Laptop Advice

[Jesse]

I am going to purchase a laptop in the $700-800 range. I need schoolin' in your experiences with a comparable rig. I will primarily use it for email & surfing.
Please mention a few of the virtues & flaws in your choices.
Thanks in advance from this luddite.

Jesse

[GoodSpeak]

Gonna cost you a bundle......and good luck with the battery charge time.

[Dan G]

Do you plan on traveling with it, or just want something to use in various rooms around the house?

If the former, spend as much as you can to get the lightest one you can afford. Though it doesn't seem like much, it's amazing the difference between a 7 lb one and a 3.5 lb one when you're been schlepping through airports...

[Jesse]

It will be used around the house, Dan.

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

I use an HP Pavillion for calling, and have been very pleased with it. I've had an occasional Alt/Control/Delete crisis in the middle up a dance when my WinAmp (mp3 player) freezes up, but everything gets back up and going within a minute, long before I run out of snappy patter. Except for the FreeCel game and one dowloaded TV show (Warriors/ Mavs: Game 6), everything I have on the computer is music related.

[Cem]

Ron recently got a good deal on a laptop he liked. I currently use a Turkish workhorse of a Casper laptop that's been through hell over the past 3 years & still ticking. I was looking into getting a new one recently. If I could afford it, I'd go with a macbook, I think. They're so friendly.

[Jesse]

Thanks, SqDCS, I'll look further at the HP Pavillion.

Cem, I read through Ron's thread on the Dell he purchased. I was suprised so little came up here when I searched for laptops.

[vibes]

I recommend buying a Dell. I've owned three of their laptops and helped a couple of my brothers buy laptops from them. Part of the reason I go with Dell is because of their tech support. I always get at least a 3-year onsite service plan. If/when a piece of hardware fails, there's usually someone at your home within 1-3 days to fix it, no questions asked.

I recently tried buying a Sony VAIO direct from Sony, and that turned out to be a big mistake. The computer had serious problems and Sony's customer service and tech support were terrible. The computer had motherboard and hard drive problems before I'd even had it a week, and even though I had purchased an on-site service plan, they wanted me to mail them the computer. I did--I returned it. Took me more than three months to get all my money back. I recently bought a new Dell Inspiron laptop in place of this Sony, and I've been extremely pleased with it. It's more of a powerhouse and was pricier than what you're looking for (I wanted to be able to burn/watch Blu-ray discs, and that requires a lot of memory and processing power), but I'm still extremely pleased. I believe Inspirons start below $1000, and recommend looking into them.

Since you're going to use the laptop around the house, I recommend getting one with at least a 14" screen, with 15.4" being ideal for around the house use--the bigger the screen, the less strain there will be on your eyes. If you're just going to be emailing and surfing, I wouldn't worry too much about having a really good processor, but do make sure that you get at least 1GB of RAM, if not more. Most computers these days come with Windows Vista, and it's a memory hog.

[jaka]

1 more vote for Dell.

If you can have access to the Small Business offers , go for the new Vostro ones. They're not offered to home users on the website, I wonder why.

Here's a typical one (Vostro 1500 model) with XP instead of Vista, all for $770 :

PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5470 (1.6GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® XP Home
LCD PANEL 15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA LCD Display with TrueLife™
MEMORY 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 2 DIMM
HARD DRIVE 120G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
OPTICAL DRIVE 8X CD/DVD Burner w/ double-layer DVD+R write capability
VIDEO CARD Intel® Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
WI-FI WIRELESS CARD Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Wi-Fi Mini Card
BATTERIES 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
WARRANTY & SERVICE 2 Year Limited Hardware Warranty with Next Business

Entry price is $550 but as vibes says, extending the warranty a little is a good move + better batteries

[Gary Sisco]

I use an Acer, second one I've had, and I like it, Jesse. Nothing fancy. It just gets the job done. I use it only at home and we have a wireless connection these days, so it's good to have a laptop. It does everything I need done: surfing, email, ripping and burning music. Fast. It would be within your stated money range.

[larrycohen]

Originally Posted by Dan G

Do you plan on traveling with it, or just want something to use in various rooms around the house?

If the former, spend as much as you can to get the lightest one you can afford. Though it doesn't seem like much, it's amazing the difference between a 7 lb one and a 3.5 lb one when you're been schlepping through airports...

I agree with this. It's not just the weight, but if you're not going to carry it around, you can get a bigger screen. No need to settle for a 12" screen, when you can have 15".
Also, if it's going to be used around the house, don't worry too much about the battery, since you'll probably keep it plugged in most of the time.

I also like to look at the PC Magazine user survey.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2182832,00.asp
There's an article and a spreadsheet you can download at this link.

[Dan G]

I wouldn't overlook Sony. We've got 3 Sony laptops right now, and unlike Vibe have never had a problem with any of them.

Had a Dell for a while a couple of years ago, and it was fine except it would never do the multi-monitor - in my case, a projector - thing, so it was useless for presentations (not a problem that matters to most people though). Still use one for work occassionally, but hate the size compared to my Sonys.

Mac makes, or at least made because I haven't looked at them in 3 years since I got my last Powerbook, some great laptops. If you don't need to go PC, might be worth looking into despite the price and limited software availabilty. Great web surfers though.

I don't know if they even still make them, but stay away from Compaq and Toshiba - have had both and had multiple serious problems with them. The only time I had an IBM laptop it was stolen before I really had a chance to decide how much I liked it, though I know I hated the little red pencil eraser thing instead of a mouse.

[claude]

Originally Posted by Dan G

I don't know if they even still make them, but stay away from Compaq and Toshiba - have had both and had multiple serious problems with them.

Interesting, I have had a variety of Toshiba notebooks over the past ten years and have never had a problem. I am very rough on my equipment (when I travel I don't want to worry about babying anything) and the Toshibas have always stood up to the abuse.

I actually am still running an old Toshiba notebook as my music computer at home. It is ~ 7 years old and it sits in my basement and runs recording and other music related software, I have never had a bit of problem with it.

[Gerardo A]

Originally Posted by Dan G

Mac laptops (...) might be worth looking into (...) despite the limited software availabilty

Well, the recent Macbooks can either run on Windows or Mac OS; you have both operating systems installed in the lap and it's very easy to switch between them, so the problem of limited software availability is finally solved. I use Windows-based translation/legal software for my work, so that had prevented me from buying a Mac until I found out about that capability. I'm still deciding if I'll shell the extra money for the 15.4" Macbook Pro or if I'll play it safe with the 13.3" Macbook (the black one).

Tangentially, I found this Mac forum the other day that is even crazier than here.

[Dan G]

Originally Posted by claude

Interesting, I have had a variety of Toshiba notebooks over the past ten years and have never had a problem. I am very rough on my equipment (when I travel I don't want to worry about babying anything) and the Toshibas have always stood up to the abuse.

I actually am still running an old Toshiba notebook as my music computer at home. It is ~ 7 years old and it sits in my basement and runs recording and other music related software, I have never had a bit of problem with it.

First laptop I bought was a Toshiba, and hard drive conked out a week before the warranty expired. They replaced it, which meant a week in a shop. I got it back on the day after the warranty expired, and a few days later the monitor died. After a lot of arguing with them, I got them to replace the machine with a new one. Within 6 months, another dead hard drive. Replaced that, and then a dead power supply...eventually gave it away. Granted, this was 1992/93, so they may be better by now!

The funny thing was that when the first hd died, I called the place I bought it and said "I've bought a Toshiba laptop from you about a year ago" and the guy interupted and said "and it won't boot up now, right? It's the hard drive, bring it in and get in line."

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

I like Macs, all my other computers are and have been Macs. I bought the HP because all the existing callers' software was for Windows. After trying four different callers' programs, which ranged from clunky to hopelessly buggy, I figured out what they were intending to do and used the elements (WinAmp, Pacemaker, etc.) my own way. So I could have gone with a Mac, and when I upgrade the HP I may do that.

[jaka]

Originally Posted by larrycohen

Also, if it's going to be used around the house, don't worry too much about the battery, since you'll probably keep it plugged in most of the time.

Before I had my first laptop, I used to think the same, but the point is I like to use it AROUND the house, so I'm glad I've got correct battery operation time.

[Jesse]

I appreciate everyone taking the time to respond, hope there are more posts.
I am inclined to custom build a Dell, we'll see.

[Scott Dolan]

I have a Sony desktop, it's my second. My father has a Sony Laptop. They are all bulletproof, IMO.

But, the same can be said of the Dell's.

I would definitely narrow it down to those two. I'm not sure how you could go wrong with either. The only difference would be that you would get a little more bang for the buck with the Sony. But, we're likely talking about diminishing returns, to be perfectly honest.

[Ron Thorne]

Jesse-

I just saw this thread for the first time, since Patti and I are away on vacation in California.

We're delighted with our DELL Vostro 1500 thus far. It's powerful, ruggedly built, and doesn't come with the usual annoying "free" trial software and unnecessary whistles and bells. The warranty is good, the shipping is free, and DELL was very helpful when I placed our order via phone. For $599.00 it's a "steal". It's gone up by $50.00 since we bought ours a couple of months ago, but it's still a *great* deal!

Click here for details<



Of course, the Vostro 1400 (smaller screen) is even less expensive.

I'm posting this from our son's home on our new laptop. This is our first trip with it, and it's been a great tool. Wi-Fi is virtually everywhere, so you can be connected to e-mail, etc. while away from home. We even watched a DVD on our train trip from Seattle to Los Angeles.

[walto]

As I've mentioned before, I don't care for the SONY I bought for my daughter. Heavy and finicky. I also hate the Pentium IV processor for laptops. You can get through about 20 minutes of a dvd before the battery needs recharging.

[vibes]

Originally Posted by walto

I also hate the Pentium IV processor for laptops.

Can these even be purchased any more?

A Centrino or Centrino Duo would be the way to go now. My previous Dell was one of the original Centrino laptops, and I could watch a DVD and half before the battery died. It's probably about the same on my new one (Centrino Duo, with Core 2 Duo 2.2ghz processor), but I haven't tried doing it yet. If I tried watching a Blu-ray disc on it, however, the battery would probably only last 20-30 minutes.

[Ron Thorne]

Originally Posted by Jesse

I appreciate everyone taking the time to respond, hope there are more posts.
I am inclined to custom build a Dell, we'll see.

That's exactly what I did, Jesse. See post #20 for additional info and a link.

I highly recommend the DELL Vostro 1500.

[Jesse]

Fadda, got your pm as well, thanks alot.
I am almost certainly going to customize with Dell.
As I said above, I read through your Dell thread last night, your endorsement is fired up.
When I pull the trigger (early November) I will check back in with the Dell devotees here.
This rig I am writing on is ancient!

[Ron Thorne]

You're welcome, Jesse. Cool.

[jaka]

Originally Posted by Jesse

When I pull the trigger (early November) I will check back in with the Dell devotees here.

Jesse,
I'll be doing my homework at the same period to get one for my father as a christmas present, so chime in then, and we'll investigate together.

One thing to remember about Dell, always take your phone to order, even if you know exatly what you want in the end. The website is handy for customizing, but there's always possibility to get some additional stuff for the same price when on the phone with people at Dell (extended memory, better screen finish, ...).

[vibes]

Jesse, if you can wait a little while to pull the trigger, you may want to see what offers Dell has out there. There are frequent promotions like free shipping, free memory or hard drive upgrades, 10% off notebooks, etc. Couponmountain.com is an easy way to see a full list of current and recently expired promotions, and if there's a past promotion that looks tempting to you that's not going right now, it will probably run again sometime in the next month or two, if you want to wait.

Another possibility for a discount is to have a University of Minnesota student or faculty member order for you (if you know one whom you trust and who will do it for you). I discovered when purchasing something from the U's online computer store that, as a student, I was eligible for Dell discounts. I think that discount saved me 12%.

[Jesse]

Alright, lads & lassies, I am going in!

Customizing me a Dell laptop, maybe a 17" screen, strongly preferring a non-glare panel. 2 GB memory, Windows XP, if you don't mind!

CD/DVD burner.

What else?

My current rig is 9 (!) years old!

[Lenny D.Guitarist]

Originally Posted by Jesse

Alright, lads & lassies, I am going in!

Customizing me a Dell laptop, maybe a 17" screen, strongly preferring a non-glare panel. 2 GB memory, Windows XP, if you don't mind!

CD/DVD burner.

What else?

My current rig is 9 (!) years old!

Excellent choice. About five months ago, I got a "great deal" on an Acer laptop based on the recommendation of a computer nut friend of mine. Perhaps I got a lemon, but this manure-covered contraption has been nothing but a miserable pain in the ass. It broke down more times than a 30 year old Yugo. I got rid of it and bought a Dell. No problems at all.

[Jesse]

Which Dell, Lenny?