My wife has an iPad, and for various reasons needs a laptop/netbook with the following appx spec; i5 or better Proc Decent quality/resolution screen (absolute min 13") 128GB SSD (or pref 256GB) 4GB memory min (pref 8GB>) 256GB or bigger HDD. Lots of docs, photos and files needed locally. Do NOT want any extra programs/bloatware etc. I'll add office etc as and when. Should I pay £800 for a refurb MacBook, 13", 128GB, 8GB from Apple or are there better laptops around in turns of spec (particularly want an SSD and HDD). If I don't go down the Mac route I'm almost certainly looking at W10, which is ok, but I really want a bare-bones laptop without all sorts of additional crap added to it. Any suggestions for an alternative to a Macbook very welcome! Having said that is it possible to pick up MacBooks cheaper in the US? I get out there from time to time. Thanks in advance.
All laptops come with crap installed, FYI. A clean install is often the easiest way to get rid of it all. It's far quicker to reinstall Windows than to painfully remove the crap one by one.
I recently bought myself a 11" 2012 Macbook Air. They said grade A+ condition and they weren't lying, it was absolutely pristine. http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Computers...nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=&_ssn=cosmac&_sac=1 Have a dig through there, they have a few 13". Brendan is right (is it Brendan or Brendon?) though you will need to spend a few hours clearing off the crap. All I wanted on mine, since it's only 64gb* was Mac OS Sierra. However, it did fight me a little. It would appear that in order to create a USB boot device for Sierra you need to do it within Sierra. I forget what it had on now (Mountain Lion? something like that with Office but I don't want it) and so I had to download all the updates, install Sierra, create a boot stick and then reboot and wipe the lot with a fresh install. So basically I had to update it first, then create a boot stick, then reinstall. It took me about a day all told but now I have it where I want it. I have two tiny little USB sticks one 32gb and one 16gb that I use to store my music ETC. * I am only using the machine when I travel, so I don't need a ton of storage. One thing to note though, it does have a USA keyboard, if that really bothers you.
