New laptop

I had reason to visit Curry's today and while I was there decided to check out new laptop computers. With my current 8 year old 'HP' slowly dying and falling apart I'm hoping it will hold on until the new year sales.

I discovered that laptops no longer have a built in dvd player, well not according to the assistant there. He said that they're not produced any more because they drain power too much. Apparently I will have to buy an external player and plug it in. Any thoughts on this anyone?

 

My hp laptop is also 8 years old. I cannot remember the last time I put a disk in the drive. Everything is downloaded off the Cloud these days. You can buy an external USB 3.0 optical drive for £16 these days.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/WSNDY-Exte...sprefix=external+optical+drive,aps,167&sr=8-4

Today I just bought another external hard drive. It is a 2 TB solid-state device and is smaller than my old iPod. I thought there had been some sort of mistake when it popped through the letter box.

 

Not having a television I use my dvd player regularly for films and specific television series. I've never used the Cloud and probably never will. Thanks for the link Jocko, I knew they were fairly cheap to buy and will check them out at a later point.

 

I don't use the Cloud either but what I was referring to is when you buy software you no longer get it on disk but you just download it onto your computer. Usually, you download it as a demo and if you like it you pay for the key which opens up the full functionality.

 

I wasn't aware of that John. Being hopeless with technology and the fact it tends to bite back, I restrict myself to the basics and won't get involved knowingly. Now if it was something mechanical - that I would understand.

 

Hi @Sheal,

Assume you are using DVDs with programs already on them to play back when you want ? or are you downloading them from the web and storing them on the DVD ?

If its the former, then you can buy an external DVD drive to plug into the USB port of your new Laptop, lots still around but most are USB 2 connection, much better if you can get one like this which is USB 3 that is a lot faster at recording and playback.

Used this company(below) for years, never had a problem, they also do laptops, though its always best if you can see and feel the laptop before you buy it.
That where Currys come in handy with their shop displays but if buying from them beware of all their "extras /warranties" which are often not needed as your consumer rights cover most things these days.

 

It's just a player I want @ricky101, for dvd's with programmes/films already on them. I wouldn't know what to do with a writer even if I had one. Computer technology goes over my head and if anything goes wrong - which it often does - I link to my son via Teamviewer.

Thank you but I'm aware of Curry's intricacies shall we say. I've taken a brief look at what they have in store regarding laptops. That's how I found out they no longer have built in dvd players. From what I've seen, come the new year, I'll buy another HP or maybe an Asus but not necessarily from Curry's.

@Loofah, I thought that technology was supposed to move forward, not backwards. I wonder if it's just another scam to take more cash from our pockets. Laptops are still going up in price and now the extra has to be paid out for a dvd player. I don't see how they can justify saying that the players are no longer in-built because it drains the power/system too much. My eight year old HP with in-built player has never given me problems and still works fine. It's the rest of it that's falling apart, currently held together with Gorilla tape.

 

Sorry I've just scanned through this so apologies if this has been said and I've missed it.

DVDs are now considered pretty vintage. Curry's rep is lying. It's nothing to do with power consumption. It's all about making things as cheap as possible for the masses.

Cloud computing refers to the fact that everything is online now. It's the internet, but not as us oldies know it. The internet was basically text and a few static graphics in a page. Like an online magazine.

Cloud computing is the next generation. Most mainstream software now runs 'in the cloud', meaning all the computing work happens elsewhere and modern computers are nothing more than a window on that activity.

In practical terms, what that means is when you build a spreadsheet for example, instead of your computer doing all the complex number crunching, a server anywhere in the world does it, and you just see the results on your screen.

For DVDs for movies, that's been largely superseded by streaming services like Amazon, Netflix etc. For software, unless you have something specialist, it runs on a machine elsewhere and you just interact with that external process. This is why computers don't need to be as powerful as they used to be.

If you need to use DVDs, you just need an external DVD drive, which is cheap and readily available.

 

Hi @Sheal

Think we understand now, probably its your son whos sending you the DVDs with the programs you want loaded on to them ?

Re the DVD drive, don't worry, they are all "Players/Writers/Burners" etc. just that you will only want to read from them.

You could get one from most places, Amazon like mentioned above or Ebay if you do not use Amazon.
External CD/DVD±RW Drive USB 3.0, Portable Optical Burner Player for Laptop PC | eBay

Its a daunting job choosing a laptop for anyone, so would suggest you ask your son to help select a couple he thinks would be suitable for your needs, sure he will be only too happy to help, if you mention it to him.
In all honesty, would ask him to even get it for you as some pc sales people can be very underhand. A shop beginning with C is the very last place we buy from for just that reason.

 

I keep getting messages, well they actually take over my screen, telling me I need to buy a new laptop as I'm still on windows 8.
They then go on to suggest which ones I should buy.

 

Quite right too, you just can't trust the co-op.

 

Many folk said W8 was a poor operating system, though we liked and used it for several years.

Now on W10 and though it took a little getting used to, find it even better plus Windows Defender is now a different beast and actually rated very high agaist the paid for AV suites, so you are much better protected.

You should still be able to upgrade to W10 for free , plenty of info on the web.