Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lenovo

Sadly Lenovo is now owned by Chinese.

DP. Sadly, I am a trackpoint addict. I never learned to use a trackpad.

+1

Anonymous wrote:Save yourself a world of trouble and get a Macbook Air.

Save yourself a world of trouble and learn to read. OP said that she has traditionally been a Windows/Samsung user, and prefers not to migrate to Mac. She already has a Samsung cell phone, so there isn't a lot of coordination like between iPhone/MBA. Plus MBA are more expensive. If it isn't your platform of choice, why pay the premium for Apple when you don't really know how to use it?

I am a very similar type of user to OP.

I had to replace my laptop last fall. I got a Dell Latitude for a good price on Ebay. I have extra memory so that I can do much of what OP does, which is open browsers with lots of tabs and have M$ Office apps open. I also have a Samsung cell phone. I have a dropbox account and have it set up so that when I take photos on my cell phone, the next time my phone gets on WiFi, it will automatically upload to the Dropbox account. Likewise, my laptop is set to automatically sync the cloud Dropbox account with the laptop version once per day. So within 24 hours, all of the photos I've taken in the last 24 hours will sync to my laptop without me doing anything. I back up my hard drive about once a quarter to a portable USB hard drive. But if I ever lose a device, my cell, Dropbox and laptop all have the same photos, so I'm not worried about losing photos. The backups are especially good for making sure that all M$ Office files are backed up.

The laptop is easy to hook up to an external monitor. I have a monitor with a cable that has an HDMI end and I can connect the monitor at home to my work computer (Dell Precision) or my home computer (Dell Latitude) without any problem and use both with the monitor.

This is what I bought at Thanksgiving last year:

Dell Latitude 5590 15.6" 32GB RAM 2TB SSD Intel Quad Core i5 3.60GHz Win11 Pro
$531.00Unit price $531.00

Tax: $31.86
Total: $562.86

What’s your budget?

The brand doesn't matter, the product line does. Every brand's consumer laptops are cheap junk, while their business/enterprise lines are good quality. Look for Thinkpad, Yoga, Elitebook, etc.

PS-which Civ do you play? I grew up on Civ 2.

If you ever do online dating, put that in your profile!

Dell XPS line, always gets decent reviews, choose your screen size

Save yourself a world of trouble and get a Macbook Air.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lenovo

Sadly Lenovo is now owned by Chinese.

DP. Sadly, I am a trackpoint addict. I never learned to use a trackpad.

For windows, the best anti virus software is the preinstalled one from Microsoft.

Dell

With a Windows computer, make sure you decide on an effective antivirus software. Sometimes one comes preloaded and that can sucker you into using it. Then there are big annual renewal fees.

You can use regular Internet shopping guides to figure out what antivirus software might suit you.

When my husband (who will only buy Macs) told me I was on my own to buy a Windows computer, I shopped at Microcenter, Walmart, BestBuy, and Dell Online. The two I narrowed it down to were Walmart and Dell. I decided to buy the Dell. It was o.k. to set up by myself. I was very picky about keyboard ergonomics. You haven't mentioned that but I recommend you evaluate it.

Personally, I prefer Lenovo/IBM for their ergonomic keyboard.
I can't stand the chiclet keyboards.

Just bought a 16” Dell 32 RAM, 1TB laptop at Costco today $999. It came with a concierge service if you have problems setting it up.

Anonymous wrote:Lenovo

Sadly Lenovo is now owned by Chinese.