Laptop advice

[Ezzzzy1]

I guess I am out of the laptop loop. Not too far out but technology has moved so fast since my last purchase that I figured I would get some advise from yall.

Currently I have a Sony Vaio and I love it. Its my second Sony and I havent had a problem with either (until this one started having charger port problems).

The problem is that I prefer to stay with Windows 7 (am I crazy for thinking this way?) My current laptop is a 15.5" i5 with 250 SSD. I honestly dont think I could go back to a conventional HD after being spoiled with the SSD.

Couple of questions:

Can you put a SSD in any newer laptop?
What are the top rated laptop brands now days?

Most of my work is with the Adobe Suite and trolling the CSC Ive heard that the i7 is a better processor (thats what I run on the big PC at the shop). Maybe someone can go into a little detail about hyper threading? Supposedly that is the difference between i5 and i7. Or does it even matter with the newer processors?

Edit: Maybe the i3 and the i7 have hyper threading but the i5 doesnt?

Throw me what you got!

[birchyboy]

Yes, you can put an SSD into a laptop. They should all be one of two sizes. Some newer ones are slimmer than others, but you can can get an adapter tray for that.

I use i7's and i5's at work. I7's are much better at Excel. They are also hyper-threaded so they can act as more processors. I don't think the i5's do that. I'm currently working on a proof of concept for my company. They have been buying Xeon processors for their math geeks and I'm proving that i7's are much better in certain cases. 5-6 times faster.

[salsashark]

Having relegated my Vaio to be a streaming PC (only way to catch Broncos games in MD), I replaced it last year w/ an ASUS.

Birchy nailed it w/ his answer, so the only thing I can recommend is to NOT waste your money on a touch screen laptop unless you go full on Lenovo yoga or some other hybrid machine. I found a great sale and thought that it would be neat. In actuality, I haven't used it once...

As for Adobe, I've always stood by the "keep throwing ram at it until it works" mentality Although, our corporate IT overlords weren't happy when I did this to my work pc and wouldn't let the local kid touch my machine. He had the amazing ability to screw up everything he touched.

[Matrix]

15.5 is a good size. I opted for the "bigger is better" mentality this last time and went for the 17 inch. It might as well be a desktop at that point.

[birchyboy]

I bought a 13.3" Dell hybrid (Inspiron 13 5000) at Microcenter. i5, 8gb of ram, 500gb hdd. It is very nice and light. It is a touch screen and I have used it as a tablet a couple times. I might upgrade to an SSD, but it's performance has been very good.

[bulldog]

I am with you EJ; went to a SSD drive a few months back (on my desktop) and bets upgrade I ever made for the money.....I'll never go back.I am no pc expert, but I have got some great deals from the Dell Outlet. Even bought a "scratch and dent" through them and the desktop came and I could not find a tiny scratch or dent. Worth a check http://www.dell.com/us/dfh/p/?ST=del...23098073120560

Their Coupon Page: http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/22/c...odes-us-outlet

[TFOGGuys]

All but one of my laptops is a Dell. My netbook is a Gateway because it was dirt cheap. My primary laptop for home is a 17 inch 2nd gen Core i7 machine w/8 gig of RAM, which is basically a desktop replacement. I'll be upgrading from a hard drive to an SSD this week. It's utter overkill for web surfing(I usually have 20-30 tabs open in Chrome), makes a good multimedia PC, and absolutely rocks at things like video transcoding, where multithreaded processing works really well. The downside to that horsepower is that it weighs about half a million pounds, and battery life is +/- 2 hours.

[Ezzzzy1]

Yeah, im set on a larger laptop. Screen size and 10 key are mandatory.

So, if I bought a pretty well equipped computer that was lacking HD size I could easily figure out what SSD that will work and drop it in? Then what? Just reload the operating system?

Can you load Windows 7 on a factory Windows 8 machine?

[birchyboy]

Yeah, im set on a larger laptop. Screen size and 10 key are mandatory.

So, if I bought a pretty well equipped computer that was lacking HD size I could easily figure out what SSD that will work and drop it in? Then what? Just reload the operating system?

Can you load Windows 7 on a factory Windows 8 machine?

If you like the O/S, you can get an imaging software to duplicate your old drive to the new one. Some manufacturers, WD maybe, let you download a copy from their site. I don't think are any hardware issues going back to 7, but you'll need a license key. Some installs will come with a downgrade license.

[Ezzzzy1]

Does anything with this laptop stand out? Good or bad?

I will probably change out the HD but the price is right for something on the more powerful side

HP ProBook 450 G2 - 15.6" - Core i7 5500U - Windows 7 Pro 64-bit - 8 GB RAM - 1TB HDD

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-ProBook-4...item4633481184

[birchyboy]

ProBooks are good; more business oriented. Microcenter has them if you want to get it locally or touch/feel/try it before committing.

I had to choose between the Inspiron convertible and the ProBook. It was a tough call, but I went with the Inspiron because of the weight.

[Ezzzzy1]

Good idea, I will go check them out today!

Thanks man!

[koop]

you might want to look at the Lenovo outlet site.

http://outlet.lenovo.com/outlet_us/

Their business lines are the T and X series. I've had two X series (a 240 and X1) and love them. Just ordered a T series for the wife.

[Ezzzzy1]

you might want to look at the Lenovo outlet site.

http://outlet.lenovo.com/outlet_us/

Their business lines are the T and X series. I've had two X series (a 240 and X1) and love them. Just ordered a T series for the wife.

Thanks!

[Ezzzzy1]

Went ahead and got the HP ProBook 450. Yanked the HD and put in a SSD. Now that I have things more or less how I like them with all the programs I run installed this thing is a beast!

Thanks for all the input from everyone.