>Thanks, Rick. So, your recommendation is either Toshiba or HP, right?

Those are the ones I've had personal experience with. Excellent machines.

>I had issues with Dell and my son had problems with Acer. Also I would need to make sure to not have Windows Store Mode, but regular Windows 10.
>
>I plan to go to Best Buy store today and will do a bit of research online prior to that. WI is shutting down but I hope the store is still opened as I am used to actually buying things in store and not online.

My son did quite a bit of research before he settled on the Acer. It's been a really great machine also ... until the day it just totally stopped working and wouldn't power on. He literally used it that evening, went to bed, went to turn it on the next morning and nothing. The battery light comes on when you plug in the charger. But the power button (which is part of the keyboard) does nothing. Holding it down. Tapping it. Pressing it like normal. Nothing.

Apart from that, his computer was a gaming machine. Higher-end CPU, video card. Quite a beast actually in terms of performance. But that model has had issues with many consumers.

>Also just a precaution to people I connect on FB from here - I'll try to limit my social media interaction, so if you get some direct message from me, it's most likely not from me, just be aware.
>
>Thanks.

I've gotten some used wood from people who have torn down decks and porches and fences and stuff. That's all good. But I wouldn't go with technology from FB marketplace, unless it was a $5 great deal that I wouldn't mind losing if it didn't work.

:-)

>>>I most likely will need to buy a new laptop too, any recommendations?
>>
>>One thing I would recommend is buying the extended warranty. The laptops of the 2020s are not the same as the laptops of the 2010s or 2000s. I've had laptops in the 2000s and 2010s that are still working. But the laptops bought in the late 2010s and in 2020 have had issues of various kinds.
>>
>>An AMD laptop by HP had a keyboard driver that wouldn't work with the laptop keyboard. If you typed too fast it would mix up the characters. The workaround was to send it back to the factory, or to use an external keyboard. It later magically corrected itself with a Windows 10 update here in the last 50 days or so.
>>
>>A high-end gaming Intel laptop by Acer worked beautifully, but then one day just stopped working. Wouldn't power on. This was eight months after it was purchased. Other users online reported similar issues with Acer. We have the one-year warranty on that laptop, and it will expire now in Feb 2021. We sent it to Acer and still haven't received it back yet.
>>
>>I would advise going with an established brand (I've always had excellent luck with HP and Toshiba laptops, going back to the early 2000s). I would also advise buying one that's a little older (still sold new, but one that's been on the market for six+ months so you can see reviews and returns over time), but has a solid track record of success given the variability that seems to exist in modern laptops, like they just don't have quality control any longer, or don't care about making an excellent product.
>>
>>My $0.02.
>>
>>Sorry to hear about your laptop. One thing my son learned with his Acer laptop crashing was to keep backups, and be ready at any time to re-install the OS from scratch. He had an NVMe disk in his machine, which prevented us from taking it out and backing it up using another laptop, as we didn't have support for that type of device in our other machines. He may have lost everything. We'll find out when we get it back.