Joe_Sleepy

For what you need it to do a relatively basic laptop would be more than enough, just make sure it has WiFi.
An Xbox, Playstation or Wii would cover the Netflix media streaming (For less than a dedicated media streamer & you have the perfect excuse to buy a games machine, if you don't already own one.)..

The Bloatware is easy enough to remove, you just need to determine if half an hour of your time is worth the $150~ you would save...

Search for the Bloatware list online for the machine you buy & use the built in program manager...

Atlantic Xpat

FS has an online Canada day sale tommorrow. I noticed a Dell laptop with AMD processor for $299. For your basic requirements that sounds like a deal.

Howefamily

oh thanks all!

MikeUK

Find a geeky friend, take old laptop, Give geek friend a couple of cans of beer and ask him to flip on a Linux distro...

This will then easily do online banking, word documents, facebook, skype as long as you have about 512K and a processor over 1Ghz..


It will be a much lower virus risk, it would be capable of updating itself without needing a restart every time,
however you may run an overhead of maintaining a geeky friend and beer supply, however the $300 dollars for a new lap top equals about 200 beers with at worse a bi monthly update and three panics a year that’s a service agreement ( allowing for some inflation) that could extend out 15+ years

Alan2005

This is what I'd do. My old IBM laptop from 2003 (which is so crap the company didn't want it back when they finally upgraded it last year) runs ubuntu perfectly well. It's certainly good enough for browsing and running open office type stuff.

I always considered linux a geeks OS that would need a lot of tinkering to get working, but somebody at work recommended it as a way to resurrect old, but otherwise perfectly serviceable, PCs. I was actually quite surprised at how easy it was to install and how easy it is to use as well.

MikeUK

I used to be a die hard slackware fan, not quite as geeky as Debian but heading that way (and still think about it)
I now use Ubuntu ( which is based on Debian) as its 3 and 7 yr old proof, and is acceptable to my technophobic wife, she expects a PC set up to be as reliable as a phone..

The simple test is get your geek friend to down load Ubuntu to a DVD or USB drive and boot it from that, unlike windows it can run without ever needing the harddrive. It will automatically detect about 95% of any hardware, you should never need to install a driver, This way you can test it see if you can work with it on your machine at home at your leisure.
If you like it, then you install it to your hard drive, resign yourself to never paying for new software, and finding that your old hardware is running better than your friends new $1000 toy

ralphster

Folks,

Should I hold off buying a new laptop in the UK and wait until I get to Canada? I'm guessing, evening with the exchange rate, laptops are still cheaper in Canada?

airbornesapper

For a UK, Canada comparison...here are a couple links to a computer similar to the one I use while travelling...the only difference really between UK/Europe and Canada are changing model numbers:

http://www.staples.ca/ENG/Catalog/ca...dCode=WW&=&=&=

Canadian price 549+tax (NB ate 13%) = $620

http://www.simplyacer.com/Acer_Aspir...T_1053000.html

UK price 487.97 pounds....or about $750 Cdn (shopping around I am sure you could do better both sides of the pond).

I paid $299 + tax for brand new 'store demo'........

These things have HDMI and are more than enough for most folks...great if you travel and on the home front make a powerful Home Theater PC thanks to the HD graphics processor.

Don't get the cheaper AMD versions...the chips they put in make it as slow as the average netbook.

http://www.staples.ca/ENG/images/pro...3443_1_enl.jpg

MarkG

It may be cheaper, but it's also probably slower and more power-hungry. If going for Intel I'd suggest taking a good look at the i3 vs i5, because while the desktop i3 and i5 are different chips (dual core vs quad core) I believe the laptop i5 is basically the same chip as the i3 but with 'turbo' mode enabled.

themadhaggis

$150 to setup a machine, thats nice easy money for the company isnt it

airbornesapper

To set-up something that's already set-up except for adding anti-virus software and what have you....even 5 bucks is too much...

Howefamily

To buy this in Canada is $149 plus tax! Its in the sale at $79 in the US, so practically double!- hmmppfff!

Steve_

$150 is a bit steep but they do put a lot of crap on new computers that you don't need, I do agree on that point. The hours it takes me to wipe crap off HP computers, OMG. The one that does make me laugh is Staples advertise that they will transfer your files over - so they are charging you to use Windows Easy Transfer, which is ridiculous, it's in the Accessories menu! Another common rip-off is pre-installed software that has an expiry date on it, usually MS Office and anti-virus software. There are loads of decent free AV programs like AVG and MS Security Essentials, and loads of free office programs like Open Office (although I have to admit, Outlook is usually worth paying for if you do a lot of e-mail and calendar/contact stuff).

Buy it from Dell on-line, Dell generally put less stuff on them and it works out cheaper anyway.

From the sounds of it though you don't need anything special, if you're using Netflix presumably you want a big screen so I'd just get a laptop from Dell with a big screen on it if I were you.

ultrarunner

To the OP, have you considered one of these new tablets? The Asus transformer 16 or 32gb with a keyboard docking station might just do the trick