From a self confessed luddite techno-phobe:
Our home PC is getting old ‘n slow, (I know the feeling,) and I’ve been doing some research about replacing it.
There is only me and Mrs.B at home, we don’t ‘game’ and the PC is used for storing my music files via iTunes, photos and documents, all of which I also have backed up on separate drives. We both have laptops and Mrs.B also has a work laptop, (she works from home,) and will use the PC screen as a second work-screen.
I guess my question is, do I need to replace the PC or should I just invest in a decent screen and a ‘docking station,’ (I remember such things from my time in an office but do domestic ones exist?) which we can plug our laptops into when needed?
Question: Would I need to install iTunes onto my laptop and then plug the separate drive in whenever I want to manage my music-files, and will that just be a massive faff?
The thought of getting rid of the huge box from under the desk, plus the yards of spaghetti, is a big attraction I must say. Plus, the laptops run so much quicker than the clunky PC.
TYIA for any helpful suggestions and advice.
“Our PC is getting old ‘n slow..”
I thought this was going to be a law and order thread with some radical ht-tech suggestions on the future of the local constabulary.
Bye Bye Dixon/ Hallo Robocop!
Ooops! Not quite!
No point at all.
The ones who aren’t busy raping and murderíng the people they’re supposed to protect are painting their cars rainbow colors and dancing the Macarena with Just Stop Oil protestors.
Arf!
A couple of potential answers:
Buy a NAS for your media files. This is a box to go under the desk, to replace the PC, but not the massive PC case, more like a hard drive on steroids. It includes lots of storage and a little low-powered motherboard running Linux but no graphics connection a monitor. You can add it as an external drive to your laptop, and access it via your laptop’s web browser. No plugging and unplugging required, and it runs iTunes all the time. No need to have your laptop on to play music.
Modern laptops have USB-C connectors (the oval ones you can plug in either way up) for power. USB-C can carry lots of power (enough to run a laptop). Docking stations don’t really exist now, just monitors that have a USB-C connection. One cable (with a USB-C connector at both ends) carries everything – power, video, USB channels, etc – between laptop and monitor.
Quick answer would be no you don’t need a desktop these days – laptops are just as powerful and more than sufficient for most peoples needs.
I’m a Mac person and my old iMac (about 10 years old) died about 6 months ago – but I had not really used it for a year a so before that as I generally use my MacBook for most things. The only think that I missed with the desktop was that my external blu ray drive (which I use to rip music blu rays to digital) was much easier to use on a desktop due to its USB power requirements (I have not got it working on the MacBook).
As to your iTunes question – you can install iTunes and set its library to an external drive. The only thing to watch out for is that if the drive is disconnected and iTunes is still open it will default to the local hard drive and so can mess up your music file organisation. The cleanest solution would be to get a NAS drive that any laptop to store all files that any laptop can connect to.
The other consideration with regards to “a decent screen” is that you could consider using your TV – most modern TVS can chromecast / airplay / etc etc and have good enough resolution.
What connections are on the laptops? I’ve got a selection of Lenovo laptops: some decent home/business ones which are 4 or 5 years old and a couple of gaming laptops which do heavier duty video work and are 2022, I think. What they have in common is that they all have HDMI as the main video output (as do my 2023 Mac Book Pros), at least 1 USBC (gamers have 2) and 2 or 3 older style USB A (the flat one that only goes in one way). I’m sure HDMI will disappear over time but if you have a machine with it on, there are plenty of monitors that will use it as the primary input. It’s also worth noting that if you buy a USBC hub with HDMI, USB A & C connections on it, not all of the USB C ports carry power and not all USB C cables are capable of carrying video., some are only good enough for data transfer/charging.
TLDR: what you need will depend on what connections your current laptops have.
I’ve got a long of extension board for my lappy with extra ports, an ethernet port, HDMI port etc. Very handy. Also I’ve got a little 4 port USB C plugboard (and a big powered 10 port one in my music room).
Showing off? We even use mainly laptops at work nowadays, too.
Are you in Kraftwerk?
I’ve just retired my last laptop (unable to be updated to Windows 11) and replaced it with a nice fast Chinese-made mini-PC, wireless keyboard & mouse, webcam and monitor. Total cost for the complete caboodle was £458.13, of which £114 was provided using accumulated Nectar points at Argos, to buy the monitor. This is the second mini-PC I’ve bought in the past months. A lot cheaper than a pair of comparable laptops for their performance* and both PCs are little 5″x5″x1.75″ boxes that mount on the back of their respective monitors, so they take up no extra desktop space. Both run much, much quieter than the laptops they replaced and the extra screen area on the monitors** is great. Quickly getting accustomed to using a mouse again, instead of the laptop’s temperamental touchpad.
*Both came with AMD Ryzen 7 processors, 16GB memory, 500GB SSD, multiple USB ports, fast wireless and ethernet etc. Windows 11 Pro version.
** A 24″ monitor that I already had for the first mini-PC I bought, a new 27″ monitor for the new mini-PC.
Unless you need a laptop to do stuff away from home, I thoroughly recommend moving over to a mini-PC.
Where did you get the processor Mike? Interested…
Both came from Amazon. The first one is now out of stock and unlikely to be restocked as I think it’s been discontinued. The manufacturer, Nipogi, has other models on Amazon. The second one is still available, but the price is now £65 more at £379.
Search on Amazon for:
Beelink 8-Core 16-Thread AMD Ryzen7 5700U 4.3GHz SER5 Pro Mini PC, 16GB DDR4 RAM 500GB PCIe3.0 SSD, 4K@144Hz Triple Display (HDMI/Type-C/DP), USB3.2 BT5.2 AMD Mini Gaming PC
p.s. It’s not really gaming-standard. That’s just typical manufacturer hype.
The graphics chip is almost certainly not good enough for real serious, intensive play.
I’ve just got myself a fairly low spec mini PC that I use as my music server. Like most of these mini PCs, you can hang it behind your monitor so it’s completely out of the way.
If you’re just using the mini-PC for a few low power tasks that you don’t want to use the laptop for then it should do all you want – I was surprised at how well it handles streaming video. Like the more powerful ones, it come with Windows 11 Pro and a 500G drive (with space for another SATA drive). My PC cost £166.
I got one of these mini PCs for Mrs Thep after she finally admitted that the 10-year-old Mac Mini I graciously gave her wasn’t cutting the mustard, plus she was happier on PCs anyway. Despite taking me right out of my comfort zone it’s an amazing little piece of kit, I have to admit.
Thanks chaps, interesting.
When my last PC was dying in it’s arse, I investigated the laptop/docking station */decent screen option.
* Docking Station more expensive than a USB multi-port extender, but not sure if there any more robust
Turned out it was the same sort of cost as replacing the PC (plus I have a general doubt about the longevity of laptops having burned through a few in recent years at work. OK, maybe my work was buying on the cheap but they never really feel up to the job)
In the end I went for one of the All-In-One PCs (basically an upright laptop wit ha wireless keyboard and mouse).
Works great, but is now getting old (about 8 years old) so am looking at replacing with another All-In-One.
(Not tried using the screen as an auxiliary for another laptop though, so this option might mean you need to keep the monitor for Mrs B)
In my experience docking stations always go wrong. I had a swish HP laptop for work with docking station and fairly soon it refused to send audio to the speakers even vaguely in sync with the screen, and the lappy then started to freeze up randomly which required a restart / unplug / replug. Tech support said it’s something to do with two different manufacturers driver bollocks. Anyway I gave up on it.
That’s the advantage of the powered-USB-C-hub-built-into-a-monitor* approach that Mrs F has taken. When it started to play up, I just swapped the cable for another USB-C to USB-C and all has been well again (famous last words, etc).
(*) It’s a 27″ HP. I looked for a model number, but can’t find one.
Something to watch out for is cheap USB3 hubs that generate interference affecting wireless keyboards and mice. Both use the 2.4GHz frequency band and cheap hubs aren’t always very well shielded. Just had to return one for a refund.
Yes. Buying one with a CE mark should be a good start, but isn’t a g’tee of quality (the China Export symbol is very similar).
If only Fiio made such desirable tech. Ah well. 😉
“Back in the day” I analysed a survey when BSI standards were being replaced with the CE mark. Whereas BSI had to be assessed, CE were self certificated, with one respondent saying it stood for “Caveat Emptor”
Well, that’s tea on my keyboard again.
Yes, the CE mark is risk based, so you can make minor changes without recertification. But, if something goes wrong, you’re liable for major grief. I know one German firm which put 5.25″ hard drives into USB cases and shipped it with a Chinese OEM power-supply. The power supply manufacturers decided to save a few Cents by removing the filtering components, and didn’t bother to tell anyone.
Customers’ TVs and radios stopped working, product was recalled, fines were issued, shops cleared their shelves of stock, German firm went bust. The MP3 player I’d designed for them made one batch of 1000 units, I have about 20 in my desk drawer.
I was at my brother in law’s yesterday & he had a keyboard that said on the box “Waterproof” & I wondered why you’d need that…Now I Know!
Of course you need waterproof keyboards if when playing King Arthur on Ice, the ice melts.
I have a Windows laptop for work and a (very small footprint) Mac Mini for personal use. The MM is 10 years old, but still works brilliantly (after I installed a memory expansion). You can pick them up here for $100, I may buy a spare.
I can’t stand laptops. I sometimes have to use one at work, and the effing touchpad is the worst BS tech ever invented and drives me into serious tech rage every time – if it had belonged to me it would have ended up getting thrown into a brick wall by now!
I thought my PC was getting old and slow a couple of years ago, but since I didn’t fancy spending big money on buying a new one, I tried the tune up/clear out garbage files route first, and as it turned out, that was all it needed. Runs like a young pup these days, with regular tune-ups keeping it in shape.
It’s still old, but no longer slow.
Yes. My 10-y-o PC was on during a mains power surge before a summer storm, and a week later the internal Solid State Drive died. A new one was only about 20 quid, and I had reinstall Windows 10 and all the apps, which took less time than I expected (about an afternoon). It was incredible how much quicker it was. Sadly, the motherboard and CPU don’t support Windows 11 so, next year, I’m either going to have to buy a replacement or install Linux.
These days I mostly use a Dell i5 15″ laptop plugged into (USB-C) an Anker dongle which in turn lets me use my 34″ Asus monitor at 2560×1440 via HDMI, and also hosts USB sockets for the wireless widgets that talk to my wireless Logitech 400 keyboard and Tecknet M002 wireless mouse. The dongle also has another USB slot for an external 6Gb SATA data drive.
That gives me two screens – one 15″ 4×3 on the laptop and one 34″ widescreen right in front of me. The keyboard and mouse can go anywhere convenient. The external drive lets me store huge amounts of music and photography.
The only continuing reason to also have a stonking great traditional PC (actually so huge it’s floor-standing) is for gaming or occasional video conversions. Even then the i5 laptop will do the Handbrake jobs fine, it just takes a bit longer to run.
I’m curious as to why your laptop screen is running a 4:3 ratio. I’d have thought an i5 would have enough graphics capability to run 2 x 16:9 screens, especially as one is internal. I have run 3 x screens at 16:9: 1 internal, 2 external on my 5 year old i5 Lenovos.
Yeah, it’s 16:9. My bad. Thing is I only leave the email client sat on the lappy screen, everything I’m really working on goes across the big baby.
“photography”. Fnar.
Tech has moved on and there are lots of different options to do what a pc would do.
You could use a laptop and plug a single sub c cable in and connect it to a cheapish hub that connects a monitor, keyboard mouse etc.
A mini pc would give you a pc with a smaller forma factor but it’s basically the same as above but with out the functionality of having a keyboard and screen so you end up leaving it on the desk.
You could get a network attached storage drive (NAS). This creates a place to store files etc. that is independent of the device. Think of it as a personal cloud. Some allow you remote access.
You could also go to a cloud service which means you hold files in a service environment (Google, Apple and Microsoft all have them). Chromebooks are good devices and you can mini of type devices as well. Both of these will allow you to access files from any device and cloud and some NAS drives will allow you
My suggestion would be think about how you are using the desk. Is it important to sit at the same place and work and don’t value monitors and full size keyboards? Or will you just use it occasionally and probably not miss the monitor/keyboard? My view is that they are good for extended use (more than an hour or two).
I would also go for a cloud solution. O365 from Microsoft is good. Apple is good but only really if you are using Apple kit. I have my iTunes library in the Apple cloud and that costs £21 a year. If you want to belt and braces storage, keep a backup drive at home.
I am firmly of the view that MS etc. have much more robust storage backups than I ever will. And think about data and files as one thing and devices to access data and files as another.
As someone who used to work for a major hard drive supplier, I can’t reiterate enough the need to backup all your personal data.
With disk drives (both traditional hard drives and SSD) it is not a question of “if it fails” but “when it fails”. Even drives with the most incredible reliability performance will fail.
I agree that MS / Apple / Google etc have the most reliable and robust storage backups (whether you will always have access is a different question). For home use a NAS / DAS drive configured as a RAID array will give you the best protection. Failing that, make sure you have important data on a least one external backup drive.
I agree, I back everything up to OneDrive plus a little solid state drive locally which runs every night.
I have descended into a maze of processor performance reviews. A little voice on my head keeps saying “but all she does is email…”.
Wow! Thanks all.
@Mike_H I’ve been looking at Mini PC’s for a while through Computeractive magazine, so it’s interesting that you’ve had success with them.
@davebigpicture It’s a HP 250 G7 Notebook PC H7Q5NDO5
(1) USB 2.0
(2) USB 3.1 Gen 1
(1) HDMI v1.4b (cable are sold separately)
(1) RJ-45/Ethernet port
(1) Headphone/microphone combo jack
(1) AC power port
Slot
(1) Smart card reader
Supports SD, SDHC, and SDXC
@johnw, @mikethep thanks, that’s interesting.
@Rigid-Digit Yes, the life of the average laptop worries me too.
@Twang Yes, the docking stations at work were always breaking down.
@Locust I sympathise which is why I bought a wireless mouse.
@Vulpes-Vulpes Really interesting. Can you explain ‘dongle’ to an idiot, please?
@Leedsboy Thanks, mate. The NAS drive sounds interesting.
@chrisf Yes, I’ve got better at that over the years. I have two external drives – one for the 17,000 music files and one for documents and photos – which I use to back up regularly.
Dongle is a thing you stick in a USB port which has a bit of limited intelligence eg a security key for some software, or a SIM card to add mobile data, or the ability to connect to WiFi if the device can’t do it already, or provide more ports of various types. Etc.
There was me thinking Dongle was the dog from The Magic Roundabout. Learn something new everyday.
I’ll defer to others over drives for music but your easiest option for plugging into an external monitor is HDMI. Your HP, while quite well equipped with ports, doesn’t have USB C. HP’s site says you should be able to output HD
A couple of other things occurred to me.
You can change the sensitivity of trackpad settings if you find it troublesome.
With a wireless keyboard and mouse, and by changing the “what happens when I close the lid” setting to “do nothing”, you can still run an external monitor with an HDMI cable, effectively making your laptop into a small pc base station rather than buying a new one.
@niallb This is what I mean by a dongle, as @Twang describes:
About thirty – forty sovs for a good one. Lots available, don’t buy too cheap. YGWYPF
If you search “USB C Hub” on Amazon, you’ll see loads. Vulpes advice on not buying cheap is good. But also make sure you have the right selection of ports on it. They vary wildly. Some will have a network port instead of an HDMI for example. Work out how many usb c and a sockets you need and get on that has a couple more. And USB C is the future.
On warning against purchasing cheap mini-PCs from Chinese vendors:
Some of these PCs are installed with essentially pirate copies of Windows, using a possibly stolen Volume Licensing Key intended for a corporate client as opposed to standard OEM version. They also can have some registry keys applied to turn off Windows Update to prevent Microsoft from discovering the dodgy key and disabling Windows remotely – which means they’re suseptible to security problems as faults won’t get fixed.
It also means that you won’t be able to re-install Windows at a later date after, perhaps, upgrading the SSD to a larger capacity, as there’s no activation key. Genuine installations will either have the key embedded in the firmware on the main board, which will be picked up automatically at installation time, or printed on a sticker on the side of the device, which can be typed in during installation.
Good advice
I haven’t considered that. When I got my Beelink mini pc, the first thing I did was to make an image of the disc so that I can start again any time I want to.
I had an annoying issue with my Beelink mini PC in that the installed version of Windows 11, although perfectly legal, was the original release version from 2021 (21H2) which is out of support since October ’23 and thus will not update automatically except for security updates. I had to download an ISO file of the latest version (23H2) and update from that, which was easy enough and completely without errors, but somewhat time-consuming.
It’s quite normal for a new PC, which may have been sitting in a warehouse for months before it’s sold, to need updates when you first set it up. When it won’t do that automatically it’s annoying.
The hardware is completely trouble-free, so far. Runs very cool and you can’t hear the fan unless you’re only inches away.
I wrote a 3-star Amazon review for it because of the OS annoyance, pointing out it would have got 5 stars if the OS had been a newer version.
So is there a sound card? Presumably it can play streaming etc?
It has built-in audio, either to a jack (with microphone support) on the front of the box or audio out via the HDMI socket. Plus Bluetooth of course.
I use an external USB device I already had for audio out to my amp and speakers (5.1 if required – I don’t require) and line & mic inputs. Also SPDIF in/out should I need it.
I added a basic webcam for Zoom meetings too, which provides me a mic input.
Cool thanks.
Buy and install a fully licenced copy of Windows for about fifty quid (another 20 or so for the Pro version if you think you need that) via PC Pro magazine; worries avoided.
If a PC can get Windows updates from Microsoft without them hassling you to pay for it, then it must be a legal version of the OS. Windows update checks that as part of it’s process. There’s no need to pay for another copy if the one you have passes muster, you can download it for free from Microsoft as a large installation file, if needed. But do create and save a Recovery Drive, once you have it set up how you want it.
There are some dodgy workarounds to install Windows 11 on older computers that don’t have the right hardware, but if you do that it won’t update any further afterward.
Thanks all. Plenty of options to consider.