by mezmo » Thu Dec 26, 2013 3:48 am
I need to get a new computer soon - I can't get anything much to work now with
my old WIN98 desktop and I want to go into uses that it is totally unfit for. I'm not
a computer geek - no formal training, just what has come from various jobs where
they happened to have some computers in use for the job and then minor home use
for home type word-processing and surfing the web. So I want and need to get more
proficient with them.
I do not own or use a cell phone, let alone a "smart" phone. [What in hell is everyone
with them talking about on them all of the time ?] - I'll probably have to get one
eventually but am not in any hurry at all. I have no interest in the tablets or linking
everything all together. [Assuming that Everyone has multiple devices needing such
all of the time is presumptuous I think - Digerati Groupthink, Harrumpf!]
I do want a LARGE monitor. And my main use - at least for now - will be for digitizing
a very large amount of very old family photos, and then later I hope to get into CAD more.
So I've been starting to "research" some, and it seems like a Multi-Media type set up is
what I need. The one-off old family photos that I want to save/archive in the RAW type
digital file format [or such], will require large amounts of memory space for processing and
storing, from what I read. But so far most of the machines with what I need for my
requirements are Windows8 machines.
So how has the Windows8 been going now for users - a little further on in time ? Any improvements ?
I did get to try and use a computer with the Windows8 on it for a day, a couple months ago,
and had an instant Dislike of it. We have a laptop running Windows7 [Gotten after our laptop with XP
'died' a few months ago.] and we are having no problems with it. It just doesn't have the processor
capacity/speed, RAM memory and hard drive space that I'll need for my photo digitizing. One other
concern with the W8 is with copying and saving pics from the web. In W7 it is straightforward, but I
hear that is not the case with W8.
Has the new release made W8.1 more like W7? I'll be stretching my budget for this but I don't know
if I can stretch it enough for an Apple product, and they haven't been as highly rated as some of the
Windows machines for what I want to do. They are in the running, but just not as close to the head
of the pack as I thought they might be, just going by Apple's reputation.
So is the W8.1 more palatable or not worth the aggravation ? Should I just narrow the search to
what is still available in W7 ? I know computers are not 'forever' - such is the march of technology -
but I'd like what I get to be viable for a few years at least too.
Thanks in advance for any insights or recommendations you may have.
Cheers,
Norm/mezmo
If you have a house - you have a hobby.