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Need a laptop recommendation

Martyd3

By Martyd3
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Martyd3 Newbie

Martyd3

Posted
Posted

Guys,

The strangest thing happened when I was laid off last week. The ba$tards took my laptop. I need to pick up something functional and on the cheap. If anyone can recommend one (once again, cheap and functional) or has one that they are looking to get rid of, please let me know.

Thanks.

Marty

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Irontomkidd Newbie

Irontomkidd

Posted
Posted

I have had many laptops over the years and have had nothing but trouble with Toshiba and HP/Compaq, Dell is ok but I haven’t had one last more than 2 years. I have been using nothing but ThinkPad as my personal computer for at least 6 years, they are a little pricy but last forever. I got a new X200 Tablet last year and gave my T60 (4 years old) to my son. It needed a hard drive wipe and a new install of windows but the thing is still running like a champ. This is just my opinion and I am sure you will find most everyone will have a different one. My wife uses a Mac and loves it but it had to go in to the shop 2 weeks ago (6mos out of warranty) because it wouldn’t turn on. It turned out to be a bad logic board and cost $200… WTF

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freddy333 Proficient

freddy333

Posted
Posted

I've had a number of PC laptops & agree that you should stay away from HP. In my experience, IBM & Dell have been very reliable, but keep in mind that Windows is nearly always the bottleneck on PCs. Make sure the laptop has at least 1 gig of RAM (2 is worth the additional cost if the laptop supports it). Whichever laptop you get, I would strongly recommend wiping the drive clean & installing a fresh copy of Windows XP Pro or 7 (avoid Vista). Then, get online & download all Windows & hardware updates for your laptop (including a check of firmware updates from the laptop vendor's website). Install a good virus scanner (today, I recommend Norton 360, tomorrow, who knows) & whatever apps you require. So configured, you should have a reliable computer.

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Guest Carl

Guest Carl

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I carried a whole series of laptops for years, while traveling.

I ditched that concept more than a year ago and got an Acer Netbook for just over $200. My son (has MS degree) uses only an Asus netbook for 95% of his needs. It's smaller than my Acer, but his eyes are better than mine!

I have a higher horsepower home computer, but the netbook is tiny and meets my travel needs. The battery is good for more than three hours (great on air travel).

For whatever you might want, check out tigerdirect.com and get on their e-mail list. They are frequently very competitive. I have bought computers, components, cameras, and gps from from them with only one problem, and it was solved in 24 hours.

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swdivad Collaborator

swdivad

Posted
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I've been using nothing but Dell for the last 15 years, and have had no problems with them, except for the usual Windows dramas. You can get good used ones for under $500 on ebay all day long.

I've had lots of customers with HPs... I would stay away from their laptops and printers, but their desktops and servers are pretty damn good.

IBMs are really good and reliable too, from my experience.

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jchurch Newbie

jchurch

Posted
Posted

I see you have a location listed and it isn't colorado lol. If it were colorado I would have hooked you up with some sort of slightly used dell laptop on the cheap (been selling them for 200 on the craigslist lol)... I don't want to ship anything like that though. Oh and if you wanted a server I have those on the super cheap also lol. want 4 dell R300 servers? maybe the people running the website want some lol.

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freddy333 Proficient

freddy333

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Marty - if cost is an issue, I would steer away from IBM. And unless you need a gaming or high-end video/Photoshop machine, you can easily get by with a 3-4 year old, entry level laptop for $200-$300. My current laptop is a nearly 10 year old Dell Inspiron 8100 (1.2GHz Pentium III, .5 gig of RAM, DVD R/W (which I upgraded to a DualLayer DVD burner) & running XP Pro sp3), which you can often find for about $100 or so on ebay. They are good, reliable machines.

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turnipz Newbie

turnipz

Posted
Posted (edited)

You may wanna watch that slick deals on boxing day, everything is usually a lot cheaper after xmas I thought.

Also check notebookcheck http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-330M.22437.0.html

If you want to play games getting a benchmark for the graphics card is a good idea.

Avoid glossy screens if you can as matte is much nicer; also avoid 15.6inch screens stick with ones that arent widescreen, such as a 15.4inch one. Also if you want a small screen Id suggest at least a 13.3inch screen over a smaller one unless you reallllly want it to be portable; 10 inch feels way too small in my opinion if you use it a lot.

Edited by turnipz
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mastrmindalliance Newbie

mastrmindalliance

Posted
Posted

Dells make great desktops. Some of the laptops are great, just be wary - they have had a couple generations recently with GPU/Mobo issues caused by Intel and are essentially irreparable - i.e. do not buy a second hand Dell XPS, just to be on the safe side.

I can thoroughly recommend Asus like the peeps above, especially if yr leaning towards a netbook. They offer about 8.5 hours of on-time and they really will last that long. Even in the real world.

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chronoluvvv Newbie

chronoluvvv

Posted
Posted (edited)

Dells make great desktops. Some of the laptops are great, just be wary - they have had a couple generations recently with GPU/Mobo issues caused by Intel and are essentially irreparable - i.e. do not buy a second hand Dell XPS, just to be on the safe side.

I can thoroughly recommend Asus like the peeps above, especially if yr leaning towards a netbook. They offer about 8.5 hours of on-time and they really will last that long. Even in the real world.

let me correct that & say do not buy a Dell XPS EVER

my 1330 has had 3 service calls in the last 3 years and instead of replacing it they expect me to pay to extend the warranty on this POS !

I think i'll just pick up a used IBM/Lenovo. The last T61 i had was old enough to have only 1/2 a meg of RAM but it would run for 4.5 hours easy on a 6-cell battery which is pretty good for a full-fledged notebook and comparable to the 5-6 hours i get from my Asus netbook with its 6-cell power source

about those IBMdepot deals, i'd pick the cheapest one as long as it had 802.11 g connectivity

Edited by chronoluvvv
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Katerchen Rookie

Katerchen

Posted
Posted

+ 1

For DELL and LENOVO(ex IBM) THINKPAD!

(had almost every brand as workplace PC/Laptop.

Toshiba - Fujitsu/Siemems - IBM - Lenovo - HP)

Lenovo(also Thinkpad) could be also an option as good "budget" Laptop -

look out for DELL too - been told that they have one of the best

price-performance-ratio!

And dont go for Vista - take Win 7 or XP - its a pain in the ass,

also concerning performance.

B/R

George

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paneristi_man Newbie

paneristi_man

Posted
Posted (edited)

Does anything here look decent?

http://www.thinkpaddepot.com/

The T60 is a good bet though may be tad more expensive than the others with the same specs. I've been using Thinkpads for years now and can vouch for their reliability, current one that i'm using is the T410. The Thinkpads are not the fastest but chances are you'll have less issues with them.

Edited by paneristi_man
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Furu Newbie

Furu

Posted
Posted

I ordered a ThinkPad edge 13.3" today, it was on sale and I needed a new laptop so I bought it right away. A friend really recommended the ThinkPad series, and you all seem to agree!

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