Laptop for 3 to 4 users

[Pghpooh]

Son in law bought a laptop for his wife and 2 kids to use. The laptop is a Dell Inspirion 11 with 128 gig drive.
He dropped it off at my house and asked me to um,,, "give it a workout" to make sure it is worth the money..........................................
Just looking at the specs I think it needs a larger hdd. Gonna be 2 high school kids and one adult working toward a degree using the machine.
It does not have a cd/dvd burner. All storage will be on usb or flash drives which add cost. I am not concerned about the cpu speed, etc. I do like the fact that the cpu in the usit draws 15 watts. Along with the ssd battery life should be good.

My thoughts are they should upgrade to a larger screen.
Upgrade to a larger capacity ssd.
Buy a laptop with a cd/dvd burner, or add a home network with external storage.

What are your thoughts and suggestions???

 

[VirtualLarry]

The laptop is a Dell Inspirion 11 with 128 gig drive.
My thoughts are they should upgrade to a larger screen.
Upgrade to a larger capacity ssd.
Buy a laptop with a cd/dvd burner, or add a home network with external storage.

First thought is, what is their budget and can they afford those kinds of upgrades.

Second thought is, if they had wanted a bigger screen, or a DVD burner, then they should have gotten a different laptop to start with.

Third thought was, you can't really change the size of the screen, it's a function of the chassis, and USB storage for each person isn't so bad (but a NAS can be more convenient, if they only use the laptop at home), and who really uses a DVD drive any more?

Edit: I do see your point, though, that a 128GB SSD is barely enough for the OS and programs and updates, and is far too small to be accumulating three people's "computer stuff".

Personally, if this machine was intended to stay "at home" all of the time, then I question getting a laptop for this duty.

I think a $350 (Edit: Desktop) Core i3 PC with 8GB of DDR3/DDR4, and a 1TB desktop HDD, and a copy of Windows would have likely been a better purchase, for a "shared PC".

Edit: Too many people these days, buy technology because it's "hip" and "fashionable", rather than getting something functional that meets their needs. (Ok, granted, I've done that too, in my quest to find the ultimate mini-PC, and finally decided on a mini-ITX with a desktop CPU, and a full-sized Blu-Ray drive.)

Edit: One of my previous clients, had two dilapidated laptops, that had been dropped, etc., and they were using one of them with a cracked screen, and a bad HDD, for a desktop machine. Not the appropriate place for a laptop, they should have picked up a cheap refurb desktop. They had a budget of $0, so I wasn't able to do much for them, their PC needed to be outright replaced. (Somehow, they thought I would be able to magically fix their bad HDD, and replace the cracked screen, for $0. But I digress.)

 

[corkyg]

Laptops are designed for portability and mobility, If they are to be stationary, then a desktop would be a better choice.

Independent users can each have their own external data drive and keep the base system as neutral as possible.

 

[RossMAN]

If we can find a deal on a better laptop, is returning the Dell Inspiron 11 an option?

Assuming the answer is yes, what's their budget?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

The best laptop for four people is four laptops.

 

[Puffnstuff]

When those kids cause the loss of school files someone will wish they'd gotten off their wallet and bought each one their own machine.

 

[VirtualLarry]

When those kids cause the loss of school files someone will wish they'd gotten off their wallet and bought each one their own machine.

Yeah, that too. I was just imagining one of the users of the laptop dropping it, and causing all the other laptop users to lose their files.

 

[accguy9009]

Son in law bought a laptop for his wife and 2 kids to use. The laptop is a Dell Inspirion 11 with 128 gig drive.
He dropped it off at my house and asked me to um,,, "give it a workout" to make sure it is worth the money..........................................
Just looking at the specs I think it needs a larger hdd. Gonna be 2 high school kids and one adult working toward a degree using the machine.
It does not have a cd/dvd burner. All storage will be on usb or flash drives which add cost. I am not concerned about the cpu speed, etc. I do like the fact that the cpu in the usit draws 15 watts. Along with the ssd battery life should be good.

My thoughts are they should upgrade to a larger screen.
Upgrade to a larger capacity ssd.
Buy a laptop with a cd/dvd burner, or add a home network with external storage.



What are your thoughts and suggestions???

Don't you love it when people ask for your advice/input after they buy or after they screwed something up? Connecting the laptop up to a TV or larger display when at home is a simple option. A cheap external drive and or an external DVD drive provide redundancy/storage and media play back if needed. Next time determine what you want/need and your budget and buy that and don't have buyers remorse.