Your challenge should you choose to accept it: Help find me a laptop for work

[K8Middleton]

I'm sure this has been asked before but I couldn't find anything quite right when I searched.

I'm self-employed and I've made bit more cash this tax year than expected and I need a new laptop so for the first time I am going to invest in a laptop just for work. However, I am a bit clueless because I'm not a techy type! I write reports, analyse data, review policies and documents and do the odd presentation - general business consultancy stuff within my profession.

What I need:

Good internet access and speed - I often work in remote applications accessed online.

Flash capability. I don't currently need this but this may change depending on clients and their applications.

MS Office - Word, Excel, PowerPoint (pos also Publisher)

Other applications: SPSS

Keyboard

Trackpad/internal mouse

Easy connectivity

Long battery life

Portable (so smallish and not too heavy)

Possibly a webcam but not essential.

Online back up.

What I don't need:

I don't need it to sync with my iphone.

I don't need loads of memory space because I use an online file storage system.

I don't need amazing graphics capability

I don't need it to look beautiful (although that would be nice!)

I don't need a touch screen

Other info, I love Apple products and have an iPad and iPhone but I don't think I need to link them. I will not buy another Dell after their short warranty and refusal to honour the sale of goods act and general rubbish customer service. I like a bargain and don't want to spend a fortune.

Sorry k8te, I can't help you but shamelessly marking my place as I'd like the same thing!

Well if there's two of us it must exist! If not, someone needs to invent it

I love my MacBook Air. I also love that it syncs with my iphone.

I have been looking at those (they are gorgeous!) but I'm a bit worried about compatibility with MS office. Everyone I know with a mac is always having problems with sending and formatting documents and that's no good when I'm working with clients.

I'm not too bothered about the syncing because I can sync the home computer with iPhone via iTunes and the cloud thingy and I have a Google calendar I can share across multiple devices. Plus this is just for work so I don't need to share photos and things.

Bump

Bump

I'm going to end up buying the pretty one because I don't know any better :(

Toshiba Satellite series always get good reviews on here, they're pretty well specked (sp). What you could do, and I'd recommend it, is take your list of requirements to a local independent pc shop and get advice based on that.

Go for:-

Dual core processor, prob AMD, with a clock speed above 2Ghz.
At least 4GB of RAM.
Disk size of >500GB.
Wifi card with 801.11b/g/n, so conforming to the latest standard.
4 USB ports, either USB2.0 or 3.0
Windows 7 or 8, not XP as support ends for that next month.
Full MS Office suite.

Good luck.

I will have to check that out, thank you :)