New laptop suggestions wanted

Ahhlee

Ahhlee

New member
It looks like I'm going to be in the market for a new laptop, and I was curious if any of you have one that you absolutely love and couldn't live without.

I looked at them a bit today and saw that some of the newer models even have a webcam already set up in the casing itself. Pretty spiffy!

So, geeks and geekettes....what do you suggest I buy? (Oh, and I'm not looking for anything outrageous or top of the line. Somewhere in the middle should suit me just fine.)

 
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mercury

New member
I have a gateway that I bought for about $500 (no idea about specifics, though). It's not too big, it's never given me any trouble and works great for what I do with it (which is not a whole lot more than store photos and surf).

The only thing that bothers me about it is that it runs really slow when I'm editing video, but I don't do that often, so it's no biggie.

 
eddo

eddo

New member
I am on Dell #3 and have only ever got a new one for upgrade purposes (the first one I bought in 2003 is still going strong, it just doens't have enough guts to handle all the video stuff I do now.) They have been great to be, and very rarely do I have issues.

Toshibas are also very durable.

 
snafu

snafu

New member
There all pretty good now a days. Toshiba's are really good but I had to work on one to many times. It had power issues like the battery and the AC plug in. It went through a screen and two hard drives. Luckly it was under warrenty. I think his daughther was pretty hard on it. I was playing with a friends ACER (the laptop he bought afther the Toshiba finaly crapped out) and it's pretty **** good. Plus it wasn't that expensive.
 
eddo

eddo

New member
I have heard both good and bad things abotu ACERs- but not used one myself.

I would reccomend staying away from Compaq/HP's though. A couple firends have them and have had a rough time with service. One was without his for a month caused the hard drive crashed, and it just took that long for HP to deal with him (and it was under warranty.)

If mine crashed today, Dell would send someone out no later than tomorrow (well, monday since tomorrow is a weekend.)

We have had them out a couple times for service on work computers- we run nothing but Dells here (and my 2003 got a new screen) and they are pretty stinkin' amazing.

 
timesjoke

timesjoke

Active Members
My company provides me with a pretty nice HP but it has a huge monitor and requires a large bag to carry it, I have used this one for over a year now and never had any problems with it.

For my own money I agree with eddo, I have purchased 4 Dell laptops (two as gifts) and they were rock solid. Dell has something called complete care where even if you drive over your laptop, they will replace it. I have used that one time (not allowed for purchase in Florida but you can get it shipped to another state then bring it here and still use it).

Do not buy a system with Vista if you can avoid it, they are pure garbage. You need about 3 times the ram to get similar performance to an XP machine.

I would decide on the size of the computer screen you need first, even select the bag first to be sure you will get what you want size wise then go with features that are available with those. If you do any video work, a seperate video card is much better than an integrated card. Ram is your friend, but it is also pretty cheap to upgrade later if you need to so that is not as important as other things like video cards that cannot be changed later.

 
eddo

eddo

New member
Do not buy a system with Vista if you can avoid it, they are pure garbage. You need about 3 times the ram to get similar performance to an XP machine.
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Good advice. I run Vista on my laptop and XP on the work one, and I prefer XP. Other than a few driver issues right when I got it, I haven't had a single issue with Vista- but it is a RAM hog.

My dad has a beta version of Windows 7, and he absolutely loves it. If that is an option, you may want to go that way.

 
Ahhlee

Ahhlee

New member
Good advice here! Except for hugo's. :p

I have a Dell now and I do like it, but it doesn't have enough power anymore. I did look at the Toshibas, and preferred them aesthetically over the Dells, but I need to do a bit more research.

Plus if they have a killer savings on one vs. the other, that will possibly sway my choice. I'm a sucker for a good sale!!!!!

 
eddo

eddo

New member
Like I tell friends when they ask (they all think I am some sort of computer expert- I must hang out with stupid people, lol....)

Figure out what you are gonna do with this computer.

Is it just to get online and do e-mails?

Is it to play games with (online, such as WoW, etc)

Is it to have lots of pics and or video?

Is it to store music and or movies?

Do you need a graphics program for making signs, banners, etc?

Do you want to burn DVD's?

Do you want to run all your finances off this computer?

Will all your nudie pics be password protected like they are now?

What you want to do with it will do a lot of the driving of what you should get. My friend with the HP has a big screen and his computer came with a remote. He watches lots of movies, so that is great for him.

My computer handles editing video well, but doesn't do the games so well. I don't do many games, so that is fine. I do wish now that I had sprung for the larger hard drive, but I have a 500gb external drive that is working well (video fills it up fast. Just 1 week in Mexico got me 29GB of video.. YIKES!)

It's good to know your long term plans with a computer, especially a laptop, when you are shopping. :)

 
Ahhlee

Ahhlee

New member
Like I tell friends when they ask (they all think I am some sort of computer expert- I must hang out with stupid people, lol....)
Figure out what you are gonna do with this computer.

Is it just to get online and do e-mails?

Is it to play games with (online, such as WoW, etc)

Is it to have lots of pics and or video?

Is it to store music and or movies?

Do you need a graphics program for making signs, banners, etc?

Do you want to burn DVD's?

Do you want to run all your finances off this computer?

Will all your nudie pics be password protected like they are now?

What you want to do with it will do a lot of the driving of what you should get. My friend with the HP has a big screen and his computer came with a remote. He watches lots of movies, so that is great for him.

My computer handles editing video well, but doesn't do the games so well. I don't do many games, so that is fine. I do wish now that I had sprung for the larger hard drive, but I have a 500gb external drive that is working well (video fills it up fast. Just 1 week in Mexico got me 29GB of video.. YIKES!)

It's good to know your long term plans with a computer, especially a laptop, when you are shopping. :)
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Good things to consider!

Yeah, I'm not so much into online gaming, but I would like to work more with pics and videos since I have a new camera that I actually kind of like.

I'm not really into downloading music or burning cd's, either. I sponge off my other cool friends since they have the good tunes already downloaded for me...lol.

Other than that, email, talking to you yahoos, ****....the usual. :D

 
timesjoke

timesjoke

Active Members
When you say videos do you mean possibly editing them? Splicing segments of videos into your own home movie for example?

If not and your just downloading them, copy as is with very little editing besided cropping you should be able to use any standard "modern" computer and do well for a couple years.....but if your going to be doing video editing you will want a more powerful computer with lots of ram.

I am paranoid about losing something important so I copy everything important like family video on a secondary drive anyway. Large hard drives are needed if your going to record lots of videos, but if you will burn them and delete them, you will not need much.

One thing nice about me running a private wow server is now I can save all my stuff to my drive array on the servers........lots and lots of storage space ;)

 
M

mercury

New member
you can always just put them on a CD or DVD, then you don't have to worry about electronic meltdown at all.
 
H

Hack

New member
my laptop suits me fine, it is the one i was born with and fits one adult woman comfortably, or two kids slightly uncomfortably... they tend to kick.
 
ImWithStupid

ImWithStupid

New member
When you say videos do you mean possibly editing them? Splicing segments of videos into your own home movie for example?

If not and your just downloading them, copy as is with very little editing besided cropping you should be able to use any standard "modern" computer and do well for a couple years.....but if your going to be doing video editing you will want a more powerful computer with lots of ram.

I am paranoid
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You could have stopped there.

 
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