Computer shopping - My Turn

Arg! I killed the home computer. Can't blame my kid, it was me. So now I have to replace it. What fun. Keep in mind I've a 13 year old, who just needs massive amounts of computer power, so he can play games to his hearts content (cue rolling my eyes). That said, I also don't want a computer I'll out grow in just a few months or years.

So, in window shopping computers, I've found this one, and it seems like a good bit of computer for the money, compared to other computers. They are all more money than I wnat to spend.

Interested in sage words and observations and suggestions on how to get even more computer for less money.

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-Pavilion/G4V51AV?HP-Pavilion-15z-Beats-Special-Edition-Touch

On the upgrades section I figured the higher resolution screen for $50 and the blue tooth for $10 or $30 were worthwhile upgrades. Any comments about the video or other things?

P.S. Ubuntu 14.04.1 is lousy. Buggy as all get out and in no small measure is what killed the computer. It was supposed to install as a dual operating system along side Windows Vista. Instead, it completely overwrote it, and wiped out the partition with the reinstall on it. GRRR!!!

That is indeed an awesome deal (and it's Beats-branded!? Is hell freezing over?) and you chose a nice set of upgrades.

Yeah Ubuntu jumped the shark a long time ago, most users went to Mint.

Pricing guidelines? Why a laptop (it sounds like it is multi-person use)?

If your son plays any games at all, that thing won't play them... unless we are talking angry birds and candy crush

Also, in this day and age, if you are going to spend money on a new computer, it would behoove you to look at one with a SSD. Its a life changing experience. <10 second boot times.

I would increase your price to get as close to $1k as possible for proper future proofing. That should get you a dedicated gpu, a ssd, and should futureproof you for close to 5 years IMO.

While I won't tell anyone not to buy a new computer, have you contacted HP support to try to get the recovery media? It may be available for a nominal fee. I realize that a machine running Vista installed would be old, but if it's salvageable, it is probably worth it.

It's not a high-end gaming PC but that thing will run Crysis decently (haven't played 3 but 2 was less demanding). If you want top-notch gaming performance you shouldn't be using a laptop anyway.

I do not think a 8510g embedded gpu will run any of the Crysis games "decently" (minimum 30fps with no drops below 30fps), but to each their own. I don't think what I am preaching is wildly out there. For a couple hundred extra his computing experience would be approximately infinitely better

Runs Bioshock Infinite at around that level:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tabPyrxLXbc

I agree a laptop is an expensive choice for a gaming computer but that laptop will do a lot better than candy crush.

If money weren't an object, I'd spend more. But, I don't have lots to spend on a computer without good reason.

One computer, three people. Son dreams of playing everything, but at the fringe end of an over stretched DSL line, he has troubles on the tank combat games he plays online, as well some role playing adventure ones. Mom and I are pretty happy watching youtube videos and surfing the web. We've very,little need for,power. He has some need/want.

Laptop preference is wife and I. Small house and we both like to use the current laptop where ever in the house. A tower would have to live in the kitchen, which isn't really wanted.

1. Did your PC actually die, or is the partition/windows just toasted? If its just windows, try installing Lubuntu (Or if you need some install media for windows, email me at my name at gmail.com: I can probably get you some). It might be too frustrating a task for a 13 year old, but I'm sure you could figure it out.

2. The best bang for the buck in PCs for gaming is something with the AMD A-series APU. I personally put one together with their top of the range A-10 processor and it rocks for under $600 with a fresh windows license. I think they have some of the lower end A-series in laptops now.

3. Chromebooks are awesome if you can get away from MS office in a traditional sense. They won't play the games your son wants, but for under $300 you can get one for you and your wife and something else for your son.

Not completely dead, just nearly so. It'd been acting up for a while. Freezing, crashing. I'd suspected it was Windows, but it does the same thing and then some with various versions of Ubuntu. Ubuntu gives me altered characters finally a system error. I kinda suspect a damaged hard drive sector, but it keeps passing all the tests, as does the rest of the computer.

Local computer show this weekend. Think the boy and I will go.

altered characters sounds like a video card or memory issue. Might be worth a shot to "upgrade" the video card and/or the memory (try one at a time) to see if that makes any difference at all. At the very least it will give you a chance to clean out the dust bunnies in the box which don't help performance.

If it was a memory issue, an extended memory test should find that. It could still be a bad video card making the system unstable, I've seen that before.

If I could pin down the problem, I could fix it. Or at least take it apart and thoroughly break it. Little bugger keeps passing the tests though. So while it kinda acts like a bad sector in the hard drive, it also acts like a video card problem.

It's old (2006), heavy and hot (AMD bacon frying chip set). So replacing it isn't the end of the world. Though it would have been nice to have not lost so much data (been a while since I backed it up to the book drive).

I'll take some notes with me to the computer show. If I find some replacement bits for it cheaply I'll get them. Then have the boy child take the computer apart to replace them. Maybe he'll fix it, or just gut it to learn.

HiTempguy wrote: Pricing guidelines? Why a laptop (it sounds like it is multi-person use)? If your son plays any games at all, that thing won't play them... unless we are talking angry birds and candy crush Also, in this day and age, if you are going to spend money on a new computer, it would behoove you to look at one with a SSD. Its a life changing experience. <10 second boot times.

the SSD was something pushed in my last pc build thread... I'd already planned to use one but honestly I am blown away by it... I usually just let my computer goto sleep mode over night because of how long it took to restart, starting up programs is so much nicer especially things like adobe premiere, I used to click it and then hit the kitchen for a drink and when i'd come back it was just coming up kind of stuff... now it's up in about 2 seconds, most things are almost instant.

I was so shocked about it I have become annoyed at my laptop... it has a small 23gb ssd built into it (along with a 750gb normal HDD) to be used as an intel rapid storage thing, it never gave me that super snappy feel though, so as an experiment I installed windows directly to the small ssd... we have an extra paycheck this month and that will goto buying a decently sized msata SSD, in the week or so i've been using the undersized ssd I've seen my battery life jump by an hr or more with similar use, startup is so quick, starting applications is fast... it is amazing.

so I'll 2nd the ssd, if you get the HP I'd seriously consider splurging for an SSD, buy a usb3 external case and slip the stock disk into that to use for additional storage

Might be overkill for your needs.

That's a bitchin' dustbin

GameboyRMH wrote: That's a bitchin' dustbin

lol yup I'm not a mac guy... but if someone gave me the trashbin pro I'd take it :)

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-budget-laptop/