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I have a Sony Vaio which is getting very, very slow and I would like to replace it. I need Microsoft Office and the internet, and my budget is around £1,000. Julie
This is an unusual query, because of your budget. Most people who Ask Jack want to spend £250 to £500. Perhaps your slow Sony Vaio is really old and you have not been watching laptop prices. If so, you are in for a nice surprise. Modern laptops are much faster than they were in the days of Windows XP and Vista, and roughly half the price.
Suffice it to say that most Windows laptops in the £250 to £500 price range will do what you want, though if you are doing any serious work in Microsoft Office, it’s best to avoid ones with very slow processors like the AMD A4 and older Intel Atom chips. But avoiding the bargain basement does have some advantages. The extra cash buys a faster processor and/or a chip-based solid state drive (SSD), both of which make performance much more responsive. Also, more expensive laptops are usually better made and have nicer screens.
There have been some dramatic changes in the PC market since you bought your Sony Vaio, thanks to Microsoft Windows 8. This introduced a touch-screen interface and corresponding tablet-style apps, which are downloaded from the Windows Store. Windows 8 enabled PC manufacturers to launch Windows tablets and hybrid PCs that work either as tablets or as traditional laptops.
There were complaints from people who did not have touch screens and felt that the new Start screen got in the way. Microsoft has updated Windows 8 several times to fix most of these problems, and you can now boot straight into a Windows 7-style desktop. If you make sure Windows 8.1 – ideally, Windows 8.1 Update 1 – is preloaded on your new PC, you shouldn’t have many problems.
My wife, who is very far from being a computer enthusiast, recently upgraded from Windows Vista and she adapted in an afternoon*. Later, she was surprised and somewhat mystified to discover that some people didn’t like Windows 8. As you’re already a tablet user – your email was sent from your iPad – you should find the change relatively easy. The main difference is that Windows 8 uses “edge swipes” where the finger starts fractionally outside the screen and sweeps in. Learn the four edge-swipes (top, bottom, two sides) and you’ll be able to manage the rest.
Hands on
Check the screen size and resolution of your current laptop (right-click on the desktop), and decide whether you’d like to stick with that. Mainstream laptops have 15.6in screens, but 13.3in is popular for Ultrabooks, and the trend is towards more portable 10in to 12in screens. Also, mainstream Windows laptops have a screen resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels, which is HD (High Definition). The trend is towards screens with 1920 x 1080 pixels (Full HD, aka 1080p) or higher. If you have more pixels, everything on the screen will be smaller, but you can set Windows 8 scaling to compensate. Manufacturers typically set the scaling at 125% or 150%, but you can change it.
Go to John Lewis, PC World, Curries or a local computer store to see what the different resolutions look like. This will also give you the chance to try the various keyboards and see how you like them.
You must also decide if you still need a built-in DVD drive. These remain popular in mainstream laptops, but have mostly been dropped from ultraportable and hybrid designs.
Standard laptops
In the “close to £1,000” range, you could consider the 15.6in Asus N550JK (£849.99) and the Toshiba Satellite P50T-A-125 (£999), but both are massively overpowered for your needs. The Asus N550JK is good value in having an Intel Core i7-4700HQ processor, 8GB of memory, a terabyte (1TB) hard drive and Nvidia GeForce 850M graphics, the main drawback being its 1366 x 768 screen resolution. The Toshiba P50T is another multimedia powerhouse with a Core i7 and 1TB hard drive plus 12GB of memory and a 1920 x 1080-pixel screen. Both of these laptops are essentially desktop PC-replacements.
If you are really going to spend that much, then the 13.3in HP Spectre 13-3011ea (£979.99) is a smaller, sleeker Ultrabook (no DVD) with a Core i5-4200U processor, the price being pushed up by its 256GB SSD.
If you fancy switching to Mac, that’s also within your budget. The old 13in MacBook Pro with a Core i5 processor, 4GB of memory and 500GB hard drive now goes for £899, though it would be better to opt for the newer model with 8GB of memory, 128GB SSD and a Retina screen for £999. The core Microsoft Office applications are available for the Mac – indeed, that’s where they started – but try to look at them before you decide. I prefer the Windows versions.
Either way, you can certainly get a 15.6in laptop that will do what you need for much less than £1,000, though you may not get such solid construction. For example, have a look at the Lenovo Flex 2 (£449.99), the Toshiba Satellite L50T-B-11G (£529.99), and the HP Pavilion 15-p083sa (£579.99). The HP and Toshiba models both have Core i5 processors, but the Flex 2’s Core i3-4010U and 6GB of memory are more than enough to run Microsoft Office and similar software.
Flipping options
Touch screens are useful with Windows 8, even on traditional laptops, but really come into their own on hybrids that work as laptops and tablets. The current trend is towards “flipping” designs where the screen turns through 360 degrees. Lenovo pioneered this idea with its Yoga range, which I like a lot. Rival manufacturers such as HP, Dell and Asus have produced similar hybrids. If you like the idea of sometimes using your laptop in tablet format, these are worth a look.
The Lenovo Yoga is available in a wide range of models from £399.95 (11.6in screen, quad-core Pentium processor, 500GB HD) to £1,199.95 (13.3in screen, Core i7, 256GB SSD). The 13.3in Yoga 2 (£649.99) might be a good bet. It has a Core i3-4010U, 8GB of memory, and a hybrid hard drive (500GB HD+8GB SSD).
The alternatives include the new Dell Inspiron 13 7000 Series (£499 and £649), the Asus Transformer Book Flip TP300LA (£449.95 to £739.90) and the HP Pavilion x360 range (£329.99, £499.99 and £649.99). Prices vary with specifications: the cheapest HP has an Intel Celeron N2830 and all the most expensive models have Core i7s. Screen sizes are usually 11.6in or 13.3in, but Asus has a big Book Flip with a 15.6in screen, a Core i7 processor, 8GB of memory and 750GB hard drive for £699.95.
For your purposes, a fourth-generation Core i3 with 4GB of memory would be good enough, but a Core i5 with 6GB or 8GB would be much better. (Fourth-generation Core chips have numbers in the 4xxx format.)
This is particularly true for internet use, because today’s browsers and bloated websites can bring almost any PC to its knees. Microsoft Word and Excel may now load quicker and consume fewer resources than the far less powerful Google apps in Chrome.
* Cheating: I preinstalled her favourite apps, and pinned them to the Task Bar on the desktop. I also pinned her most used websites to Firefox, and set all her software to update automatically. Microsoft has improved the Windows 8 set-up experience but it’s much easier if you’ve already done it a few times.
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