new laptop required

[tismehi]

not sure of the correct area to post this in so please feel free to move it.

 

my 17 year old neice needs a new laptop for school work and has asked me to recommend one.

 

screen about 17" with dvd drive. must have m/s word and powerpoint. her studies are language centred.

 

any suggestions or recommendations would be most welcome.

[KenB]

Hi,

 

If she is carrying the laptop backwards and forwards I don't recommend a 17 inch - it will be too heavy.

 

There are 3 recommendations here:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/cheap-laptop-deals

 

And a lot more here:

http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Computer/cat/Laptops?gclid=CPC5mK-j_KsCFYob4Qodv2IAlA

I suggest you go for a brand name like Acer / Dell / HP / Lenovo / Toshiba

 

A basic laptop would probably be good enough for what she wants to do.

 

Regarding WORD and POWERPOINT.

You are talking about MS Office 2010

 

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/buy-office-2010-FX101843016.aspx?WT.mc_id=ODC_ENUS_OATProdHome_MonBuy

 

This is not cheap.

 

There is an alternative - Open Office. It is free.

http://www.openoffice.org/

 

This is WORD compatible.

She would need to select Save As .........then change the .odt default to Word97.doc from the drop-down menu. Easy to do.

WORD cannot read .odt format.

Open Office is fully compatible with WORD documents.