Can anyone recommend replacement laptop for elderly Toshiba Sattelite c660d?

[RustyNuts]

After many years of faithful service, old Tosh's life is sadly coming to an end.  Originally purchased from a shopping channel, it came preloaded with all essential software and an excellent user's manual that was easy to understand.  It did everything I needed it to do and has been more than adequate for general home use and family history research. I won't be playing games, cds, dvds etc.

Trying to find a replacement is becoming a headache - there is now so much choice, I can't work out what would be best for me.  Any recommendations would be appreciated.

[groom]

If you want something simple and not too expensive, how about Chromebook? Everyone I know who has one is very pleased with it.

[Greensleeves]

I love my Chromebook - I do have a large, powerful laptop as well which I use for heavy-duty stuff, but the Chromebook is perfect for normal use.  The main difference between Chromebooks and ordinary laptops is that Chromebooks have limited storage capacity so most things are saved to the google drive (ie online).  You can't install .exe files on Chromebooks, which means that they are generally virus-free; however there are plenty of free apps available which you can use. Also, you save to google drive  - this means that you can access your work/photos etc from other machines which I find incredibly useful, particularly as I use mine for doing accounts and suchlike.  Plus, of course, if you lose your Chromebook or it gets damaged in any way, you can still access your work online from another machine.  Chromebook does have some storage so you can save files, but generally I find it easier to save to google drive.  Oh, and the one I have can go for 12 hours on battery without having to plug in.  Another good thing about Chromebooks is the price, many of which cost about £150.

Disadvantages - The fact that you can't install apps on it (other than android apps provided by Google).

Here's a forum where someone has asked about the advantages and disadvantages of Chromebooks, which you might find helpful: 
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-ChromeOS

Hope this has helped.

Regards
GS

[RustyNuts]

Many thanks to Groom and Greensleeves for your replies.  I had not considered Chromebooks as, to be honest, I didn't fully appreciate the benefits. The low cost is very impressive.

I'm going to read up on them now, look at online reviews then maybe check out the display stock in Currys.

All looking rather good!

[andrewalston]

The c660d appeared about 9 years ago, and probably had Windows 7 when it was new.

The first thing to work out is what software you need to run.

The FH software I use is Windows-only. Do you keep your data locally?

If you only use, say, Ancestry to build your tree, then anything with a browser will do. It could run Windows, Linux, MacOS, Chrome or Android.

Do you accumulate loads of photos? Audio files? Videos? You will need enough storage space to at least duplicate what you are using at present. Most current laptops will have a hard drive larger that what was available in 2010, though there are some with VERY small drives - 64GB or less. Windows+Office will take about half that. Yes, you can add an external drive, but that should be for backups, not for everyday use.

Does the keyboard fit your needs? I think you need a proper keyboard for family history; pecking away at something onscreen is not fast enough.

Is the screen large enough? The Tosh usually had a 15.6" diagonal screen, with 1366 x 768 pixels. Luckily, with TVs sharing the technology, high resolution screens are more common now. Most of us have poorer eyesight now than we did in 2010, so make sure you can see stuff on the screen.

There has been a fashion recently to ship laptops without a DVD drive. If you regularly use CDs or DVDs, you might need to budget for an external USB unit.

If you have the option, look out for a solid state hard drive. These improve disk speed hugely, use less power and are pretty much immune from physical shocks. My current laptop is also from 2010, but runs about twice as fast as recent one, mostly because of the solid state drive.

[Greensleeves]

And Andrew's post reminds me to add that Chromebooks also have solid state drives!

[Mike Morrell (NL)]

IHHO the first thing you should do before buying a Laptop is to consider what you want to do with it, where and which software (apps) you want to use.

I know nothing about Chromebooks but the idea sounds great to me. However, I use some apps for Photography and Video that I'm not sure would work the same on a Chromebook. Another reason why I have a Windows 10 Laptop is that I know that any documents/e-mails I exchange will look exactly look the same for whoever I exchange them with that has a Window 10 Desktop/Laptop. Plus, I'm

For using internet and storing documents online, I'm sure a Chromebook would be fine.

Mike

[Billyblue]

Interesting, Mike.  One would expect Win 10 to look the same on all laptops, desktops etc.

However, I've found otherwise
My Toshiba laptop had a 'hissy fit' last July and we haven't been able to restore everything.
Plus it was fairly old anyhow.  So I went off to buy another Toshiba (my favoured brand) only to find that Toshiba no longer make laptops!!      

So I bought an Asus after looking at various makes. 
I already had a small Asus.
And I've found that files in Word, particularly, present quite differently on the two laptops!
Nobody I've spoken to, knows why that is so.

These machines can be so frustrating!
Dawn M

[Palladium]

My old Tosh was fine, but since then I've had two Dells - and they've been fine too.
Pall