What computer for dad?

My father is looking to replace his 9 year old Toshiba. Use is basic internet and a dyno Sim program,  I believe Comp Cams Dyno 5. He wants a 15.6" with a full keyboard with numberpad. He would like another Toshiba as this one has lasted as long as it has. Checking Newegg he found one he likes in the $6-700 range. I'm just wondering what other brands to suggest that might come in cheaper, maybe around $500. Instinct says Asus, Acer, Lenovo, and maybe MSI. I'm skeptical of Dell, and HP can berk off and die in a fire. 

Bonus points for finding Windows 7. Lastl, he has a bit of anti establishment love for AMD over Intel dating to the days of Athlon vs P3, although I suspect it is a moot point anymore. 

I think he got lucky with that Toshiba. Asus is pretty reliable. Lenovo hardware quality is excellent. Don't bother going for Windows 7 if you're running Windows, just get 10, the interface is almost the same and it's about the same in resource use. No point having the OS go out of date faster.

AMD CPUs are cheaper, but the trouble is they're not very efficient. They can compete with Intel on performance but they guzzle power, which could be especially bad on a laptop. To use a car analogy, they're the huge-displacement old-school 'Murican engines of the CPU world, while Intel is more like the small-displacement German technological marvel. Likewise, the AMDs can make a lot of sense in a dedicated performance machine that's only run occasionally...

I was an IT guy and bought Dells - literally thousands of them.  Been retired for a couple of years and bought a Dell laptop for SWMBO's birthday last year.  Started having issues about 4 months in.  Sent it back twice and the repair report was "changed internal cables". After the second 'repair' failed in 2 days, told them I had NEVER seen an internal cable spontaneously fail in more than 20  years and that they had a MB issue.  They assured me they would fix it if I sent it in again. Third time failed less than an hour after it was unboxed.

After threatening to contact Michael Dell and the Board of Directors, received a refurbished system.  The replacement is now *barely* out of warranty and is having issues...

Based on my experience,  my advice would be to avoid Dell like the plague.

So far as OS,  I have been using Win 10 since it was released and it has been very stable.  Win 7 and Win 8 have now passed their Support End Date, so either of those would not be a great idea.

I love my Lenovo thinkpad. It has a full standard key pad with the keyboard, which takes some getting used to though. 

I had a video card/mobo issue about 6 months in, they handled everything quickly and have had no other problems. 

I didn't realize it's almost 4 years old now, still running like a champ, and thanks to its battery saver mode where it stays between 50-60% when I have it plugged in, which is the majority of the time, I can still charge to 100 and get a lot of away from outlet time when I need to. 

As someone who would still use XP if he could, 8.1 is pretty damn usable without all the security concerns of 10, but I don't know if you can still buy it on new systems. 

Win10 doesn't have security problems, it has privacy problems...it'll very securely stream all kinds of data to Microsoft unless you modify the hell out of the standard settings.

GameboyRMH said:AMD CPUs are cheaper, but the trouble is they're not very efficient. They can compete with Intel on performance but they guzzle power

Is this still true with Ryzen / Zen?  I had thought they were producing a quality product once again. 

The latest generation AMDs does appear to offer more bang for the buck than Intel again, but I'm not sure they have made it to laptops yet.

My preference for times when you don't need the latest and greatest machine is to get an off-lease Lenovo T series.

mikeatrpi said:

GameboyRMH said:AMD CPUs are cheaper, but the trouble is they're not very efficient. They can compete with Intel on performance but they guzzle power

Is this still true with Ryzen / Zen?  I had thought they were producing a quality product once again. 

It looks like they've caught up in efficiency now with the Ryzen series chips.

I think I’ll go through some options with him tomorrow. Money for this isn’t an issue with him provided it lasts like the last one. 

I have purchased multiple ASUS laptops all have been great.  

Interesting comments on the Dell.  My wife got a Dell 2-in-1 from Costco for $550 IIRC and it has been excellent so far.  I'm very jealous of it when we travel (my work laptop is a 'workstation' laptop and thus massive, heavy, and completely overkill for anything I actually do when traveling)