Laptop vs Notebook - What do I need??

[ajwolfe]

So our home laptop is turning in to quite an antique and we are needing to get something else. I'm going back and forth on if we need a laptop or just a notebook. We have 2 kids - the oldest who will be starting high school this fall - eek! Primarily the laptop is used to pay bills, simple projects in Word, check email thru Outlook and download photos from our phones/back up phones.

We aren't a computer gaming family and don't need anything super fancy.

Extra bonus points if I can purchase something at Target - as I have a $200 gift there to put towards the purchase.

Thoughts??

 

[supersnoop]

I always thought a laptop and a notebook were the same thing. Do you mean “desktop” or “tablet?”

 

[ajwolfe]

I guess you could consider them the same thing?? The ones I'm looking at labeled laptop are a little bigger and heavier than the ones labeled notebook.

Definitely not looking for a tablet - we already have a couple Kindles floating around the house and that doesn't fit the needs of what I'm after.

 

[krysenchips]

For the amount of stuff that you will be doing on the machine, a netbook maybe what you want.. Like a google chromebook. Usually these have less storage space directly on the device and expect you to use cloud based storage. You can easily browse the internet and watch netflix, and write word docs, but saving tons of pictures on it isn't easy.

 

[Hikergirl]

I would pick a price I was willing to pay, look at the specs within that and buy what works the best for what you need it for.
If you are basically using it to store pics, and the HS student will use it for papers and projects, I'd probably go with the largest hard drive in my price range.

 

[kymom99]

A notebook is much smaller. They don't all support the same programs. At the schools where I work they use chromebooks. Some programs wouldn't run on them but I think eventually they have been improved. My son had an asus notebook for high school. He used it for most of his classwork

 

[WVMomof3]

If by notebook, you mean something like a chromebook, I would go with a laptop instead. My kids have chromebooks for school and they are fine for a lot of things, but others they are not. Not sure if it is because the school has some things blocked, but there are times when they get on my laptop to do things that they could not do with the chromebook.

 

[firefly_ris]

I'd get a laptop. You don't need a massive workhorse so you could buy something decently inexpensive... check out Microcenter, B&H Photo. Stick with an Intel i7 (or i5... no i3, no use cheaping out on performance if you intend to keep it several years), decent hard drive size, at least 8GB RAM (16 or expandable to better) and decent reviews. For what you're doing you don't need a $1200 laptop. I do a lot of Photoshop work and other media heavy items so I spend a bit more but I wouldn't recommend that in this case.

Alternatively if this is a stationary home computer you can get a nice desktop machine for less that can also outperform the laptop.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

My daughter who is a senior in High School says laptop.

She says if your kids High School is anything like ours, the student will be on it constantly doing homework and you'll probably actually need to have 2 laptops so other family members will have one to use.


She spent 4 hours doing her homework yesterday on the laptop - thank goodness she has her own! She had 2 classes eclass homework to do plus an essay to write and a study guide to do which was online.

 

[ajwolfe]

My daughter who is a senior in High School says laptop.

She says if your kids High School is anything like ours, the student will be on it constantly doing homework and you'll probably actually need to have 2 laptops so other family members will have one to use.


She spent 4 hours doing her homework yesterday on the laptop - thank goodness she has her own! She had 2 classes eclass homework to do plus an essay to write and a study guide to do which was online.

Thanks!! We offered to buy our incoming freshmen his own for 8th grade grad but he declined and wanted a phone upgrade instead. I feel like he's going to probably need the laptop and I won't use it much anyways so I think we can share for now.

 

[ajwolfe]

I'd get a laptop. You don't need a massive workhorse so you could buy something decently inexpensive... check out Microcenter, B&H Photo. Stick with an Intel i7 (or i5... no i3, no use cheaping out on performance if you intend to keep it several years), decent hard drive size, at least 8GB RAM (16 or expandable to better) and decent reviews. For what you're doing you don't need a $1200 laptop. I do a lot of Photoshop work and other media heavy items so I spend a bit more but I wouldn't recommend that in this case.

Alternatively if this is a stationary home computer you can get a nice desktop machine for less that can also outperform the laptop.

Thanks for confirming what I thought. I was looking at a small Acer laptop.

 

[manning]

So our home laptop is turning in to quite an antique and we are needing to get something else. I'm going back and forth on if we need a laptop or just a notebook. We have 2 kids - the oldest who will be starting high school this fall - eek! Primarily the laptop is used to pay bills, simple projects in Word, check email thru Outlook and download photos from our phones/back up phones.

We aren't a computer gaming family and don't need anything super fancy.

Extra bonus points if I can purchase something at Target - as I have a $200 gift there to put towards the purchase.

Thoughts??[/QUOTE

Laptop with i3 processor.

 

[DLgal]

Microsoft Surface. Best of both worlds. It's a full fledged computer that maquerades as a tablet. I use mine to work from home. It is super portable and sturdy.

 

[Southernmiss]

Dd is a sophomore in high school and has a laptop-mid range-was between $6 and $800 a few years ago.

She has needed to bring it with her to school and Barnes and Noble for group projects.

All of our 4 have needed either the family desktop or a laptop and good printer at home through high school. We buy them a laptop as a high school graduation gift to get them through college.

We have had to use the laptop insurance offered, too. Oldest Ds spilled pickle juice in his a week after we bought it.

 

[TnTWalter]

I bought myself a small ASUS touchscreen laptop for the home [<14in]. 1 kid has ipad for school other has macbook for school. This is for me. Surfing web, editing pictures, word, budget, etc. It's great. I follow slickdeals . net and got a good deal [<$500]. It also flips for the odd time I want to watch something on it. It's light and portable. My DH bought himself a Dell for work but it's like 16" .... too big.

 

[4kids4karen]

I randomly stopped by Apple about four times in a few months and each and every time the sales person had a different opinion on which laptop was "best" for my high school kids. One thing to be aware of, not all of the newer laptops have a USB drive (at least one at Apple we looked at did not). If your kids need to save documents on a usb to take back/forth to school, etc., make sure you buy a computer with one. I know, you can upload to the cloud, etc... but I also know when I was taking college classes we had to often were asked to bring our papers/presentations in on a usb drive, then give our presentation in class. Teacher would transfer our files to his usb drive for his records.

 

[loves to dive]

A notebook will not have the ability to stick a cd or dvd in it, a laptop will so if that is needed, go with a laptop. My honey is a computer consultant and works from home, he uses a big Lenovo Thinkpad laptop. I use a small Lenovo Yoga notebook because all I use it for is email, pictures and word and excel. If I need anything that requires loading with a CD, honey loads it onto our home network then downloads it onto my notebook for me. I'm actually looking for a new one myself. I have to have one with a good keyboard since I'm a touch typist and need a semi-raised keyboard and I don't like the big ones so I only buy the little 13 inch lightweight ones. My Yoga was good at the time we bought it about 4 years ago but in computer terms, that is like 100 years old and now has to be plugged in at all times or the screen randomly flicks on and off. Chrome books will not allow you to install certain programs so look very carefully at those before you buy them. The MS Surface isn't a bad little notebook but because it can be taken apart, there is a lot of potential for failure and I've learned the hard way that the ones that flip and have touch screens are a pain the rear. My Yoga can be flipped into a stand or a tablet and is pretty sensitive so the slightest picking up and moving will cause the screen to flip and the touchscreen gets annoying if you are just pointing something out and touch it and it changes the page. I can't tell you how many times my dog has touched my screen with her nose and changed things. The small notebooks are convenient for travel, mine weighs a little over 1 lb. They fit into smaller spaces in luggage and most now days do have a good amount of memory. We actually usually just take mine when we are on trips instead of honey's big laptop unless he knows he is going to need to work heavy duty.

 

[lanejudy]

A notebook will not have the ability to stick a cd or dvd in it, a laptop will so if that is needed, go with a laptop.

Not all laptops have CD/DVD drives anymore, either. Not even all desktops do. That was something we specifically wanted on the desktop we bought a couple years ago, and the salesperson told us they aren't as common anymore. My last 2 laptops for work have not had a CD drive, so that’s going back 5-6 years.

 

[ajwolfe]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions!! Greatly appreciated. Technology makes me feel old anymore lol. Used to feel like I was on top of all of it but now it seems like you blink and you are behind.

 

[DLgal]

Not all laptops have CD/DVD drives anymore, either. Not even all desktops do. That was something we specifically wanted on the desktop we bought a couple years ago, and the salesperson told us they aren't as common anymore. My last 2 laptops for work have not had a CD drive, so that’s going back 5-6 years.

Exactly. My son just built a custom PC and the case he chose doesn't even accommodate a DVD/CD-Rom drive. They simply aren't necessary anymore with downloadable software and thumb drives. If you really need a drive, you can buy an inexpensive external with USB hookup. Ours was $20.