Laptop - looking for a new one, ideas please

[mrs maggot]

Need a new laptop, my old one is getting a bit long in the tooth, now i know its an endless topic, but basically i need it to, work corel draw run cutting software etc, but not much else, as i have home computers for that looking to spend £300 so nothing too fancy

[Paul]

Laura. Can you tell what version of of your softwares you own?

[John G]

I had the same problem Laura and had to buy a second hand laptop as I needed it to be running XP for the printers I have - think I may have mentioned it when you popped in the other day.

Not an ideal situation buying a second hand computer, or laptop, but I got a real bargain and very happy with it. Make sure you check all your printer drivers and other software if buying new, just to make sure they'll be OK running with win7.

[John G]

It's Win8, but it may be of some use at £300.00

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/toshiba-sa ... l&istBid=t

[mrs maggot]

Paul at the moment my old laptop is on XP my corel i am going to update anyway, i am presuming the Rocoh printer will work on anything i upgrade to, and i have checked that signblazer will work with 8. i am happy with xp, but i know that it wont go on forever, and as JohnG says the only other option is to buy a 2nd hand one, which with laptops im a bit more wary of, as they get so abused

one thing i dont understand is the bit where it says windows8 64bit - what is the 64bit as not all of them mention it ??

[Paul]

alright... as i wanted to offer same advice as John...

32/64bit - some simple answers here http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/wind ... -questions

if you decide to go for 64bit please make sure all software will run on this kind of os. most of old software will only run on 32bit. also worth to mention that there was quite few post regarding setting up ricoh drivers under 64. worth to have a search as it looks like this is not always easy.

[mrs maggot]

so if it says nothing next to it then i can presume its 32bit, as there are some which dont mention it, this, mmmm keep looking for for info when i see the laptops is the answer i guess,

thanks for the info, i will get together a short list and pop them on here i think

[Paul]

I dont think all would be marked. But is easy to check. If you in shop an see oneon display then just click right on my computer and go to properties. Window will pop up wit all info. It will say there if is 32 or 64.

Also i think its safe to say that most new computers with more the 4gb of memory will be 64. But i stand correct as iam not expert.

[RogerC]

Just be wary of getting Win8. According to Sawgrass it isn't supported yet so Powerdriver won't work with it.

[mrs maggot]

see thats the trouble isnt it roger, i am more than happy with my XP ones, i run xp laptop and 2 xp desk tops, but the laptop is suffering from all the moving about, and the battery no longer holds a charge - but more than that the screen is a bit well very iffy, somtimes it works sometimes it does not, so i need a "new" laptop, wary of buying a cheap 2nd hand one from ebay or other, incase its no better than mine, although mine is over 5yrs old i think now