Advice / Opinion- Upgrade Probook or New Laptop?
Discussion
I'm after a bit of advice from the PH resident IT gurus- Mrs f does part-time book-keeping for a couple of businesses (using Zero online and some basic Excel stuff) and has been using an ancient Compaq laptop which is falling apart so a replacement is on the cards. I also have a 5/6 yo HP Probook 6560b (i5-2410M chip, 4Mb RAM, HDD)- it is physically A1, but pretty 'bloated up' and running Win 7.
Would upgrading the Probook (I'm thinking clean install Win10, 8Mb RAM and a SSD) be a viable replacement or would a new machine make more sense long term? Reading online content the consensus (especially upgrading W7 to W10) seems to be the latter, but is it a case of "they would say that wouldn't they?". Plus the Probook is a robust old piece of kit, well suited to getting bashed about if lugged to and from client offices etc, much better, I'm guessing than a low-end new machine. Would £200-£300 upgrading the HP be wasted money? Any thoughts / comments would be appreciated.
Would upgrading the Probook (I'm thinking clean install Win10, 8Mb RAM and a SSD) be a viable replacement or would a new machine make more sense long term? Reading online content the consensus (especially upgrading W7 to W10) seems to be the latter, but is it a case of "they would say that wouldn't they?". Plus the Probook is a robust old piece of kit, well suited to getting bashed about if lugged to and from client offices etc, much better, I'm guessing than a low-end new machine. Would £200-£300 upgrading the HP be wasted money? Any thoughts / comments would be appreciated.
Just to be clear, does she actually go to their offices or WFH?
If the latter, I'd get a desktop and a decent size monitor.
If she goes to site, I think my decision would be drive by tightness of budget and how much patience she has. An upgrade would be just under £100 - maybe £60 for a 512 GB SSD, £40 for 2 4GB DIMMs, and do a fresh 10 install using the existing Windows 7 licence.
Something new will be less durable, probably have a worse keyboard, but much better battery life, the screen may be less tired, the processor will be zippier (but how much does that matter for light excel?), as will the wifi performance.
If the latter, I'd get a desktop and a decent size monitor.
If she goes to site, I think my decision would be drive by tightness of budget and how much patience she has. An upgrade would be just under £100 - maybe £60 for a 512 GB SSD, £40 for 2 4GB DIMMs, and do a fresh 10 install using the existing Windows 7 licence.
Something new will be less durable, probably have a worse keyboard, but much better battery life, the screen may be less tired, the processor will be zippier (but how much does that matter for light excel?), as will the wifi performance.
Thanks for the reply. It is mostly WFH, with occasional client visits so she would need the flexibility a laptop brings. Is there still a way of getting a Win 10 upgrade free from a Win 7 license still? I thought the free upgrade had expired? If it can all be done for £100 or so I’m veering towards giving upgrading the Probook a go, when I used it I had it in a docking station, so the screen and keyboard have had light use and should be good for some time yet.
darren f said:
Thanks for the reply. It is mostly WFH, with occasional client visits so she would need the flexibility a laptop brings. Is there still a way of getting a Win 10 upgrade free from a Win 7 license still? I thought the free upgrade had expired? If it can all be done for £100 or so I’m veering towards giving upgrading the Probook a go, when I used it I had it in a docking station, so the screen and keyboard have had light use and should be good for some time yet.
Download the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool and choose to upgrade this PC when you run it. Once you've done it once you can wipe the PC and it will re-activate when you reinstall. During the install after wipe choose I don't have a product key, select home/pro as appropriate and it will activate.I like to clone the W7 to the SSD, then install the SSD and RAM and run the 10 upgrade. That way if it goes pete tong you can just wap the old drive back in and think about what you've done.
If you're going to come in under budget, maybe spring for an external screen and keyboard for her?
Much better ergonomics, and productivity, and the ProBook has DisplayPort, so should do a good job of driving a 1920 x 1080 monitor.
You'd want to check about support before trying 2560 x 1440 though.
Much better ergonomics, and productivity, and the ProBook has DisplayPort, so should do a good job of driving a 1920 x 1080 monitor.
You'd want to check about support before trying 2560 x 1440 though.
Any recommendations as to to RAM and SSD manufacturers/ suppliers?I find Amazon easy enough to deal with, and like the Crucial MX 500 series SSDs, probably a 500 GB one
With regards to RAM, DDR 3 SO-DIMMs are a commodity at this point, so look for reasonable reviews and price. Have you checked if it currently has 1 x 4GB DIMM (so you only need 1 extra) or 2 x 2GB, so you need 2 x 4GB ?
If you're shopping for 1 DIMM, I'd probably get an 8GB DIMM - there's a minute performance hit to unbalanced memory (but it is still faster than only 1 slot occupied) and 12GB of RAM is a bit more comfortable than 8 if you end up using lots of applications at the same time.
With regards to RAM, DDR 3 SO-DIMMs are a commodity at this point, so look for reasonable reviews and price. Have you checked if it currently has 1 x 4GB DIMM (so you only need 1 extra) or 2 x 2GB, so you need 2 x 4GB ?
If you're shopping for 1 DIMM, I'd probably get an 8GB DIMM - there's a minute performance hit to unbalanced memory (but it is still faster than only 1 slot occupied) and 12GB of RAM is a bit more comfortable than 8 if you end up using lots of applications at the same time.
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