this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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What laptop should I purchase? (hexbear.net)
submitted 1 year ago by ratboy@hexbear.net to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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I haven't owned a functioning laptop in like, ten years because my phone does most of what I like, but I (probably) have tendinitis and carpal tunnel and need something more ergonomic for my terminally online needs. Arguing with strangers on the internet is not as effective on a cell phone lol.

I'm mostly streaming media, researching online and screwing around on lemmy. I'm interested in toying around with linux just to try it as an OS but would probably want to keep windows because Im not super tech savvy as people here seem to be. That said I can figure things out pretty quickly if I put my mind to it. I would like the ability to game if I wanted, but that might mean a whole different beast so if I could even run at least SNES roms or something like that that would be cool. I'd also like a decent sized screen, 16 inches at least. Hoping not to spend more than 1k if possible but I'm old and don't know what the average price is really for something that's upper-middle quality so whatever clever.

Thanks for any recommendations!

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[โ€“] pezhore@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

If you're in the US, check out EPC's Online Store. They're an electronics recycler and they sell a ton of used electronics.

I've purchased three Lenovo micro PCs (now running my homelab Proxmox cluster) and a micro tower that is a dedicated Plex transcoder.

They have a ton of decent, 3 year old systems that would meet your needs:

  1. they're cheap
  2. most all come with windows
  3. Linux can more than likely be easily dual booted.

They even have some super beefy Xenon laptops.

Edit: this MSI laptop pretty much perfectly fits your reqs.

[โ€“] Edgarallenpwn@midwest.social 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Damn never thought I would see a place I used to work in the wild. Most of their computers will be decent quality stuff that a company was getting rid of.

But holy shit does it suck to work for them. Super low wages compared to other similar positions in the area and hostile work environments perpetuated by Fox News watching managers and owners.

[โ€“] pezhore@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was blown away visiting the showroom in St. Charles, MO - but I could easily see it being a rough place to work. It sucks though - I like how they're giving new life to systems that would otherwise be headed to a landfill.

[โ€“] Edgarallenpwn@midwest.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel like it might be more of the area. St. Charles is the company HQ but a lot of the management and employers comes from the Wright City facility. I was based in STC but would have to go to the WC branch a few times a month and being a born and raised STL city boy, Wright City gave me Deliverance vibes.

Personally I hate St Charles in general, but the Wright City people are in their own little Tucker Carlson world and somehow made STC seem sane. Glad I'm at a job now where I can see the arch and actually have some diversity in my office.

[โ€“] pezhore@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah... I'm lucky enough to be full time work from home, do I don't need to deal with any of the O'Fallon office crazies.

[โ€“] ratboy@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ohhh I never thought about a recycled laptop, that's a really great idea. I had a laptop that lasted me 8-9 years so 3 isn't a problem lol. Does double booting have to do with how much memory a computer has to be able to store both OS'?

[โ€“] pezhore@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Dual booting is more about hard drive space. This is a fairly good write up on one way to do it - basically you get a Windows laptop, and then shrink the partition (say instead of 100% of the 512gb storage, you make Windows take up 50%) and install Linux along side the Windows operating system.

Every time you start the laptop, you'll then have the option to boot into Windows or Linux.