Finding energy efficient Windows 8 laptop?

softdown

I have given up on Acer and Windows 10. Looking for new or gently used energy efficient Windows 8 with a SSD hard drive. Budget? - thinking ~$400 should get a nice older laptop. I don't want any irksome quirks even if the savings are 50%. Like my new Windows 10 was constantly "changing the screen/font size"- constantly.

Tips?

Photowhit

Well I hated Windoz 8 and loaded Windoz 10 as soon as I could and haven't had issues like you have had. Perhaps a born Windoz 10  laptop? 

Do you really like the 'cell phone' interface of Windoz8?

You say giving up on Acer (I did too),  but their travelmate line seemed to be among the best for efficiency.  Lenovo Thinkpad L series, is their 'green line'. I've been happy with my Lenovo, after 5 years it's about time to be looking again. I like their battery management system for people who leave laptops plugged in, has a max charge of 60%, after 5 years mine still has a usable battery life (2hrs compared to almost 5 when new)

Marc Kurth

I just recently bought a new low end Dell 15" with a 256 GB SSD and 8 MB of ram. It was $439.00. (Would have been $100 less with a standard HD, or smaller SSD and 4 MB of ram) The solid state drive and 3.1 USB ports let me mirror the hard drive with 196 GB on it, in 7 minutes to my large external drives.

The small internal battery (45 watt hour)) gives me 6-8 hours of heavy use with Wifi. That is not a lot of power.

I was dragged kicking and screaming from DOS to (skipped 3.0 and 3.11) to Win 95/98/XP/7/8. For me, Win 10 is fast and reliable. I won't go back to Windows 8 for anything - you are welcome to it. With the SSD, it takes 18 seconds boot up and have Excel up and running.

Getting a computer with a low power consumption processor, then lock down the speed using battery management settings - is likely what you want.

softdown

Turbo Tax no longer works with Windows 7 and taxes are kind of important. Though Turbo Tax has really, really sucked for the past several years. I  need to try another program like HR Block or something. There is not a single reason to stick with Turbo Tax - the program doesn't remember anything anymore so I start over every year. 

I NO LONGER RECOMMEND TURBO TAX. AT ALL. 

Never used 8 - I do like 7. Figured 8 would be similar. Perhaps not. I've lost a bunch of Windows 7 (they quit) laptops over the past year. 

Marc Kurth

I bought a new laptop because my 2013 laptop was making me nervous, and there is no support for Office 2007 now.  It's still running fine but we run our business on my laptop and my wife's laptop (accounting) - so it was time. We replaced my wife's 2013 laptop computer in June, in order to be able to keep running Quick Books.

Photowhit

softdown said:

Never used 8 - I do like 7. Figured 8 would be similar. Perhaps not. I've lost a bunch of Windows 7 (they quit) laptops over the past year. 

I was okay with  Windoz 7,  but truly found  Windoz 8 appalling! Micksoft decided to make a phone interface for laptops.

REALLY recommend trying Windoz 8   if you haven't used it, Maybe look at some 'using Windows 8' videos.

softdown

I don't like smartphones so I don't think I'd cotton to W8. I did find a number of reviews by old timers who said they strongly preferred W7 to W10. 

I can't seem to quit being cheap - it is my nature. Found one for less than $100 - supposedly with a new battery. 

I plan on using laptops for another few decades. Perhaps I should stock up on cheap W7s? It is highly doubtful that I'll take a shine to W12 or 14 or Infinity. W7 has always appealed to me. 

Photowhit

I  understand, I still keep a XP laptop around  to run  Photoshop 6(Full) on,  but I rarely use it as I've mostly figured out GIMP.

softdown

Photowhit said:

I  understand, I still keep a XP laptop around  to run  Photoshop 6(Full) on,  but I rarely use it as I've mostly figured out GIMP.

Thanks for reminding me of the tens of thousands I spent on photography software and equipment.  There are remnants all over the place. What does Gimp costs? 

Estragon

IIRC, GIMP is an open source (free) application that runs on *nix operating systems.  I used it ~25yrs ago on OpenBSD, Solaris, and SCO unix systems.  These days, would use a Linux flavour like Debian (also open source / free).

mike95490

softdown said:

Thanks for reminding me of the tens of thousands I spent on photography software and equipment.  There are remnants all over the place. What does Gimp costs? 

GIMP is freeware.  They appreciate a donation.

https://www.gimp.org/   GNU IMAGE MANIPULATION PROGRAM

GIMP is a cross-platform image editor available for GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows and more operating systems. It is free software, you can change its source code and distribute your changes.

softdown

I went au natural in photo editing. Have not edited an image in years and years. Like so many other ex-photogs. I have strayed far, far and away from that rat race.