in the week when a family member asks me has worked out well for all of us in the last few years, have had a couple of samsungs, a Toshiba and even a sony (think it was over the £400 though)
if it's for ms office and the web you've wasting £600 buying something at a grand
if it's for ms office and the web you've wasting £600 buying something at a grand
+1
Moved my wife to mac airbook. First few days were painful, but after 1 week she said that she would never go back and I get 90% less technical support calls from her. Worth every penny in my time saved.
I am sure I could learn to use it, but it wasn't obvious.
Another one here too. I have a number of machines in my home office (I'm a geek) running different operating systems (Unix (AIX and Solaris), Linux (Ubuntu) and Windows (XP and Win 7)).
A couple of years ago I bought a second-hand eMac to have a play with. I found it counter intuitive and difficult to find anything I wanted to do. I even flattened it and rebuilt it from scratch (dead easy - a plus point) to try and get a 'feel' for it.
I admit it looked very pretty but just didn't get on with it; it was really frustrating.
I set up a couple of accounts on it for the kids (aged 7 and 6) and gave it to them to do whatever they liked. They also didn't like it and after a couple of days it was moved back into my office where it sits disconnected on the floor under the desk.
The kids share the Ubuntu laptop but still gravitate towards the Win7 machine.
Do Dell still do the Studio laptops? Last time I looked, you could get a really good spec for not a lot of money - they looked pretty too.
EDIT: If anyone wants it, they can have it for nowt, if prepared to collect. Along with a legit copy of Tiger, some other software (the music maker thingy plus others) and an external firewire DVD burner.
Where are you freddyg? - may be interested.
Not far from Nottingham/Grantham.
Blimey - this still going.
Didn't expect it to turn into a Win v Mac debate.
The Mac is out. Not taking a £900 gamble and yes, I am paying for it. She would be welcome to get whatever she wants but fortunately she does take advice.
Win 8 - she will adapt & I'll be able to help her. Hell I could even flatten it and run 7 (or XP 🙂 )
Her needs are not great and I'd agree that £3-400 would sort her. Unfortunately she's fussy.
She's not deliberately picking the expensive machines, it just seems that way. In fact all she's gong on is how she finds it to type on and how clear the screen seems (to her).
Seadog, we'll be looking in Johnnie Lewis and that Lenovo looks about the right size / right keyboard combo she's looking for, but did you look at the reviews for it?
I used to support 1000 users, half mac and half pc , if we moved someone to a mac they bitched for a week and then got on with it , if we moved someone from mac to pc they were still bitching 6 months later.
I would think the move to windows 8 is going to be as bad or worse than the move to mac,
You are screwed either way but IMHO the mac is a better OS than windows 8, I demoed windows 8 for work and after using it for a week or so I still hated it.
Is it really that different to W7 once you get used to it?
BTW, I currently support about 1000 users, all on XP but moving to 7 soon.
yup, seems designed for touch screen, never got on with it - there are tweaks you can make to strip out the new stuff, but I would say stay on win 7 if you can, thats the decision we came to