Yet another 'help me find a laptop' thread

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

I know there have been a few of these but I'm going cross-eyed over the specs.

Important things:
Need to run The GIMP (like photoshop) and Open Office without grinding
Needs a CD/DVD slot
Plenty of USB slots
Lightweight
Likely to be durable
Not Apple

Nice to have:
Windows 7
Good screen
Long battery life

I don't need masses of storage as I keep everything on an external drive and cloud back up.

Max budget £750.

Does anybody have any suggestions?

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

Decent internal speakers would also be a good thing to have.

I've been talking to DH and am now wondering whether it would be better to get a desk top and some sort of little tablet device for on the go - or maybe I just need a phone. I am still using a pre-smartphone and have never used it on the internet.

Whatever I get, I need to buy quickly. I haven't done my tax return yet. I have cranked up an ancient windows xp machine for now but it's a bit flakey.

[PedroYoniLikesCrisps]

For £750 all your requirements can be easily met with the exception of Windows 7 as almost all new PCs run Windows 8 now.

Depending on your needs you may want to save some of your budget for a monitor and keyboard so you can use the laptop like a desk top (there's little reason to buy a desktop these days except for budget or specific hardware purposes).

Alternatively, as you say, you might want to also buy a tablet but that will significantly reduce your budget for each device so you probably want to have a serious think about what you'd actually want it for.

[CruelAndUnusualParenting]

Here is a Windows 7 HP Laptop. It has a core i5 processor + 8 GB RAM, which should handle the GIMP. It has 4 USB slots, I haven't checked weight/battery life. Given my recent experiences with HP and single band wifi cards, I wonder if the wifi will be a problem. I imagine it will be OK, but I am a little doubtful.

I think the Probook branded machines should be more solid than my flimsy HP laptop, but check the reviews?

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

Thanks for the replies. I have now bought one of these to tide me over and we are going to get a new desktop for the whole family. It might even be a mac () as both DD and DS are arty types and want certain software. TBH, it wouldn't do me any harm to learn to use a mac with confidence ... just as soon as I've found my way round this android shite

Weirdly, my old lappy has behaved itself perfectly for the last two days. Perhaps it feels threatened I think it is on its way out though, I was getting blue screen crashes.

The emergency xp laptop is now on the pile for the tip though Ah well, it had a good innings.