Looking for advice - need new laptop

[Flora]

I use my laptop all the time. It is clearly dying. Need to replace ASAP before it completely quits on me.

So...looking for advice / recommendations.

I don't know how much I want to spend.

I do believe I would prefer to stick with Windows rather than Vista - is that even an option anymore?

My dh wants me to use Open Office instead of shelling out more $ for Microsoft Office (maybe I can find the old XP install disk and see if I can use it again?). That's what he did with his latest laptop, but I am not convinced. Thoughts?

[ClubberLang]

Originally Posted by Flora

I use my laptop all the time. It is clearly dying. Need to replace ASAP before it completely quits on me.

So...looking for advice / recommendations.

I don't know how much I want to spend.

I do believe I would prefer to stick with Windows rather than Vista - is that even an option anymore?

My dh wants me to use Open Office instead of shelling out more $ for Microsoft Office (maybe I can find the old XP install disk and see if I can use it again?). That's what he did with his latest laptop, but I am not convinced. Thoughts?

Macbook

[sassafras]

I bought a Sony Vaio and payed for the downgrade to XP disk. (Amazing that you have to PAY to get the older version.) Anyway, I love the Vaio. It was worth every penny.

[Flora]

Originally Posted by ClubberLang

Macbook

I have considered once or twice going Mac
My sister did, quite a while ago
Is there a learning curve? Guess I will ask her more, too.

[Listeria]

Consider whether the Mac might pose problems in linking up to your job.

[ldancer911]

On the getting MS office. You might want to check someone at work to see if you can get some home use benefit for office. I was able to use that to get MS Office for ~$20.

I think most computer you can buy there is an option to have XP installed on it instead of Vista. Not 100% since I havent looked into laptops lately.

[Maine-iac]

I was just looking at Dells for my brother, and I did notice that you can, for a fee, have XP installed on those, too.

[Ron Weasley]

What are your reasons for downgrading to XP? Vista deserves a bit of a bad rap, but its reputation for badness is overblown. Whether or not the downgrade makes sense for you depends on what you wish to achieve.

If you're not accustomed to the latest version of MS Office with the ribbon, adjusting to that will be a larger adjustment than becoming accustomed to using Vista.

OpenOffice.org may actually be a quicker adjustment for you. The RDBMS front end (base) will feel awkward compared to MS Access, and you can kiss VBA macros bye bye, but for typical home use type spreadsheets and word processing documents, OpenOffice should come naturally to you and work smoothly.

I'm currently using XP, Vista and Linux on various systems. I'm also using MS Office 2003, MS Office 2007 and OpenOffice.org (both windows and linux versions). I have no experience with OS X, but would still strongly consider a Mac loaded with MS Office if I was shopping for a new laptop as my primary personal computer. All of the college kids in town seem to be so happy with them.

More like my 25 cents than my 2 cents, but there it is.

RW

don't pay for the downgrade to xp. There is no longer support for it. Vista is fine.

[Maine-iac]

Agreed. We considered it, because my brother is used to XP, and not a quick learner, but Vista is fine once you get used to it (as long as you have Service Pack 1), and it wasn't worth the price to go back to XP.