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Thinking about buying a laptop.Follow

#1 May 18 2004 at 7:11 AM Rating: Excellent
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I need one that is mostly for word processing, wireless internet, large enough to handle some picture editing (Photoshop, etc). I don't want to spend over $1500 preferably, but I want something reliable that won't be useless two months in. My work has a deal with Dell, but I've heard bad things. What would you all recommend? Should I go the Apple route?
#2 May 18 2004 at 7:35 AM Rating: Decent
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http://www.discountlaptops.com/

check these out..
I got my g/f a Sager, that ws good enough to run FFXI so much smoother than my own PC that I'm jealous, for like 1400..

If you're just doind word processing, ou'll be able to get away with much cheaper...

you could also always go:
http://www.pricewatch.com/
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#3 May 18 2004 at 11:25 AM Rating: Excellent
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I don't do well with many choices. That site made me feel how Skeeter must when I drag him kicking and screaming into Old Navy.
#4 May 18 2004 at 11:36 AM Rating: Excellent
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On a whim, I picked up an Apple iBook G4 this past January.

I've been extremely happy with it. The ibook with Maxxed ram (640M), and an airport (802.11g) was affordable. It's small, it's much lighter than my Dell laptop, but feels like a more solid system too.

It's not the cheapest option, it's not the highest performance option you have, but they're good little computers.
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#5 May 18 2004 at 11:50 AM Rating: Good
Toshibas have good durability and are not that expensive. IBMs last forever, but you'll pay through the nose. If you can get a good deal on an IBM T or R series, I say go for it.

Dell uses Smiley: monkeys and Smiley: goats for customer service. Can't train those chimps. The Smiley: goats are somewhat manageable though.

(Don't buy Dell)
#6 May 18 2004 at 11:57 AM Rating: Good
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I had decent luck with my Dell. I related the story on the old boards about how I managed to break my computer and, though it took a couple calls to Calcutta, they sent a tech out to my house at 5:30pm to fix it. Aside from me fu'cking it up manually, I haven't had any issues with it in the past year.
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#7 May 18 2004 at 12:04 PM Rating: Good
What? I have the whole warranty. CompleteCare, Next Bus. Day, Onsite, etc.

My laptop has been down since last week and these a$$hats keep shipping me part after part and telling me to replace the parts in my laptop. It may be because my warranty is up next Friday, so they are stalling.

I plan to drive over to the corp. offices by Thursday and sit in the lobby until I get the thing fixed. It worked last time, should work again.
#8 May 18 2004 at 12:19 PM Rating: Good
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Maybe you needed to talk to my guy. His name was Madhusudhana Balhumdhusariba. But I called him "Fred".

Dunno what to tell you. Different experiences, I guess.
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#9 May 18 2004 at 12:20 PM Rating: Good
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I'm using a Sony Vaio at the moment, and I've had no problems with it since I got it almost a year ago. One of the only downsides I can think of off the top of my head is the horrible battery life. After an hour and a half, it's shutting itself down on me.

Good luck with your laptop, and make sure to tell us what you end up buying.

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#10 May 18 2004 at 12:30 PM Rating: Default
of the laptops ive worked with Dell is one of the better ones, but they do have some fluky stuff when it comes to some of their wireless, unless it is the centrino, then that is an industry standard.

toshiba has some nice ones too.

best i can do is tell you what to avoid.

avoid Sony Vaio, HP/Compaq and off brands.

stick with dell, gateway, IBM(i personaly hate the layout and the mouse that comes with IBM, but they are good laptops)
#11 May 18 2004 at 2:53 PM Rating: Excellent
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The more I read it says I should try to get a Centrino and avoid P4, but this might jack my price up. Singdall, what did you mean by "off brands"? Like the Sager?
#12 May 18 2004 at 3:13 PM Rating: Default
there are some off name brands out there that are not known for their reliablility.

acer is one of them, but i would stick with the top 4 brands.

dell, gateway (very nice laptops, but i like the dells better), toshiba, panasonic.

the toshiba normaly = best bang for your buck with dell and gateway about equal in price and quality, and panasonic just being extreemly pricy, but hard as hell to hurt.

their toughbook line is about 3-4x as heavy as the other three brands, but you basicaly can not hurt it unless you knock it off a 5ft table a few times, and even then it may still boot up and run clunky.

im running a CF-48 toughbook with RH9 installed, have used it with win2k pro, and winXP pro installed. i only have 256M ram and a 30G HD, but this is still a rather nice box.

i would not avoid the P4 line, as they are by far suppiror to the P3 line, and most of your top brands dont, sadly, make AMD chip laptops.

i have never used a AMDm chip so i have no comments on them. personaly i love AMD for desktops, but dont know much about their mobility chips.
#13 May 18 2004 at 3:38 PM Rating: Excellent
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I'd try to find a P4m processor over a centrino if you can swing one. The three main considerations when getting a laptop are:
1. Video card
2. Screen size
3. Processor

Everythign else, ram, HD space, etc. that's all easily upgradable. There are some laptops withupgradeable video cards, Dell, alienware make a few of them, at least one HP that I know of, but they will jack the price up a little bit. In return, you get a laptop with at least a years worth of additional life. Make sure you get one with at least 64mb graphics ram if you want to be able to play everquest or any games on it. below that they probably won't support hardware TnL
Screen size: you need to decide wether viewing area or portability are most important. The 15, and even 17 inch screens they have out there are very nice, but they can be bulky. I personally won't go smaller than a 15 inch, but a 13 inch may be better if you will be travelling on airplaines alot (fits better into the seat tray area.)
Processor is important, but as long as you are over a pentium 1.8, you should be fine for a while. Centrino's have better battery life than the the PIV chips, but not as good as the PIVm chips generally. the PIVm chips will also be faster than an equivilent Mhz centrino chip

I tend to buy thinkpads, but recently they suck. I've had decent luck with Dells and HP notebooks, but I haven't tried a HP since the compaq merger, and I hate compaq laptops. I'd stear clear of gateway, they seem to be going under rapidly.
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#14 May 18 2004 at 3:54 PM Rating: Default
the appearance of gateway going under is a misconception. what the deal is they bought out e-machines and as bestbuy and a few other retail stores sell them, gateway closed the retail stores they had so they could sell more of the emachines.

this will also alow for places like bestbuy compusa and what not to sell gateway systems. you will start seeing gateway desktops and laptops in more retail locations as a results.

yes over the past few years the IBMs have started to big time suck, and since the hp/compaq merger both have gotten much worse. compaq was already bad, and hp was going down hill fast, now they are both horrid and i refuse to work on either now. that includes their desktops as well as their laptops.

as for their servers, well i still dont like the compaq servers as they are extreemly bad case design IMHO, but have never worked on an HP server.
#15 May 18 2004 at 4:08 PM Rating: Excellent
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they just laid off an additional several thousand people above and beyond what they already cut previously, their tech support staff is non existant, and their new R and D is also basically at a standstill. lets jsut say I'm not buying any gateway stock anytime soon
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#16 May 18 2004 at 4:33 PM Rating: Decent
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Toshiba has some nice stuff out there. I bought my kid sister one around a month ago, and it's held up really well.
#17 May 18 2004 at 5:48 PM Rating: Default
ehh. how long ago was that layoff? more then 1 month back, or within the past 30days?

yeah thankfuly i build all of my systems including laptops, i just dont like to deal with laptops. no proffit in it. not that there is much in desktops, but in gaming boxes i can still make a nice proffit.

personaly for me i go with dell, or toshiba. they IMHO make some of the best laptops out there without forking out the extra 1k for an alienware system. they are nice, but over priced.

toshiba offers basicaly the same setup for less.
#18 May 18 2004 at 6:39 PM Rating: Excellent
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April 28thish was the announcement of the layoffs, not sure if they have gone through yet.

http://www.thestreet.com/_tscs/tech/kcswanson/10157559.html
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