I am starting an at home-commercial custom cake business, and I am getting to the point where I would like to start choosing a laptop for it. I am not very computer literate, but I know I want it to be fast, have good battery life, and a big enough screen that I can turn it around and show brides pictures without them having to squint. And lots of memory. Price is definitly a factor as well. What do you use? Are you happy with it? Am I forgetting something?

Also, I like to do some photo editing, CC surfing, cake tutorial watching, I have cake boss, and I drop things, lol, so it should be durable. (Perhaps a children's computer? )

Can you please help? I want to keep it as cheap as I can, since i am running out of money, and still have a bunch of stuff to pay for

I just bought the Dell Inspiron with full keyboard (including # pad) and a HUGE screen (17"). Came loaded with Quickbooks for $800ish. I loaded Cakeboss and it works like a dream!! I have LOADS of pictures on here and it still runs lightning quick. I also watch lots of TV on it when I'm working without a skip in the videostream. No, I don't work for Dell. haha. Oh, and it's really light

If you want a laptop with excellent build quality that will last a long time I would go with a Lenovo Thinkpad, it will run you in the $1000 range. (I'd normally also recommend a MacBook, but Cake Boss might be an issue.) If you're on a budget just about any cheap laptop will be more than fast enough to meet your needs, I recommend checking out Costco since they have an excellent return policy if you don't like the laptop, and they include a 2 year extended warranty and free tech support.

Thanks, you guys. I want to make sure the money I spend is worth it, so while budget is importsnt, I don't want to go cheap, then have to replace it. That always costs more, and leaves you wishing you had just bought the deluxe model in the first place, since you just spent as much as you would have had to to get it, but you have two sub-par computers, instead of 1 great one.

I wonder if I can get the Dell at Costco? I will be looking into it. We have Sam's around here, I think Costco is about 45 miles away, which is where I go to get my supples.

I don't even know what I am loking for, as far as all the labels that mean things that make price go up! I was looking at techie websites, and none of it really meant anything to me, except price.

If you are wanting to save a lot of photos, etc. it might be a good idea to also buy an external drive to save your stuff to, then you don't clog up the computer and it should keep running effeciently. HTH

If I am not mistakes, I think Wal-Mart started carrying Dell.

The amount of files (music, video, documents) stored on a computer has no bearing on how fast it runs, performance is mainly affected by the number of applications installed and spyware infections.

You can make a computer run 100% like new by purchasing a new internal hard drive, installing Windows from scratch onto the new drive, and transferring your old drive into an external case (or leaving it in the PC, some desktop computers have room for multiple hard drives). Any reputable PC support technician should be able to do this for you, the drive itself would cost about $100, and the labor shouldn't be more than another $100 or so. That said, if the computer is more than a few years old, you might be better off putting that money toward a new PC.

You could also reinstall Windows and reformat your existing drive for free (there is usually a "restore" CD included with the computer for this purpose), but this will wipe out the contents of your hard drive so you would need to make absolutely sure all your files are backed up.

One feature you might want to ask about is a duel processor. This would typically make everything run faster. I think this might be standard nowadays but it's still worth asking about it. Make sure you have good spyware and antivirus software on it. That will help a lot as well.
For your internet browsing, consider using something like google chrome vs. internet explorer or firefox.

A dual processor would help if you're running CPU-intensive applications like 3D rendering tools or games, but the CPU (processor) is no longer a bottleneck for the vast majority of applications. Even the slowest processor available on a mainstream desktop or laptop today will be more than fast enough.

I definitely agree with getting good spyware and antivirus software, but make sure to stay away from Norton and McAfee (they are basically viruses themselves). Re web browsers, the latest Internet Explorer isn't too bad, but I agree that Google Chrome runs more quickly. I've also found that the new Firefox 4 (released this week) runs as fast as Chrome.

I can't get cake central to run on FireFox! I can look, but when I log-in, I get a 400 Bad Request nginx/0.6.35, and I delete the he!! out of my cookies, and cache, and I can see it again until i click another page. Then BLAMO! Another bad request! Ever since the new version came out. It has done it off and on for 6 months. I use Cakecentral in Explorer, Firefox for everything else. When I contacted them about it a long time ago, Cake central basically told me, "Sucks to be you! Deal!" (Not in those words! lol)

I just bought a Samsung QX410 laptop and love it. I always research online for reviews before making big purchases. I'd check both editor and user reviews at cnet.com for whichever model you like the most. That'll give you a good idea of what others using the computer have thought of it.

Also, Best Buy has started a buy-back program for big ticket electronics like laptops. They give you a percentage of the price back when you go to upgrade. The lowest I believe is 20% back if the computer is more than 3 years old or something like that. It's a free program, but it sounded good to me. I paid about 900.00 for my laptop, so when I go to trade it in in a few years, I should get about 180.00 toward the purchase of a new one.

That could be helpful, but I tend you use something until it is all used up! Do you use yours for business? Do you have Office or ? lots of photos and editing? What about the screen? can you see detail of cakes clearly?

I always search online too. I just don't know what to look for, and I figure cakes wouls know best, rather than some who uses their computer for something else![/quote]

I tend to use things until they are all used up as well. I only bought the new one because my old one died. I do use mine for business, both cake and otherwise (I use it as a work computer at my "real" job as well). I have Office, Cake Boss, SCAL, Inkscape and Gimp for creating and photo editing. I have a decent amount of cake photos on it, though I keep the majority on a thumb drive. The screen is 14" I think, plenty big enough for most things, though I also have a larger monitor I can attach to it. I might suggest that route for you for consultations. You could set up the monitor so that the bride can see it, and you'd still be able to see the same picture on the computer screen, so you wouldn't all have to be crowded around a laptop looking at pictures.

When looking at a laptop screen you will want to consider both the screen size and the resolution. The resolution of the screen is basically how many pixels the screen can display, so more resolution means you can see more information on your screen at any given time. The screen size is a function of the size of each pixel.

So if you have two laptops that both have WXGA resolution screens (which means the screen can display 1280 pixels across by 800 pixels down), and one laptop has a 13" screen size while the other is 15", both laptops will be able to show the same amount of information, the info will just be slightly bigger on the 15". Personally I prefer getting the highest resolution possible...the pixels will be smaller but you can always zoom in with software if a picture or document appears too small on screen.

For consults we use an Lenovo Thinkpad tablet, which looks like a regular laptop but has a screen that can rotate 180 degrees (more info below). The screen is only 12" but pictures still show up very clearly due to the high resolution.

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/notebooks/thinkpad/x-series-tablet

Yeah, it can be handy. I work in television, and the editors have that set up so that they can have multiple programs open at once to do their thing and make a cohesive tv show.

Just about every laptop with an external monitor jack allows you to switch between showing the desktop on the laptop's screen, the external monitor, or both. I use this feature all the time in my day job to give presentations...the external monitor is usually a projector in that case, but the concept is the same.

I have some sort of a Dell we bought used just for me- it works really well, though the battery isn't great. It was cheap, though, and my husband only rolls his eyes when he sees me globbing sugar and goo on it.

It seems like the operating system can make the computer really user friendly or really slow and annoying. I hate, hate, hate Windows Vista- it's on a computer we have and it just aggravates me. That's just MY opinion, but if you're familiar with one operating system you might want to stick with it. Or maybe it's just me.