Laptop or tablet?

[2020runner]

Hi all, hoping for a bit of tech advice

We need a laptop or a tablet. Weve had a tablet before but it only lasted 4ish years, infant even really remember what happened I think it was physical damage

Currently we have a laptop but its rubbish. It always has been, I think we took bad advice when we bought it, it's super super slow and using it is just hard work.

We need to be able to use certain online programmes which I think we can do on both

We also need to do online vat which currently I do on my phone and will possibly be "making tax digital", is that doable on a tablet?

We want word and excel. When we got our laptop the only option was a super expensive package, is that the only way? And on a tablet to?

What would you get in my situation? I'm leaning to tablet as would be handy for my 5yo dd to but I'm worried using apps wont be a good as proper laptop programmes? And I never found document storage easy on a tablet?

I prefer my laptop for doing anything that involves typing. It's such a faff to type on a tablet. I would get a laptop for working on and a cheap tablet for your kid to play on. I have a MacBook Air and it's fab, but pretty expensive. I have a subscription to Microsoft 365 which is about 80 pounds a year, but I use it every day for work.

What's your budget like?

I think what you describe you probably would be better with a laptop. However for practical sense, I use my tablet far more, ie for reading news, social media Mumsnet!!

Tablets are just not very practical for work type stuff and editing programmes like Excel

I think you can buy licences for programme such as Excel very cheaply from likes of EBay. Suppose to be from bankrupt stock etc but don't know how legitimate they are, although I would assume Microsoft block non legitimate licences

Laptop for working. I don't like using a tablet as I prefer a proper keyboard and a full size screen. I work with huge spreadsheets though and have two large screens on my desk at work. A tablet wouldn't cut it for me.

Chromebook? DD (10) has one and it can also be used as a tablet. Can't download Minecraft but other than that it's been great (and a pretty good price).

Definitely laptop for working, tablet good for socialising etc.

How much is your budget? I'm looking for a new laptop at the moment and if both would be useful and your budget will stretch to it (you tend to get a bit less for your money with regard to the other specs) there are also various 2-in-1/convertible options. You can also get tablets with full Windows 10 OS so the apps should be (I haven't actually used one) exactly the same as on a laptop.

I agree with others that for using Word and Excel a stand alone keyboard is (far) preferable.

Sorry I don't actually mean stand alone keyboard - I mean a proper keyboard as you get on a laptop as opposed to a tablet.

I'd agree you ideally want both. I got a reconditioned ipad that has been wiped, factory reset etc for about £200. Can't recall the website but there's a few out there that do it

Budget isn't huge, it's not something husband wants to spend loads on. Its tricky as when we bought our laptop we paid £500 and it's been so useless. We know if we buy a new one we'll have to spend a lot and it's scary. Curries/PC world were terrible with us

This sounds daft but does anyone feel like laptops have loads of stuff on using storage that isn't needed?

I think I'd prefer a laptop and we could maybe buy a cheap tablet for dd for xmas. We're very anti Apple products. Ita just our current one is so useless which has me thinking of a tablet

Theres so much variation

Thanks everyone

DH is very techie. I will ask him for recommendations. Another advantage with a laptop is that I use a proper mouse to navigate when using excel, not the touchpad, which I hate.

Chromebook if the programmes you need can be online rather than downloaded. So Office 365 for Word and Excel can all be online. You store everything on one drive.

We got one for DD, it's Lenovo and touchscreen, so can be folded back and used as a tablet and was £270. It starts up so quickly because it only needs to connect to the internet, and no tedious windows updates.

You do need to be connected to the internet for most things to work though.

I got a good laptop from John Lewis for DD for Christmas, it cost about £160, it had a discount. The brand is ISUS. It came with everything set up already, Office etc. No set up fees. Works great, she loves it.

I have a Dell laptop which cost £400. I bought it a couple of years ago. It's still going strong, no problems. Bought from Currys PC World. They try to scam you a bit on the set up/security/extras.

We have Bluetooth mice for both laptops. They are great.

We have tablets too, but use the laptops a lot more.

I will definitely buy any future laptops from John Lewis.

You definitely need wifi at home, if you don't already have it.

It is so hard to choose as there's so much choice. I don't think there is any excuse for a computer being slow in this day and age. Have you thought about having someone look at your laptop and see if they can find out why it's so slow? It might be easy to fix.

The brand is ISUS

Shouldn't that be Asus? They are usually a good brand.

The Don't Buys on Which are:
Fusion5 T90 series
Jumper EZbook X3
Lenovo IdealPad S145-151WL
Asus X751NA-TY006T

@2020runner in what way is your current laptop useless? Could it do with a disc clean or need some new anti virus software?

Can I just hijack for a moment to ask for laptop recommendations too? We need a new laptop for teenagers to do school work on and with the thought of isolation looming and school saying they are going to use Teams, we’ve decided we should buy sooner rather than later. If anyone has recommendations I would really appreciate it as we’re lost with all the tech stuff. They don’t game so would just be used for normal excel/word work, online research and a bit of Netflix! Thank you

uk.pcmag.com/laptops/8334/the-best-budget-laptops-for-2020

www.mirror.co.uk/tech/best-budget-laptops-under-500-20860974

Thank you

Sorry I didnt reply I've not been back online. Our laptop takes ages to load when turned on and again when you want to open a program. Having more then one tab open is a nightmare and a couple of my husbands work related programmes just dont work at all. I've tried deleting loads off to see if it was a memory thing but tbh there wasnt much I could delete

For the serious work you describe, you really need a laptop. For kids an old second-hand tablet is more than enough, don't let them near your laptop.

It's a false economy to buy a cheap laptop, as I think you have found out. Go to HP direct, the choice is better. Look at business laptops rather than gaming laptops as super gee-whizz video performance is expensive. If you want to pay games then a laptop isn't the best choice anyway.
store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/List.aspx?sel=NTB&ctrl=f&fc_seg_bus=1

The key to speed is the processor. These days nothing less than a core i7 cuts it, but should give you greater longevity and therefore, although more expensive in the short term is the better investment in the long term. Other useful features are as much RAM (memory) as possible, always cheaper to buy at the time you buy the laptop), SSD hard disk (sometimes as well as a regular hard disk) is nice to have.

Try this one:
store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=5PP55EA&opt=ABU&sel=NTB
The screen is small but the memory is good (16GB); small also means easy to carry, bigger laptops are luggable rather than portable. You can always add a separate monitor to use at home, which you can pick up second hand.

This one:
store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=5TK30EA&opt=ABU&sel=NTB
is a latest model and a bit bigger. Also there seems to be a trade-in offer on your old laptop which may be helpful. It's currently out of stock so you may need to wait a bit, but I'd guess not very long.

If you can't afford an annual subscription to MS Office 365 for £80 then there are some free alternatives (OpenOffice.org) which use the same file formats. But tbh (imo) MS Office is just the best.

When choosing the operating system, go for Windoze 10, 64 bit. 32 bit is history. And install 64 bit programmes whenever possible

Before you buy a new laptop, you could try reinstalling the operating system. First of all back up all your files on to a USB stick or other drive. Then go the Start button, select Settings  Update & Security  Recovery  Reset this PV  Get started  Remover Everything. Then follow the instructions.

This is for Windows 10, but it will be similar for earlier versions.

Does it absolutely need to be a laptop or a tablet? Can you not have a pc? Or does it need to be able to moved around the house easily?

Just you can get better value for money with a pc. We got a brilliant all in one pc last year in the sales. Originally on sale for £900, we got it for £500. Not had any issues with it and its got tons of space. Even with all the games we've put on it, it's still got loads of space and is really fast.

They would cost an extra £100-200 though, but it's more of a long term solution. Laptops unless you pay a lot of money do burn out quickly.