Erika, I've had good luck with Dell laptops, and Lenovo ones are good too.
You probably want an intel i5 or i7, and ideally 16 GB of RAM to handle that spreadsheet load, though 8GB would probably work okay in a financial pinch. You also probably want a solid state drive.
You can shop dell refurbished laptops at [link] . My luck with that has been solid.
This scratch and dent 15" inspiron is $650, which is a good price for that machine. [link] Only 8Gb of RAM, unfortunately, but RAM is pricey right now so going up to 16GB pushes the price up a good bit. This at least has an extra slot and should be upgradeable if need be.
Here is a brand-new Inspiron laptop that would handle your stuff, though its screen is not great (low resolution, especially after a macbook): [link] but, hey, it's $550 new!
Ooh, this laptop has only 8GB of RAM, but the more I think about it the more I think that would be okay. And it has a much nicer display than the previous one. [link]
Thanks ND and Gris. Gris, I don't think my meager budget will stretch that far; I may end up having to go the Craigslist route and see if I can find a decent machine.
What about this Dell Latitude on Woot?
[link]
The specs seem fine on that. The screen is tiny but I guess if you are coming from a MacBook air you probably won't mind. Probably a fine choice.
You will definitely miss the clarity of your Mac screen. Screens are one of the main ways that low end windows machines manage to be so much cheaper than Macs with comparable internals. It has display ports though including HDMI so you could always hook it up to a monitor (or even a TV) if you need more space.
Yeah, although I don't know that it will much matter for QuickBooks and Excel. ;)
I find that text is the thing I want the high resolution for the most. Crisper fonts.
I'm interested in buying a super basic cd player for my mother. Any recommendations?
I'm having a couple of issues. The most annoying is that, while I'm in the office, I can't get my iPad to connect to the office WiFi. I reported that it might be down to a manager working at home, she contacted our external tech support who checked and said it was fine. And I was able to connect. However, it's not connecting now. It's annoying because I can't download an e-book I ordered. I'm hesitant to contact tech support directly, since it's a personal issue and doesn't seem to be affecting staff's ability to work from home ... but it's an annoyance. Any suggestions?
Well, the WiFi kicked in ... got my e-book, so I'm set (until the temptation to buy another e-book hits). bah!
