AWKWARD ZOMBIE

One thing of note is that Windows 8 is supposed to have a much faster boot time. That alone to me would beworth the 20 bucks or so price difference. On SSD however, the boot time difference is neglible.

Brock from Cockfighting Society got a Win8 laptop after his Win7 one was stolen, and while most everything runs a bit smoother he gets some odd behaviors every now and then. He connects to online games a lot slower, Skype doesn't work (it thinks his speakers are speakers+microphones, and messes up the sound of other programs even after messing with settings), and lots of unneeded UI "improvements" that get in the way of doing other stuff.

Most of the problems are probably not attributable to the OS itself, might just be drivers and hardware, but I could tell you will probably want to tweak a lot of the settings so that it works like a normal computer.

Also, Win9 is coming out soon? Must investigate. I really would like an alternative to Win8 if I get a new comp soon, I'm sure it's a perfectly good OS when configured properly, I've just seen too many people I know get frustrated with it.

If you get 8 get 8.1, it fixes pretty much all the real problems 8 had.

Windows 9 is rumored come out out in April 2015 so it's not exactly around the corner.

I'm looking into laptops, since I'm getting my student refund soon.

Any suggestions from y'all folks? I'm on a self-imposed budget of $200-300, so obviously I'm not looking for a workhorse. I just want to do word processing stuff and browse the web occasionally, since my phone isn't a very good web device.

I prioritize CPU, since RAM can be easily upgraded later, but if there's not too much difference I'd prefer a touchscreen with a slightly weaker processor.

Any advice? I'm having trouble making sense of specs, since I'm only familiar with intel's i series and that's out of my price range.

You won't be getting a touchscreen in that price range, the cheapest ones I've seen have been $500 on sale. You also won't be getting anything but Intel's or AMD's lowest end mobile CPUs, but they should totally be enough for those tasks.

However, one option I'd recommend you to consider is looking into used ThinkPads, it's what I would do if I didn't have a laptop now. They're business machines that are usually bought in bulk and then sold away after a few years so they're typically in really good shape, besides being well built in general. You can find a very decent one in that price range.

http://www.ktgee.net/post/49423737148/thinkpad-guide

I saw two touchscreens in my price range, but their CPUs were just completely useless.

EDIT: Woah. Woah. Thinkpad has folding Wacom digitizer screens? Sold.

If you are only going to do word processing and web browsing then you could look into a chromebook? I have heard good things about them when it comes to those kinds of applications.

That's one option, unless you need access to specific Windows programs.

I considered it, but I like Windows too much and some of the other stuff I'd want to do (light gaming, Skype, etc) don't seem possible on a Chromebook.

Plus, now I'm too wooed by Lenovo's digitizer pens.

I am moving away from the laptop idea, though - if I got one of the Thinkpad Tablet 2 models, I could just connect a USB keyboard (of which I have several) plus use the whole thing for drawing. Only issue is that Lenovo doesn't specify whether or not you're getting a digitizer-enabled model, since none of the refurbs include the pen itself. The Lenovo Outlet site has the cheapest prices I can find for this specific device, but have any of you got an idea as to how I could check the pen features? I found a document that purported to list the exact specifications for every device Lenovo puts out, but all it said was that "some" Thinkpad Tablet 2 models supported it. Not very helpful.

This seems like the best place to ask. I bought a laptop and it didn't come with any program to use the webcam with besides movie maker, so if any of you could suggest a decent free webcam program, I'd appreciate it. I tried searching myself, but all the ones I've found either seem to suck based on reviews, or they're not free. Movie Maker is alright, but I can't seem to get it to make snapshots that aren't really small.

You sure you can't search for a program made by the company that made your webcam and see if it exists? Failing that, try ManyCam (you can remove the watermark under text effects)

Also if it's windows 8 just go into the start menu and search up "camera"

Yea, I searched pretty thoroughly for it, and it's Win 7. I figured out how to do what I wanted with Movie Maker though, so it's all good. I'll look into Many Cam if I ever need to do something more.

I turned on my computer today and it bluescreened. When it rebooted, I paid more attention to it and watched it basically go haywire over a few minutes.

First, Aero turned itself off. Then explorer.exe crashed, but instead of crashing normally it disappeared and I got an error box with 'explorer.exe' in the header and a message about a service failing. Over the next few minutes, my computer remained responsive (mouse moved, could click on open windows, num lock toggled correctly, etc) but one by one (what I surmise to be) every task the computer was running died and produced a similar error message. Ctrl+alt+delete brought up a black screen with a dialog box informing me that the logon services (which I know handle ctrl+alt+delete) could not be accessed because a service had failed. Clicking 'close' on the box returned me to what was left of the desktop. After a few more services failed, the computer restarted. ((Interestingly, and instance of Notepad I had opened remained responsive the entire time.))

I went to safe mode this time and started Windows' memory diagnostic, then went to my class. When I got back, the computer had been running fine for at least the past hour. No further errors showed up in event viewer, and the memory test found no problems with my RAM.

Everything seems to be working fine now, but I'm still concerned. Are there any more tests I should run to be safe?

For reasons I can't fathom, my usb drivers have disappeared. Most of my stuff works, but when i try to connect my camera or ipod, windows doesn't respond. No "new device", it's not under computer, nothing. I've tried updating the drivers, but it tells me that they were not installed successfully, and not much else. I've done a virus scan, removed what it found, and updated windows. Still not working. I'm running a windows 7 pro, and im kinda at a loss here, any help would be greatly appreciated.