Worth updating or upgrading?

[Groove]

Laptop needs a bit of updating. It only gets used for internet browsing, torrent downloading and playing Football Manager.

Its fine for the first 2 bits but having...acquired...FM2014 ive decided that now is the time to have a speedier laptop.

Current spec is pretty woeful;

Toshiba Equium A100-337
Massive Dual Core T2250 @1.73 Ghz
1 mighty GB DDR2
160gb HDD (5200rpm i believe)
Graphics...non-existant.
Windows rating of 3.1 - which is due to the graphics, processor/hdd/ram have a rating of about 5.

So, 2 choices...

£20 will buy me 4GB of memory - some of which unusable
£10 for a battery that will hold some charge
£30 for a 32gb SSD (I will be sorting out a NAS drive)

OR

Attempt to buy a better spec laptop on ebay for less than £100. This wouldnt include a SSD.

What would you do?

Obviously i dont want to spend much money.
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[Scotsman37]

Time to upgrade to a newer laptop because that is getting a bit long in the tooth. So, you could get one with Windows 7 or earlier on it, but one's with Windows 8 (not 8.1) will require to be upgraded which will take you the entire day to update it completely with latest patches from Microsoft, etc.

The other option is to obtain your newer laptop and install a Linux operating system on it instead of Microsoft - Only if you're up to the challenge of it, as you may need to check the manufacturers of you external hardware i.e. printer, etc, that they have a Linux driver for it?

[P.addy]

Erm, unsure if this is any good to you as its got an 11.6 inch wide screen, but I have one for sale.

Base: Alienware M11x Soft Touch Stealth Black
Processor : Intel Core i5 520UM (3M Cache, 1.06 GHz)
Display : 11.6in WideHD 1366x768 (720p) LCD
LCD Back Cover : Soft Touch – Stealth Black (No WWAN)
Memory : 3072MB (1x1024 + 1x2048) 800MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
Hard Drive : 250GB Serial ATA (7200RPM)
Power Supply : Alienware 90W AC Adapter
Power Cord : UK 250V
Battery : Primary 8-cell 63W/HR LI-ION
Graphics Card : 1GB GDDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M
Wireless : Dell Wireless 1520 (802.11n) Half Mini Card 1

£400 delivered

[Neorion]

From what you say you do with this laptop I would say just upgrade it.

Whack some more ram in there and put an SSD in it (I would go bigger than 32GB min 120)

Its not a Celeron, I would think for a small amount of outlay you could have a decent little machine.
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[Groove]

I've had a quick look at ebay but really I'd have to spend 100+ pounds and it will still only have a small hdd and 2 gb memory and not be a huge step up in processor performance.

Think I'll just stick some memory in this. Ssd's can be had cheaper than I realised so I could get a 64 gb instead which would be enough as all music/movies are stored on external hdds (better for using on the tv, but will be getting a nas enclosure).

Are used Ssd's risky?
____________________
|| Past: 1991 Kawasaki ZXR 250 ~ 2003 Honda CBR 600 F Sport ~ 2004 Kawasaki ZX6R B1H 636 ~ 1999 Yamaha R1 ~ 1999 Kawasaki ZX6R J ~ 2004 Kawasaki ZX6R B1H 636 ~ 1998 Honda VTR1000F Firestorm ~ K1 GSXR 600 Track bike ~ K6 GSXR 1000 ~ 2006 Speed Triple 1050 || Current: 2005 R1 https://www.adrucore.co.uk

[lihp]

ssd won't give you much better in game performance, you're only noticeable difference will be in load times.

They're still too expensive, I'd rather have the storage of a regular hdd than the speed of a small ssd at the same price.
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[Groove]

[lihp]

Only in loading programs, that kind of performance isn't worth the price of them yet, hopefully couple more years and they will be closer to the hdd price
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covent.gardens: lihp is my most favourite member ever