• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Laptop recommendations?

Kensington Bailey said:
Do not buy a Toshiba. Ever. For any price.
Click to expand...

I manged a fleet of a few hundred business laptops, half Dell and half Toshiba. Both were very satisfactory.

Even when it's my own money, I avoid the entry-level models in any product line. IMO, these machines are the ones owners are more likely to be unhappy with.
 
madurobob said:
But, the employee discount is only 10%, and not all models are available. The price was just too high when I was looking for a personal laptop last month, and CR rated the Lenovo below others. I took an educated gamble on the Samsung. As I said - OK so far!
Click to expand...

The employee discount went to hell when they closed Greenock as that used to be how they kept their "on site" inventory within targets so didn't get spanked by Armonk
 
To throw in another not very useful anecdote - in my family we've bought 3 budget Toshiba laptops (£380-£420 all variations on the C650D model) over the last few months and they seem to be good basic laptops (would go with the ones with AMD CPUs - less battery time but seem to be quicker than the one with an Intel CPU).
 
Last edited:
An important consideration is the bundled software.
Microsoft Office sounds like a good idea in this case..
You can usually get a good deal if included with one of the ' build-to-spec ' companies like
Dell or HP ..
Beware of ' Tryware ' .. you could end up paying an inflated price if you decide to buy later..

I have found Amazon to be a good place to buy a laptop, price-wise, once you have decided on the model..
 
Last edited:
meg said:
My family has pretty much come to the idea that laptops are basically disposable. We go for cheap. Just make sure there is enough RAM and a big enough hard drive to handle whatever it is you plan to do with it. None of us are big "gamers" though, or doing anything that requires a huge amount of computing capability.

We tend to look at the various retailers and see what's on special that week/month. We have been able to outfit our whole family with laptops, by buying the equivalent of "last years model", in the $300-$400 range.

High schoolers are notoriously hard on laptops, too, which is another reason to not spend too much money on it. The likelihood that it is going to be dropped, stepped on, spilled on, left in a hot car, lost or stolen is much higher with a teenager. My opinion is go cheap and don't sweat it too much.

My two cents.

Meg
Click to expand...

Agree completely.

For home use we just buy disposable laptops. One kid has a netbook and the other has a very cheap laptop. Both were less than $400.

Wife has a nicer HP/Compaq laptop, chosen for the feel of the keyboard, but still less than $1000. Would have gotten a Mac but she was taking online courses and her school would not support Macs, only IE on Windows machines. She later found that the school's system works best with Firefox, too late.

I have a MacBook and I really want a newer one, but mine keeps working so I can't really justify it. I upgraded the RAM and replaced the hard drive within the first 18 months, now it is 4.5 years old. That's like 90 in computer years, right?

When my kids need new computers they will have about $400-$500 to spend.
 
I'd add my support for the Lenovo Thinkpad range. I've never owned one-I use an ASUS Eee901 netbook - but I've known several people who are still using Thinkpads after 6 or 7 years. Good build quality.
 
My boss swears by his EeePC, not sure which model. Much more portable than a regular laptop, and seems to work pretty well for Office type applications.
 
Those netbooks are great for lugging around for notes. I wouldn't work for extended periods on one, but that's just me. Keyboard and screen are too small, so I'd strain too much.

Some people swear to a netbook on the move, then add in a monitor and full-size keyboard at home for extended sessions.
 
ThatSoundAgain said:
Some people swear to a netbook on the move, then add in a monitor and full-size keyboard at home for extended sessions.
Click to expand...

I love my Eee901. In Lisa's case though, adding a monitor at home would be a large cost addition, which might make a larger laptop the cheaper option. If there's already a monitor lying around at home- possible in a family context, then it's worth considering.
Netbooks do tend to be optimised for battery life though, so lose out on sheer processing power, memory size and graphics. Adding a monitor does nothing to help this. I'd expect a youngster to want to use the machine for games some of the time and netbooks really can't compete there.
 
You're right of course, Soapy, especially on the power part.

One factor to bear in mind is that a monitor and decent keyboard could last longer than the computer. It's possible to get nice peripherals and view the lappy as the disposable part. This of course ties in with the price of decent tools vs. the health benefits of not squinting / slouching / straining. But the factors required to solve that equation varies with individuals and their work habits.
 
If you buy a MacBook, you have a choice of Windows, OSX, or Linux. If you buy a Windows laptop, you have a choice of Windows or Linux.

So, if you never need OSX, then a Windows laptop is the logical choice.

Honestly, for most of what people do, a Linux netbook running Ubuntu is not a bad decision.
 
OpenOffice is pretty good, but it's not quite there if you have to circulate documents through a workflow that is primarily Microsoft Office. There are differences in formatting, and even a few incompatibilities that make that exchange maddening. Just a note: If you're a student you can get a pretty good price on an expansive version of Microsoft Office 2010 over at ultimatesteal.com.
 
Last edited:
I use OpenOffice, but, yes, some things just are a pain to exchange.

Not sure if this is an issue in a modern college environment, though.

I went to college when having an electric typewriter of your own was a cool thing.

If the standards of term papers and etc have not moved beyond what you could do on a typewriter, then anything that can save to RTF would likely be just as useful.
 
ThatSoundAgain said:
Those netbooks are great for lugging around for notes. I wouldn't work for extended periods on one, but that's just me. Keyboard and screen are too small, so I'd strain too much.

Some people swear to a netbook on the move, then add in a monitor and full-size keyboard at home for extended sessions.
Click to expand...

I bought an Acer Aspire One for $175 after discounts. 1O.1" 160Gb HD, 1Gb Ram and an Atom processor, i think 1.6Mhz. It's got a card reader and wifi as well.

It has SVGA out I hooked up to the flatscreen and a $19 wireless keyboard and mouse and it works great.

It runs XP fine, as well as Office 2007. I've been watching movies off Netflix with zero problems. It takes 27 seconds to boot.

If I had 1 complaint I'd say a HDMI is the only thing missing, and only because the SVGA doesn't do sound.

If you can get by with one I can't recommend them enough. I've got 0 invested in it, I don't expect much of it and it delivers more. I tether it to my phone and have an unlimited data plan so I haven't paid for internet in a while.
 
A netbook would be fine if all he was doing was school work. But I figure he'll want something he can play games on once the homework is done.
 
Lisa Simpson said:
A netbook would be fine if all he was doing was school work. But I figure he'll want something he can play games on once the homework is done.
Click to expand...

When I was reading the reviews it seems the low end netbooks had problems playing decent movie video,
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom