NVDA running on a budget laptop
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Jeff Samco
I am looking to purchase a second, low cost
and compact laptop for some upcoming travelling. I only expect to be
running NVDA, basic web browsing, email using MS Outlook and simple word
processing. I don't know how much MVDA uses in terms of processing
resources and would like some advice. I am considering the following
laptop:
HP Stream Pro 11 G5, Celeron N4000 / 1.1 GHz, Windows 10 Pro 64-bit National Academic, 4 GB RAM, 128 GB EMMC, 11.6" Display 1366 X 768 (HD), UHD Graphics 600, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth - Kbd: US - 5VD62UT#ABA Does anyone know if this configuration will perform well enough or should I move up to another level of processor? Thanks for any input. Jeff |
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Rui Fontes
Theorically, according with my experience, it will do what you want.
Of course, please do not keep many windows open at same time and do not expect great performance...
Rui
Às 01:20 de 16/05/2021, Jeff Samco
escreveu:
I am looking to purchase a second, low cost and compact laptop for some upcoming travelling. I only expect to be running NVDA, basic web browsing, email using MS Outlook and simple word processing. I don't know how much MVDA uses in terms of processing resources and would like some advice. I am considering the following laptop: |
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Personally, I would not even consider running Windows 10 with less than 8 GB of RAM. Nor would I consider a Celeron processor, for anything, these days.
I'd invest a bit more for additional memory and a better processor. You might also consider a refurbished business-class laptop, which can be had at very reasonable prices (or at least could prior to the pandemic - everything's getting more expensive as supply is constrained). -- Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 20H2, Build 19042 Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself. ~ Richard M. Nixon
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David Moore
I have an HP Stream! It is exactly what you want! It is small, 4 gigs of ram which is great for JAWS and many other programs, and long battery life, usually 12 hours! On Sat, May 15, 2021, 8:20 PM Jeff Samco <jsamco@...> wrote:
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Monte Single
If you could even move up to a low end icore 3 or 5 processor, the difference would be noticeable. In a machine like you describe, and if I had only one choice, I would go for a better processor instead of more ram. From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Jeff Samco
Sent: May 15, 2021 6:20 PM To: nvda@nvda.groups.io Subject: [nvda] NVDA running on a budget laptop
I am looking to purchase a second, low cost and compact laptop for some upcoming travelling. I only expect to be running NVDA, basic web browsing, email using MS Outlook and simple word processing. I don't know how much MVDA uses in terms of processing resources and would like some advice. I am considering the following laptop: |
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Gene
If you use speech such as the more computer intensive synthesizers, you may
use considerably more resources, I’m not sure. but something like
Eloquence or E-speak doesn’t use much resources and screen-readers, not
considering synthesizers, don’t use much.
I don’t know how much resources One Core voices use but I suspect Eloquence
uses considerably less. Others with more technical knowleddge may want to
comment but I think the screen-reader use of computer resources is mainly a
question about which synthesizer you use.
I’m not recommending any computer, I don’t know enough about performance
with not powerful machines to discuss it except to say that I don’t think the
screen-reader needs to be considered to any extent if you use a synthesizer that
isn’t demanding on resources.
Gene -----Original Message-----
From: Monte Single
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2021 7:46 PM
Subject: Re: [nvda] NVDA running on a budget
laptop If you could even move up to a low end icore 3 or 5 processor, the difference would be noticeable. In a machine like you describe, and if I had only one choice, I would go for a better processor instead of more ram. From:
nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Jeff
Samco
I am looking to purchase a
second, low cost and compact laptop for some upcoming travelling. I only expect
to be running NVDA, basic web browsing, email using MS Outlook and simple word
processing. I don't know how much MVDA uses in terms of processing resources and
would like some advice. I am considering the following laptop: |
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Ian Blackburn
If the machine has an SD card in it you can set that up to be virtual RAM years ago I did that on a secondhand laptop and it improved performance with the screen reader running are used to buy secondhand laptops from a company here in Australia but they don’t have any at the moment they were used business machines
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On 16 May 2021, at 9:26 am, Gene <gsasner@...> wrote:
If you use speech such as the more computer intensive synthesizers, you may
use considerably more resources, I’m not sure. but something like
Eloquence or E-speak doesn’t use much resources and screen-readers, not
considering synthesizers, don’t use much.
I don’t know how much resources One Core voices use but I suspect Eloquence
uses considerably less. Others with more technical knowleddge may want to
comment but I think the screen-reader use of computer resources is mainly a
question about which synthesizer you use.
I’m not recommending any computer, I don’t know enough about performance
with not powerful machines to discuss it except to say that I don’t think the
screen-reader needs to be considered to any extent if you use a synthesizer that
isn’t demanding on resources.
Gene
-----Original Message-----
From: Monte Single
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2021 7:46 PM
Subject: Re: [nvda] NVDA running on a budget
laptop If you could even move up to a low end icore 3 or 5 processor, the difference would be noticeable. In a machine like you describe, and if I had only one choice, I would go for a better processor instead of more ram. From:
nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Jeff
Samco
I am looking to purchase a
second, low cost and compact laptop for some upcoming travelling. I only expect
to be running NVDA, basic web browsing, email using MS Outlook and simple word
processing. I don't know how much MVDA uses in terms of processing resources and
would like some advice. I am considering the following laptop: |
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Monte Single
Hi Ian,
I’ve hear of this thing where you use an s d card or a thumb drive to increase your p c ram. I have it set up here on my hp 6th generation i5 with 8 gig of ddr4. The software I installed with the dedicated thumb drive is called “ready boost”. I don’t know if it makes much difference, but this machine is certainly doing all I need. Except, when m s does another update to win10 and things get wrecked!!
Cheers,
Monte
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Ian Blackburn
Sent: May 15, 2021 7:43 PM To: nvda@nvda.groups.io Subject: Re: [nvda] NVDA running on a budget laptop
If the machine has an SD card in it you can set that up to be virtual RAM years ago I did that on a secondhand laptop and it improved performance with the screen reader running are used to buy secondhand laptops from a company here in Australia but they don’t have any at the moment they were used business machines
If you use speech such as the more computer intensive synthesizers, you may use considerably more resources, I’m not sure. but something like Eloquence or E-speak doesn’t use much resources and screen-readers, not considering synthesizers, don’t use much.
I don’t know how much resources One Core voices use but I suspect Eloquence uses considerably less. Others with more technical knowleddge may want to comment but I think the screen-reader use of computer resources is mainly a question about which synthesizer you use.
I’m not recommending any computer, I don’t know enough about performance with not powerful machines to discuss it except to say that I don’t think the screen-reader needs to be considered to any extent if you use a synthesizer that isn’t demanding on resources.
Gene -----Original Message----- From: Monte Single Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2021 7:46 PM Subject: Re: [nvda] NVDA running on a budget laptop
If you could even move up to a low end icore 3 or 5 processor, the difference would be noticeable. In a machine like you describe, and if I had only one choice, I would go for a better processor instead of more ram. From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Jeff Samco
I am looking to purchase a second, low cost and compact laptop for some upcoming travelling. I only expect to be running NVDA, basic web browsing, email using MS Outlook and simple word processing. I don't know how much MVDA uses in terms of processing resources and would like some advice. I am considering the following laptop: |
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Ian Blackburn
Yes after an update sometimes you have to set that up again
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On 16 May 2021, at 10:15 am, Monte Single <mrsingle@...> wrote:
Hi Ian,
I’ve hear of this thing where you use an s d card or a thumb drive to increase your p c ram. I have it set up here on my hp 6th generation i5 with 8 gig of ddr4. The software I installed with the dedicated thumb drive is called “ready boost”. I don’t know if it makes much difference, but this machine is certainly doing all I need. Except, when m s does another update to win10 and things get wrecked!!
Cheers,
Monte
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Ian Blackburn
If the machine has an SD card in it you can set that up to be virtual RAM years ago I did that on a secondhand laptop and it improved performance with the screen reader running are used to buy secondhand laptops from a company here in Australia but they don’t have any at the moment they were used business machines
If you use speech such as the more computer intensive synthesizers, you may use considerably more resources, I’m not sure. but something like Eloquence or E-speak doesn’t use much resources and screen-readers, not considering synthesizers, don’t use much.
I don’t know how much resources One Core voices use but I suspect Eloquence uses considerably less. Others with more technical knowleddge may want to comment but I think the screen-reader use of computer resources is mainly a question about which synthesizer you use.
I’m not recommending any computer, I don’t know enough about performance with not powerful machines to discuss it except to say that I don’t think the screen-reader needs to be considered to any extent if you use a synthesizer that isn’t demanding on resources.
Gene -----Original Message----- From: Monte Single Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2021 7:46 PM Subject: Re: [nvda] NVDA running on a budget laptop
If you could even move up to a low end icore 3 or 5 processor, the difference would be noticeable. In a machine like you describe, and if I had only one choice, I would go for a better processor instead of more ram. From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Jeff Samco
I am looking to purchase a second, low cost and compact laptop for some upcoming travelling. I only expect to be running NVDA, basic web browsing, email using MS Outlook and simple word processing. I don't know how much MVDA uses in terms of processing resources and would like some advice. I am considering the following laptop: |
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Jeff Samco
Thank you Rui, David, Brian and Monte. I wish I could be
comfortable with a simple processor like the celeron but
probably need an I5 or equivalent to be confident the laptop won't
frustrate me.
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Jeff At 05:46 PM 5/15/2021, you wrote: If you could even move up to a low end icore 3 or 5 processor, the difference would be noticeable. |
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Chris Mullins
Hi Whilst I agree with Brian about Cnot using Celeron processors, I run Windows 10 on a 10 year old laptop with 3Gb of Ram and a 2.6GHz processor. I did update to a SSD a couple of years ago. The performance is perfectly acceptable and I use it primarily for browsing, email and occasional word processing with Brave, Windows mail and Libra Office.
Cheers Chris
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
From: Brian Vogel
Sent: 16 May 2021 01:36 To: nvda@nvda.groups.io Subject: Re: [nvda] NVDA running on a budget laptop
Personally, I would not even consider running Windows 10 with less than 8 GB of RAM. Nor would I consider a Celeron processor, for anything, these days. Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 20H2, Build 19042 Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself. ~ Richard M. Nixon
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enes sarıbaş
I would do a minimum of 8gb of ram, and a current gen i5/r5. That
is as low as you should go. Even with those specs, NVDA is heavy
on CPU usage. On 5/15/2021 7:36 PM, Brian Vogel
wrote:
Personally, I would not even consider running Windows 10 with less than 8 GB of RAM. Nor would I consider a Celeron processor, for anything, these days. |
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Greg Epley <greg.epley64@...>
Others correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe "ReadyBoost" is a Microsoft Windows feature, so it's just part of Windows. As far as the trick working, however, I've tried it on two laptops, but am told they are each already running as fast as they can. Basically that "ReadyBoost" won't help performance. So, using ReadyBoost is NOT a given performance booster available to anyone and everyone. Also, sorry that all my posts have been "echoing", but for whatever strange reason, Mozilla Thunderbird has "Reply to List" ghosted, and I couldn't even get the "Reply to Group" send mail link to do a darned thing when I clicked it, so I am hoping this makes it to the list, though it's doing so without quoting the original message given the crazy way I had to trigger any reply whatsoever.
-Greg Epley |
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On Sun, May 16, 2021 at 02:21 AM, Jeff Samco wrote:
to be confident the laptop won't frustrate me.- And right there is the key point. One can definitely use a "less finely specced" machine than one's home workhorse when all it's meant for is light duty emailing, web browsing, word processing, and even streaming, but even when something with really minimum spec works (and I have an ancient Gateway with 4GB and old Intel processor that does), "works" is often not enough to make one feel OK while using it. You still want the speed and responsiveness you're used to on your regular machine, but just for lighter loads. With Windows 10, it's almost certain that you will not have that experience with under 8GB of RAM, and you absolutely won't if you've got less than that with a really old processor and a conventional HDD. SSDs can and do gain you a lot of zippy-ness when it comes to tasks that are disk I/O intensive. Boot times shrink incredibly. But for stuff that's not disk I/O intensive, and the intended uses aren't, your throttling point is typically from the combination of processing power and RAM, which are intimately related in that a poor processor with lots of RAM could, in theory, work better than a mediocre (or good) processor with insufficient RAM. Windows 10, and all modern OSes, are now built to absolutely maximize their exploitation of available RAM to make faster performance (from the user perspective, anyway) happen. I've never owned anything near to a "flagship machine" myself, because I don't have the need for that kind of processing power or speed. I have, at times past, had to get "the cheapest thing possible" so I've lived with these long term, and it wasn't fun. Often even small increases in price on the lower end of the market get you some pretty substantial performance boosts. In the end, I'm really not telling anyone what they should buy, because I can't know that. Only the individual making the choice knows what is "minimally acceptable" to them. But I am trying to identify factors to consider. You have to make the choice in the end, and what's right for me, or any random someone else, may not be right for you. -- Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 20H2, Build 19042 Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself. ~ Richard M. Nixon
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Gene
Nothing I’ve seen convinces me that NVDA itself uses a lot of computing
power. nor have I seen this with screen-readers in general to the small
extent I’ve checked. Its using the newer synthesizers that uses a lot of
computing ;power. If you want to use the newer voices, I can’t comment on
the minimum specifications to get good performance but in the old days, I had
machines that today would be laughably underpowered, running Windows 95 and
Windows 3.1 and Via Voice, very similar to Eloquence, ran well. This was
in a 166MHZ, not GHZ, Pentium machine and in an even older and less powerful
machine running Windows 3.1.
As for NVDA using a lot of computing power, if I monitor use when I’m
typing text with carachter echo on in the Windows Task manager, I get low
numbers. I just checked and while moving up and down the list in task
manager, then pressing f5 to refresh the screen, I get a 6 percent CPU
reading. When typing in this e-mail message, alt tabbing immediately to
the task manager and refreshing the screen, I get a 10 percent usage
reading.
I’m not saying there won’t be variations, but those
figures are close to what I generally get when I test doing these
things.
And I haven’t seen complaints about the performance of
NVDA from people using tablets.
Gene -----Original Message-----
From: enes sarıbaş
Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2021 7:20 AM
Subject: Re: [nvda] NVDA running on a budget
laptop I would do a minimum of 8gb of ram, and a current gen i5/r5. That is as low
as you should go. Even with those specs, NVDA is heavy on CPU usage. On 5/15/2021 7:36 PM, Brian Vogel wrote:
Personally, I would not even consider running Windows 10 with less than 8 GB of RAM. Nor would I consider a Celeron processor, for anything, these days. |
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tim
Ben running computers for over 30 years and never heard of genI5/r5? Now the 8gb of ram is best to stop slugishness, I 3 or 5 with no less then 128emc drive will keep you running a long time with no problem. here is one to stay away from any notebook with less then 128gb emc drive. I have worked on a bunch with 32 and 64 and windows really don't like these small drives. I either put linux or chrome os on them for max power. You can get a real good referb for under $300 and under with good specs.
On 5/16/2021 8:20 AM, enes sarıbaş
wrote:
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Monte Single
Had a friend install it for me.
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He found it on the web,, not as part of windows any version. -----Original Message-----
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Greg Epley Sent: May 16, 2021 8:12 AM To: nvda@nvda.groups.io Subject: Re: [nvda] NVDA running on a budget laptop Others correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe "ReadyBoost" is a Microsoft Windows feature, so it's just part of Windows. As far as the trick working, however, I've tried it on two laptops, but am told they are each already running as fast as they can. Basically that "ReadyBoost" won't help performance. So, using ReadyBoost is NOT a given performance booster available to anyone and everyone. Also, sorry that all my posts have been "echoing", but for whatever strange reason, Mozilla Thunderbird has "Reply to List" ghosted, and I couldn't even get the "Reply to Group" send mail link to do a darned thing when I clicked it, so I am hoping this makes it to the list, though it's doing so without quoting the original message given the crazy way I had to trigger any reply whatsoever. -Greg Epley |
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Gene
Here is an interesting article about Ready Boost. I don’t know what
you had installed but it is a part of Windows.
Gene -----Original Message-----
From: Monte Single
Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2021 1:19 PM
Subject: Re: [nvda] NVDA running on a budget
laptop Had
a friend install it for me. He found it on the web,, not as part of windows any version. -----Original Message----- From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Greg Epley Sent: May 16, 2021 8:12 AM To: nvda@nvda.groups.io Subject: Re: [nvda] NVDA running on a budget laptop Others correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe "ReadyBoost" is a Microsoft Windows feature, so it's just part of Windows. As far as the trick working, however, I've tried it on two laptops, but am told they are each already running as fast as they can. Basically that "ReadyBoost" won't help performance. So, using ReadyBoost is NOT a given performance booster available to anyone and everyone. Also, sorry that all my posts have been "echoing", but for whatever strange reason, Mozilla Thunderbird has "Reply to List" ghosted, and I couldn't even get the "Reply to Group" send mail link to do a darned thing when I clicked it, so I am hoping this makes it to the list, though it's doing so without quoting the original message given the crazy way I had to trigger any reply whatsoever. -Greg Epley |
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Bob Cavanaugh
I've had a number of techs look at my laptop over the last couple
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months. They've all recommended I get some combination of a new machine with a faster processor, more ram, or an SSD, but I've had very little to complain about with this machine as currently configured. Sometimes, there are instances where I open a large number of windows in my web browser, and the number of windows I can open was significantly smaller on this machine with Windows 10, 4 GB of ram and an Intel I3 than on my previous laptop with an Intel I5 and Windows 7 with the same specs. The number of windows I can open at a time has decreased even more since I switched from IE to Firefox. On 5/16/21, Brian Vogel <britechguy@...> wrote:
On Sun, May 16, 2021 at 02:21 AM, Jeff Samco wrote:- |
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Chris Mullins
Hi It’s definitely a feature of Windows 10 and I believe it was in Windows 7 as well.
Cheers Chris
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
From: Monte Single
Sent: 16 May 2021 19:21 To: nvda@nvda.groups.io Subject: Re: [nvda] NVDA running on a budget laptop
Had a friend install it for me. He found it on the web,, not as part of windows any version.
-----Original Message----- From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Greg Epley Sent: May 16, 2021 8:12 AM To: nvda@nvda.groups.io Subject: Re: [nvda] NVDA running on a budget laptop
Others correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe "ReadyBoost" is a Microsoft Windows feature, so it's just part of Windows. As far as the trick working, however, I've tried it on two laptops, but am told they are each already running as fast as they can. Basically that "ReadyBoost" won't help performance. So, using ReadyBoost is NOT a given performance booster available to anyone and everyone. Also, sorry that all my posts have been "echoing", but for whatever strange reason, Mozilla Thunderbird has "Reply to List" ghosted, and I couldn't even get the "Reply to Group" send mail link to do a darned thing when I clicked it, so I am hoping this makes it to the list, though it's doing so without quoting the original message given the crazy way I had to trigger any reply whatsoever.
-Greg Epley
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