My laptop has died. It only has a power light showing. No whirring at all. I googled and it looks like a motherboard or cpu failure. Where I live repair is not really an option I don’t think. I will probably get a new laptop and install Linux mint on again. Does anyone have an idea of what not to get.

Wallace your right, but I can't just take my desktop and go get a cuppa while keeping an eye on my render or download to bail out if it crashes. It's also easier to fit a laptop on the little tray that attaches to my wheelchair.

Sorry to hear about your laptop Kimba. Strange that Moko just recently had to replace hers. In a past life (when I was in computer repair), I liked the Toshiba laptops. That was over 5 years ago now, so not sure what laptops to avoid other than do not purchase the hype unless you are a gamer. lol

I have no idea what you have where you live, but I ordered this one and it works good for me.
I can make games, use GIMP, and even play some decent games (like portal 2, though slightly laggy).
It is small though, you might want a bigger screen.
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12.1'' Dell E4200 Core 2 Duo 1.4Ghz 3GB RAM 128GB Hard Drive Win 7 Home

I have one of these that works nicely as a second more portable laptop:
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Dell 11.6" 2-in-1 Laptop 2.16GHz 4GB 500GB Windows 10 (3147-10000SLV)

I've had mine for 4 years. Mine isn't dead yet. I just need to get a new battery for it. If mine were to die, I wouldn't know what to get.

Those 2 links are out of bounds listing specific retailers.
If need be, discreetly name make & model only.

I've got 2 modern desktops, but I still use my laptop primarily, because I just got attached to it over the years.

Though it doesn't really qualify as a laptop anymore. It too suffered a big meltdown a year and a half ago. It was mostly related to the screen dying out, but I also managed to kill it's keyboard entirely by attempting to open it up. Luckily, the main computer and HD weren't affected though, so I've managed to keep it on life support with a CRT monitor and USB keyboard. It's not all bad, because the CRT monitor is larger, and I find CRT much better for digital art than a plasma screen. I still use it primarily because it still does everything I need it to. I don't play modern games or anything like that.

Kimba. What is your budget?

Don't buy alienware

AMD processors are fine, too. And, better in some instances of single-threaded processing. Do stay away from on-board GPUs, though. Even in the AMD line-up, the A10 series is a fine APU (CPU+GPU combo). However, the AMD FX series is a better architecture (dedicated graphics needed, though).

4GB of RAM is a MINIMUM.

I've had good success with the hybrid style of storage drives. This type may be the best way to go on a laptop. It's one drive that contains as much inexpensive disk storage as you want, plus has a solid state caching portion for fast retrieval of all your regularly used program data.

When it comes to SSD Hard Drives, you really only need it to run the OS and the programs. They are still too expensive! I find that 120GB is WAY more than enough to put everything you'll ever need on it (if you're just running a few basic programs like gimp, browser, office sweet, ect..., 60GB is plenty). After that, get however much storage space you want. You'll be very happy with a middle-line 7200rpm disk drive. One TB will last a LONG time, especially since you're supposed to back-up your files regularly. (That's all assuming you have an extra HDD expansion space.)

You should also be able to pull your old hard drive out and plug it in to your new laptop and strip whatever files from it. No need to pay someone for data retrieval.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Due to circumstances beyond my control I had to rely on my sister to get me one so I ended up with a Lenovo running almost the same specs. So, I have a Lenovo B50-80 with a core i3, 500G hdd and only 4G ram. I had an Acer originally but the same specs. I decided not to try to retrieve my hdd as I have a backup and so I didn't lose much. I may try to get someone to put some more ram in eventually. I have my Linux up and running and Gimp and Gmic reinstalled so thats the important thing.

Kimba, I'm happy you have everything solved and gimp running perfectly-

Thanks Wallace and Issabella. The new Laptop is an improvement in some ways. Its only drawback so far is that it won't Hibernate or Suspend. That's not a huge problem. I now only have to put back Ofnuts manager.

ditto