Laptop Help/Opinions

[MikeW]

Ok, here's the rundown:

I really dont wanna spend more than $600. $800 is the utmost max.
(Yes, i know, bigger is better, but this will be putting off other funds, so i cant be saving/spending alot.)

I'll mainly be using it for general internet surfing(checking myspace, email, cb7tuner) and downloading music. So reading DVDs and reading/writing CDs is a must. Maybe a game or two. Music will either be stored and listened to, put on disc or transferred to device. I wont be storing gigs upon gigs of video, but i am a single guy, so...ya know.

I dont need anything fancy or new age. Just something to do the basics with.

Cheapest ive seen was a $400 ACEr at Wal-Mart that came with webcam, but it looked bulky. Also saw an HP and Dell, that looked good. I wanna say both of them had either 1 or 3G of RAM and like 120GB Hard Drive. The ACEr had, i think, 3 and 160GB.

That ACEr is a cheap, safe bet, but i dont know about the brand. My brother says the HP or Dell would be better, but they were both $600+.

Any advice on numbers to look for, or brands to watch out for would be a great help. Thanks.

[Mayhem Tripp Robinson]

dell thats what i have and i love it

[MikeW]

How much and where did you buy it?

How old is it?

What model is it?

What about it, if anything, are you unhappy with?

[ExplodingCake]

Since they come with Vista now and some pre-installed horsecrap , get atleast 2GB of RAM.

I have ACER running on Vista 2.0 GHZ , 2GB RAM , 120GB HDD , 256MB ATI Xpress Integrated video.

At first it runs slow because all of that pre-installed shit and waited until it ran out of warranty , I decided to reformat and install windows alone , now it runs 75% faster without all the pre-installed crap.

ACER are good mainstream laptops.

[Mayhem Tripp Robinson]

um dad works for ge he found it in a box in the back of the shop in a box. hide it in anthor place.nobody has ever come looking for it so it mine now. hahaha. it a dell d610.

[MikeW]

Thanks DS. I didnt know what kind of brand they were.

Yeah, i really dont want Vista, but at the same i dont wanna have to wait for the warranty to expire....

Im kinda stuck in the older Windows age, so im thinking it might do me some good to kinda find out how to work vista. Just for future reference. Deal with it in the meantime, ya know?

I know its a good program, it just has its problems, and i really dont wanna fuss over it. Im already having problems with this thing, i dont need another headache.

[Ghetto_CB7]

What to look for...

For your listed uses you will not need anything amazing in terms of processing capability that means that anything over 2.0 Ghz (most likely duo core) will be enough.

And I cannot make this clear enough Vista is built to run with 4 GB of Memory...

DO NOT get a computer with less then 2 GB and make sure you have the ability to upgrade to at least 4 GB (if it were me I wouldn't run vista without 4 GB)

Besides this I would not buy a computer with less then 8MB of Cache memory (this spec can usually be found along with the processor information)

Hard drive space is usually not much of an issue with computers these days and can be upgraded if necessary.

As for company's... well they are all getting extremely sloppy with quality control. So the most important thing to remember are that warranties are your friend.

I have seen $1500 top of the line computers just stop working... and I don't mean I got a virus stop working I mean dead!

For this reason I would suggest DELL. Although their customer support sucks just as bad as all computer companies they will (given enough pestering) replace or fix anything under your warranty(amusing you have the full coverage one). This includes almost anything you do to it including dropping it off your bed onto a hardwood floor (my sister)

Long warranties = good

Hope this helps

[MikeW]

Yeah. One of the HP's i saw had a 2-year warranty for like $95.

I like the ACEr cuz it has 3GB of RAM and 160GB memory. Not sure about the processing capability or cache memory, but i just thought that for as little as ill use it, it didnt seem like a bad deal.

[Losiracer2]

I would go w/ a DELL. I've got an Inspiron 6000 right now which i'm using to do basically what you listed. Its got a 1.6 ghz Intel Celeron, 1GB memory, 60GB HD and a DVD/CD burner in it. I'm a college kid so i've got my fare share of music and stuff. I got this laptop brand new back in August 2005 and I still have a FULL warranty on it. Recently one of my USB ports wouldn't work anymore and they sent a guy over w/in 2 days to give me a brand new motherboard. He even put in an order for a new power supply b/c the tab that held the cord was broken so now I've got 2 power supplies, and I didn't even have to pay anything for that.

But it did cost about 1200 back in 2005. It was basically my graduation gift for HS, so idk if my parents paid for a warranty or not, but it came w/ it. Its good til Aug 2009, so I've still got plenty of time.

And tech support is pretty good as well. They all speak w/ an Indian accent, but they are very patient and solve the problem the first time.

[Leung]

my mom bought me a Toshiba at Best Buy for only 450 bucks.

has built in wifi, a 15" screen, 120 gig hdd, but only came with 512 megs of ram but i was able to max it out to 2gigs for less than another 50 bucks.
It's a 1.7 dual core processor.

i mainly use it when for traveling and or when i need my heal slave on Ragnarok Online.

The only downside is the battery doesn't last very long. maybe an hour with all the features turned on and the screen on pretty bright.

[JoshM]

I have been looking into Acers.
I was a bit iffy at first, but it seems that everyone that has them love them.
Seems like a good laptop for the money.
Only thing I don't like about them is they have Vista.
Sure, Vista is pretty cool, but it seems they have WAY too many bugs to be worked out.

[apuforyou]

I bought an HP special edition a few months back... 250gb hard drive, 2.1 ghz processor, 4 gigs of ram, dvd-rw/cd rw, web cam etc.





It was only $699.00 at bestbuy

[JoshM]

I bought an HP special edition a few months back... 250gb hard drive, 2.1 ghz processor, 4 gigs of ram, web cam etc.


It was only $699.00 at bestbuy

That's a pretty good price!
Was it on sale?
Or is that regular price?

[apuforyou]

That's a pretty good price!
Was it on sale?
Or is that regular price?

I'm not too sure, it had been that price for awhile when I bought it. Me and my brother went looking for a present and we both ended up leaving with the same laptop and we only ended up getting my dad a DVD haha



EDIT: I just looked on bestbuy's website and now they have a different model SE on there. It has a bigger hard drive, not too sure if anything else has changed, didn't look at the rest of the specs

[JoshM]

Me and my brother went looking for a present and we both ended up leaving with the same laptop and we only ended up getting my dad a DVD haha