[NABS-L] Choosing a Laptop

Sat Mar 17 17:11:52 UTC 2018

Hi Lanie,

As a blind user and otherwise as well what makes sense these days is to buy a laptop with only a large SSD in it. I recommend a laptop with at least 1 TB SSD in it instead of regular hard drive. The reason is that a lot of time is spent not only in memory access but also on input-output, even if it is happening behind the scene by the application in temporary directories or even by the operating system at the core. You will see a very large improvement in speed as compared to the one with regular hard drive. For blind users screen readers are also resource hogs so having a laptop with only SSD in it helps a lot. Don’t get the one with hybrid drive either. If it is too expensive, a laptop with 512GB SSD might do it for you.

Also, you can always create a partition in the drive and install Linux no matter what the operating system (such as Windows or Mac OS) is installed originally. Another easier alternative is to install open-source software called “Oracle VirtualBox” and you can run any operating system in it such as Ubuntu Linux, Mac, etc.

I think Microsoft Surface Books are quite good. Another option is to consider Dell laptops.

Lastly, I found in the past that Office Depot might provide you a good deal on a pre-configured laptop. Also, Best Buy provide something on the order of $100 discount for students. Dell also has special website for computers for higher education folks.

Hope this helps.
Best,
Himanshu

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 17, 2018, at 11:00 AM, Lanie Molinar via NABS-L <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:

Hi, everyone. This is Lanie Molinar. I'm sending this to a lot of lists at once. Some are tech-related, some are related to software development, and some are for students. I might have to get a new laptop soon and have a few questions. First, let me give you a little background info to help you understand what I'm looking for. I'm a college student getting a degree in Software Engineering, so I'll be working with code and developing things. I also have several disabilities and health issues in addition to my blindness, so I can't do much physically and spend a lot of my day on the computer doing schoolwork, taking surveys for extra money, gaming, and doing lots of other stuff. I'm fairly sure that I want a computer with Windows 10, not a Mac, although I'm willing to look into a Mac if that seems better. I would also be happy with something running Linux. I definitely want something new, not used, with plenty of RAM. There are so many options that I'm just not sure what to look for or where to get it. Again, I also need something that can handle being used all day, gaming, and developing software. My family is low-income, so I need to get it from somewhere that offers good payment plans. Can anyone give me some advice on how to choose a laptop, good places to buy one from, and what I should get? For those on software development- related lists, I'm interested in what would be best for a developer. I would really appreciate any help. Thanks.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

_______________________________________________
NABS-L mailing list
NABS-L at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for NABS-L:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/hn.nopbc%40gmail.com