[clug] Advice about buying a new laptop

[Paul Wayper]

On 22/09/15 12:23, Bryan Kilgallin wrote:
> Sharon:
> 
>> I am looking at a sub $800 lap top computer to use for university studies.
> 
> That will not help you with pen-and-paper exams.

Bryan, you might think you're being helpful there but you're coming across as
critical.

I'm sure people would not expect that owning a laptop would improve writing.

I'd generally say that if you're not actually contributing to the discussion
of buying a laptop, then comments about studying and academic performance are
tangential at best.

My experience of Charity Computers back when I donated some gear to it many
years ago was that they had fairly basic computers.  They then shipped Windows
95 (in about 2005) and MS Works on it.  When I asked why, they said that that
would be what people could afford and would give them what they needed.  I
pointed out that MS Works was incompatible with everything, and OpenOffice
(which was compatible with MS Office) was free.  I don't know if they ever
took up that idea.

Lenovo laptops have a good history of working well with Linux.  You can also
buy them second hand for reasonable amounts of money.

Hope this helps,

Paul