I Gotta Buy a Laptop. Any Suggestions?

[VeniceBeat]

My 8 year old Vaio has finally died.

I'm open to PC or Mac.

What product gives the best bang for the buck?

Anyone have the inside scoop?

Anyone else researched this lately?

Anyone just buy one?

[GOPisEvil]

1. I hear good things about Toshibas.

I had a Dell laptop, and it served me well before finally passing on to the great beyond.

[Deja Q]

62. I second that

Toshiba is a great maker of laptops. One of the few who doesn't use ATi either... (if you like Linux, you won't like ATi...)

[burrowowl]

2. Mac

iBook of any size.

[laruemtt]

3. i've got 3 - need them for my work

dell - had to have serviced.

vpr - had to have serviced.

hewlett packard - best ever!

look around on line and compare specs. good luck!

[T Roosevelt]

4. I have a Toshiba

and I don't think I would have anything different. It's a Portege, thin and light, and more reliable than my desktop. When I upgrade, I'm sticking with Toshiba...

[never cry wolf]

12. I have a Toshoba too, Satellite pro.

I got it last April, at that time consumer's reports had it rated the best.

Not sure if this link will work but here goes...

http://www.consumerreports.org/main/content/display_report.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=335529&bmUID=1075940987555

You can sign up if it doesn't for a temporary membership, I think it is like $3.95 for a month. I never make a major purchase without consulting.

[Asteroid]

5. Go with a Powerbook

If yiu don't mind giving Mac a try, I think you will enjoy a Powerbook. They go from 12" to 17" screen sizes. You can get one at a base price of $1,599 all the way up to $2,999. They aint cheap, but the don't crash like windows base PC's. And they have a much higher resale value.

[travisleit01]

6. definitely a mac

I'd go with iBook or Powerbook. I think iBook would have enough power for most people. When I was shopping for a laptop last summer, Apple had not released the new upgraded iBooks with the G4 processors, so I saved up for a 17" powerbook. It's awesome, never crashes, and I can do everything I did on my HP laptop that would crash 3 times/day. Also, I can't recommend Virtual PC enough! I use it for a few applications I need for some work i do for real estate agents, and it's flawless (even better than real Windows PCs!)

PM me if you have more questions...

[nostamj]

7. i gotta compaq presario 900

a little over a year ago. been good to me. biggest problem for me was not hitting the CAPLOCK key while adjusting to the compact keyboard.

cost me appx 1K (with an in-store credit that paid for a basic DVD player. Circuit City in NYC)

my problems are ALL related to AOHell, not the machine. (so far!)

[displacedtexan]

8. I'm researching now

about to buy a new one.
For my needs (no major number crunching) the HP looks like my choice: super inexpensive, big screen, and double the memory of others I've considered.

[Pithlet]

9. I just got a HP pavilion ze4500

I really like it. It's much faster than my Dell was, and seems to be sturdier and built better. My Dell was less than a year old before the keyboard craped out on it.

It has a touch pad mouse with a scroll strip next to it, which I really like.

I can't really tell you much more as I'm not very technical, but if you have any tech questions, I can ask my in house computer geek/husband.

[Old and In the Way]

10. Compaq Presario 2700T here

fine machine, no issues at all. It's 1 Gigahertz, but I'll be getting something faster soon. Make sure you get at least 32Meg of Video-Ram and I'd recommend Windows XP Professional, too.

[jus_the_facts]

14. Compaq Presario 1610..........

......a hand me down from my parents...it's still workin'...but it's slooooooow! x(

[radwriter0555]

11. I have an HP that I'm digging

a lot. Got it last year.

[disgruntled_goat]

13. IBM Thinkpad or Mac

IBM Thinkpads are IMO the best built, toughest bastards out there.
I've had a PII 300MHz thinkpad since circa 98/99 and it's nigh unstoppable. sweet keyboard too. many other laptops have keyboards that hurt to type on for more than a minute.

thinkpads tend to be a tad more expensive, but worth it IMO.

having said that, I like macs also, but am less knowledgeable about them. Powerbooks should be nicer than the ibooks, but depending on your needs, a (cheaper) ibook may do fine.

if you have a wad of cash to blow2, check out Toshiba satellite's P5-xxxx model. wow. 17" screen, HW accel video...laptop in name only. I want one.

hth
d_g

[travisleit01]

17. One thing

(I) am less knowledeable about them.

The great thing about Macs is, you don't have to be! I've helped people fix PC's since I was 10, and it's so nice now to go home and have your laptop just work! Monday I spent three hours trying to get ActiveX controls enabled/reinstalled on an eMachines PC so Windows Update would work - to no avail. It was very frustrating, and I was glad to get home to my mac.

Do you know anyone who is a student? They offer pretty decent educational discounts online and at their stores.

[tinrobot]

15. E-Machines

I have an E-Machines laptop, it's surprisingly good. I've had it for a year, and it's been a total trooper.

Great bang for the buck, plus it has a widescreen. I love it!

[MrScorpio]

16. Let me make this perfectly clear. Go.. With.. The.. MAC!!!

I found TWO GAWDAMMED VIRUSES on my wife's computer.

In ten years I've yet to see one on any of my Macs.

Do the math.

[ProudGerman]

27. sigh

That has nothing at all to do with Apple. It has everything to do with marketshare. The people who write these things want to infect the greatest number of people as they can. That eliminates most platforms such as Mac and Linux.

There is a sad misconception that those 2 OS's are somehow magically virus proof.

[Atlant]

31. I'm sorry, but you're wrong.

While marketshare doubtless has its effect, there are also
technical reasons why virii are far less successful on
MacOS/X, Linux, Unix, VMS and MVS. (I can get into the
technical details if you'd like, but) Basically, these
systems are designed from the ground up to be secure;
this is definitely NOT the case with Windows/95, Win/98,
and Win/ME, and although Win/NT (Win2K, Win/XP) were
designed with security in mind, the security was
deliberately weakened to allow better compatibility
with old applications.

The advice I usually give is:

"If you're a strong Windows partisan, buy a Windows PC.
If you don't have a strong Windows preference, buy a Mac;
the Mac will be far less trouble in the long run and you'll
be a happier computer user, instantly able to do amazing
stuff that you previously thought was hard."

Atlant

[ProudGerman]

50. Sorry, that's thinking wrongly

Sure, virii written to exploit Windows would fail miserably on the other 2. But if the other 2, or one of them, were the dominant OS the way Windows is, then virii would be a completely different species. It's simply wrong to think virii would be written the same way if the OS situation was reversed. The scum who write these things would be writing them for Mac or whatever, and they'd be causing as much chaos as they do now. Its just wishful thinking that virii and hacking would just come to a dead stop if Windows is ever supplanted as the dominating OS. The dream of a totally secure and virii immune OS is simply that, a dream.

[Atlant]

52. Okay, you asked for it; here are (some of) the boring technical reasons...

> Sorry, that's thinking wrongly. Sure, virii written to exploit
> Windows would fail miserably on the other 2. But if the other 2,
> or one of them, were the dominant OS the way Windows is, then
> virii would be a completely different species.

Sure viruses would be different (well, except for Word and
Excel macro viruses, but that's Microsoft's cross-platform
compatibility for you.)

But that doesn't affect my main point that there are many
purely technical reasons why it's absolutely trivial to
infect a Windows machine with a virus but not so easy to
infect certain other operating systems.

Generally speaking, the "hard" operating systems are the ones
that have been fully multi-user since their inception (or
since very shortly after their inception). This is because
the same steps that protect one user from another, more
malicious user are many of the same steps that protect users
from viruses. (After all, what are viruses but malicious
programs?) By commparison, Windows deliberately allows
one program to affect another program or to affect the
entire contents of memory or the entire contets of the
disk. It has to; tons of old programs depend upon being
able to do this. (Which is why the Windows/NT-based systems
still cause compatibility grief; there, they tried to close
some of these gaping holes but discovered how many programs
rely on the Swiss Cheese.)

Whether we're talking about how readily Windows will execute any
damned code delivered to it, often with catastrophic results, or
buffer overflows (where competent systems prevent, IN HARDWARE, the
execution of code on the stack), or protected memory and disk areas
so, at worst, only one user gets trashed, there are literally dozens
of reasons why Windows systems are vulnerable to virii but real
multi-user operating systems are not. And MacOS/X is based on
BSD Unix, a multi-user operating system with a long track record
behind it.

You may choose to believe me or not, but rest assured that writing a
successful MacOS/X virus is *A LOT* harder than writing a successful
windows virus. And if you don't believe me, warm up Google and start
researching the question. Or write a successful virus.

Atlant

[Liberal Classic]

66. You are right in part but wrong in part

You are correct in the fact that there are more Windows viruses since Microsoft has a greater market share. However, the large number of expoitable problems with Windows and Internet Explorer and Outlook cause this problem to be much worse than it should be. There *are* some worms (which is what these malicious programs really are, not viruses) for Linux but they are few in number because not every vunderability in Linux leads to complete control of the machine. Windows suffers because it does not have an adequate security model, going back to Windows 3.x.

[Atlant]

70. I'll assume this reply was actually targeted at an earlier post.

(Because I'm certainly NOT arguing the "market share"
argument, I'm arguing the "technical incompetence and
deliberately Swiss-Cheese" argument.)

Atlant

[Endangered Specie]

18. Im on a 2 year old Dell Inspiron 8100, cant beat Dells

Ive had this thing on an average of 16/7/365, only 1 moderate problem with it.

[Abaques]

34. Yes, you can beat Dells...

In my organization we buy alot of Dell laptops, and they break quite often. Hell, the only reason we keep buying Dell laptops is because we get them cheap and we get a really good warranty (3 year onsite repair). Of course I work for a major university and Joe Consumer cannot get the deal we do.


So stay away from Dell laptops.

[afraid_of_the_dark]

38. Dell used to be a really good company...

But they buy their parts to assemble their machines based on the lowest price they can find for a given part. From what I've heard, the newer Dells don't have the same quality as their reputation would indicate, because of these cheap, poor quality parts.

Stick with a Compaq or a Toshiba.

[MAlibdem]

68. Ditto

Mine has been pretty reliable.

Crashed while I was at political boot camp, halfway through a term paper, and I couldn't fix it until I got back (2 weeks), but otherwise my Inspiron 8100 is good.

(shhhhh, i might say bad things but the computer might hear and crash, shhhhh)

[Dookus]

19. I adore my toshiba

I use it almost all day, every day, for almost a year and a half now. Never had a problem with it. I have a Toshiba 5105.

[Nlighten1]

20. ThinkPad

Go IBM.

[stumblnrose]

21. If it's gotta be a PC

then there's only one company in my opinion: SAGER! Awesome, more bang for the buck, best kept secret in notebooks. Here's the link:
http://discountlaptops.com/index.php?section=catagory&include_type=sager

[IronLionZion]

22. Powerbooks are the coolest

so if I could afford it that's what I would get. PC's are much cheaper. Toshiba is a good value. HP is pretty cheap. I'd stay away from Dell, they are overpriced and over-rated. Centrino processor will give you good battery life.

[Atlant]

32. If you're comparing similarly-configured systems...

> PC's are much cheaper.

If you're comparing similarly-configured systems, this isn't true.

To give you an idea what I mean by similarly configured,
my 15" PowerBook has 80GB of fast disk, 1GB of RAM, a DVD
burner, Gigabit Ethernet, USB-2, 800MBPS Firewire, and
802.11G 54MBPS wireless networking, an illuminated keyboard,
and a wide-form-factor LCD screen. It cost about what a
similarly-configured PC laptop would have cost.

Atlant

[loftycity]

23. Sony is reliable I've had two of them..n/t

[Madrone]

24. If I could afford a laptop ...

...this is what I would get.



I had a customer bring one in for internet configuration and fell in loooove...*drool*

http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/pc/pc_cf_prodChassis.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1868874582.1075954494@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccciadckilkhmfdcgfkceghdgngdgll.0&comm=ST&pfam=Satellite&pmod=P25


That 17" widescreen freaking ROCKS! It's big, but it's bitchin'!

[travisleit01]

25. And weighs almost TEN POUNDS! n/t

[Don_G]

26. I Can't Recomend A Dell

Unless you buy a new cow, name it "Dimbo" and let it walk all over you when you're talking to "Customer Support" in India or the BBB in your city.

Otherwise, you may want to contact a DUer you can trust to buy and possibly refurbish something you see on eBay.

[Melsky]

28. Bad experiences with Compaq preserios

Hi VeniceBeat :hi:

My husband has had two compaq pressarios, and both of them have had major problems with the audio jacks. He did a lot of research and found that is a common problem with them, and when you send them into get fixed they break again.

[Atlant]

35. Compaq laptops generally don't seem very reliable.

I had a *VERY* bad experience with a Compaq laptop and
I don't think you could convince me to ever buy another
Compaq (or, maybe, by extension, HP?) product again.

We're very happy with our Sony Vaio and the company I
work for has had good experiences with a lot of Dell
laptops. (But they don't need to call technical support
very often, so I can't comment on how well or badly
Dell's outsourced-to-India tech support works.)

I'm also a generally satisfied Apple customer (with
experience with 5 Apple laptops under my belt).

Atlant

[jus_the_facts]

47. huh...i'm sittin' here postin' on a relic Compaq Presario 1610....

....runnin' windows 95...16.0MB Ram...it's slow but still kickin'! :hi:

[Atlant]

53. Consider yourself lucky.

My Compaq laptop (a 1920, if memory serves) has been through:

• A new DVD-ROM drive because the original was DOA
  
  
• A new motherboard, disk, and memory because the
  fan controller died
  
  
• New speakers

And now it sits idle because the backlight inverter is intermittent.

Atlant

[VeniceBeat]

29. Aaaargh!

I think my head's gonna explode! Lots to consider. Thanks for all the input, guys!

Anyone else?

[Awsi Dooger]

30. iBook G3/900 for $799

From Micro Center online. Here is the link:
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0169459

12.1 inches. 40 GB hard drive. Combo DVD-ROM/CDRW drive. 56 K modem. Boots into both OS 9 and OS X, likely with Panther installed. Shipping is only $20. Damn good deal on a new Mac laptop, and trust me OS X is every bit as stable other posters have indicated.

One problem: only 128 MB Ram, not ideal for OS X, although you might be able to haggle a little bit if you call.

Also, I think there is a current promo on new Mac purchases, a free (counting rebate) Epson printer thrown in.

[Abaques]

40. 128mb is not acceptable anymore.

You need a minimun of 256 now days and you are a whole lot smarter to buy one with 512mb or more. So that deal really isn't that good.

[Deja Q]

64. That's a joke. Underpowered for that high price. Rather typical ripoff.

Considering it's an Apple product, I'm amazed it's got a 40GB hard drive (not 20GB) and a DVD reader/CD-RW writer (what speed, 2x?). I'm assuming the CPU speed is a G4 at 900MHz. But sub-$1000 PCs come with P4 or AMD 2.4GHz chips that blow the G4 away and come with 512MB RAM.

128MB is a joke. Period. Apple is screwing y'all.
No NIC included in that model?! Another joke.
40GB hard drive? What speed, 3000RPM?! A similarly costing PC would have 80GB or 120GB and be 5400 or 7200RPM.
12.1" LCD moitor is acceptable, for 14" can be found on some sub-$1k models.
Shipping is a nice price, but for THAT joke of a laptop?!

Sounds like no deal to me, and a steal for Apple. Typical Apple philosophy, sell lesser hardware for a premium price. :silly: :crazy: What color case is it in?! :eyes:

[Awsi Dooger]

69. Another hysterical rant from a jealous PC lemming

PCs are the very definition of lesser. Unfortunately I know, stuck on them at work every day. I get more crashes every week than I have on Jaguar in the past 15 months combined. BTW, that would be ZERO!

Those $799 iBooks are such a lame deal have been gobbled up since I posted the link, so popular the company only allows one per order now and will certainly sell out again very soon. The 128 MB is admittedly weak, as I mentioned, but sharp buyers have managed up to 640 MB by asking the clerks to check stickers on the box.

[Atlant]

71. All Apple products include Ethernet.

> No NIC included in that model?! Another joke.

All Apple products include 100baseT Ethernet standard (unless
they include Gigabit Ethernet standard).

In the Apple world, we haven't talked about free-standing NICs
for about a decade. The last one I installed was on a PowerMac
6300/200. :)


> 12.1" LCD monitor is acceptable, for 14" can be found on some
> sub-$1k models.

The iBook can be had in your choice of 12" or 14". Its bigger
brother, the PowerBook, can be had in your choice of 12", 15",
or 17". For some people (like my son), smaller is better. For
others, bigger is better. Me, I chose the 15" model.

Atlant

[ThoughtCriminal]

33. Sony

I've been happy with mine. The fact that your last one lasted you 8 years should tell you something.

[TXlib]

36. Damn, I thought you said Lapdance!

[VeniceBeat]

37. The Sony Vaio was actually mine - Mrs. VeniceBeat...

and although we had it for 8 years, we've had it serviced twice and paid $800 once to have it fixed. We really don't know that much about how to fix PC's but we have 3 desktop PC's so I guess we like them.

I use my laptop for work as a Graphics Producer, so need something that can handle video and lots of graphics. Most people in my line of work use Macs, but it doesn't really matter. I also use Word & Excel and it bugs me that Macs don't seem to come with those programs. Also there's more freeware for PC's???

I use both and don't have much of a preference - just hate going back and forth and having to think too hard about the different shortcut keystrokes.

Don't want to spend too much, but want something reliable, not too heavy (gotta drag it all over town), and reliable - I don't have time to deal with customer service. Also, it would be great to have a fire wire.

Guess I should go with an Ibook? Although we could get an HP from Costco and return it if we don't like it.

Thanks for all your input!

- Mrs. Venice Beat

[Atlant]

54. RE: Firewire and the Microsoft Office

All Macs will have Firewire. The newest Macs will have both
Firewire 400 (the original standard, aka Sony iLink or IEEE1394)
and Firewire 800.

All Macs can run a very nice version of the Microsoft Office
(with the exception of Access, which Microsoft refuses to
make available on the Mac). You'll feel right at home with
Office for Mac and the documents you create on either a Mac
or the PC will go seamlessly back and forth between systems.
Office for Mac and Office for PC even share many of the
same bugs. (Believe me, I know these applications all too
well on both platforms!)

Atlant

[Xithras]

39. No Dells. No IBM. No HP.

These companies have outsourced their call centers and fired Americans from their jobs to hire cheaper Indians. Boycott.

Apples are nice, and all of their support is handled right here in California. I don't know about the other manufacturers because I've never dealt with them.

The only way to make these companies change their ways is to hit them where it counts...in the pocketbook. Make sure that every dollar that they hoped to save by outsourcing is lost to sales that went elsewhere.

FYI, I'm currently lobbying my employer to drop our Dell contracts when they come up for renewal for this very reason. We buy over a thousand Dell's a year (higher education) and I hate to see us spending taxpayer dollars to support an organization that doesn't give a damn about Americans. Considering that we're all union, the effort is looking pretty good at the moment :)

[tigereye]

42. thanks for putting this in economic perspective

I want to get one for work but they are so blasted expensive... have to see if my husband, the computer guy in the fmaily, can figure out a way to spend the least for the best.

[NNadir]

67. Not only that, but HP service is abysmal.

I bought a new HP desktop. Everything was wrong with it out the box. I spent hours on the phone with India before they even understood what my problem was. They had me ship the computer in for repair and sent it back and it was just as bad as when I first got it.

It is really sad to see a once great company like HP fall into the abyss.

The management of the American economy is abysmal. It is no accident that the Bush Administration billed themselves as the "CEO Presidency." The are a monument to modern American administrative incompetance.

Be frightened folks. Be very frightened.

[Abaques]

41. Things to look for...

Make sure that you get at least 512mb of ram.

And then make sure that you have a good warranty with it. Laptops get damaged *alot* easier then desktops.

Figure out which you value more: size or performance. The smaller ones aren't as fast as the bigger ones, but are much much more portable.

Oh, and stay away from Sony Vaios... they are horrible peieces of crap.

[Atlant]

55. You're telling this to a person that's had a generally good experience...

> Oh, and stay away from Sony Vaios... they are horrible peieces of crap.

You're telling this to a person (the Original Poster) that's
already stated that they had a generally good experience with
their Sony Vaio, and has been told by others here (including me)
we've also had generally-good experiences with Vaios.

Our Vaio has been almost entirely trouble-free (well, as trouble-free
as any PC running WIndows ever is!) with the perfectly-understandable
exception that it's LiIon battery bit the dust and was recently
replaced with a triple-capacity new battery.

Atlant

[Abaques]

72. They got lucky...

I work in technical support for a major university. We see all kinds of laptops and desktops that we have to support. Sony simply does not make a good product. We see a much higher percentage of failure in sony computers then we do in any other manufacturer.

Don't get me wrong, most computers of any manufacturer do not break, but if you combine the higher percentage of failure, very poor support, and all around poor price-performance ratio in sony vaio's, they just aren't a good computer.

[pstokely]

43. how much do you wanna spend?

?

[Frangible]

44. I've always owned Toshibas

But would be very tempted by the Apple offerings if so much of the software I ran didn't require windows.

[T Roosevelt]

45. Same here

I'd probably put Linux on my Toshiba, but I've got some software that is pretty much Windoze-only...which really sucks.

[Atlant]

51. What do you run that's PC only? (NT)

[Robb]

46. DON'T BUY A MAC, WHATEVER YOU DO!!!

Just kidding. Buy a Mac, they're great. :evilgrin:

[geniph]

48. Toshibas are workhorses

and usually very reasonably priced. I bought mine five years ago from buy.com, and it's withstood a lot of heavy use and abuse. I'd recommend both Toshiba and buy.com.

[myomy]

49. Macs are easy,Macs are fun.

.

[NewHampster]

56. I add my vote for Toshiba

Had dells before and this Toshiba is lighter, and more comfortable to use.

their service is also incredible.

My only caveat is that I wish all manufacturers would use a "service tag" system like dells so you always know where you stand on drivers updates etc.

[Atlant]

57. Can you explain more about what you mean by this?

> My only caveat is that I wish all manufacturers would use a "service
> tag" system like dells so you always know where you stand on drivers
> updates etc.

Can you explain more about what you mean by this?

Atlant

[NewHampster]

58. About the dell system

All dells have a number on the unit. (at least up until I stopped buying dell 1.5 yrs. ago)

If you login to dell, create an account etc., and enter the number the system will tell you what your box shipped with for drivers, hardware etc. it also will maintain a log of your updates.

Comes in very handy if you ever need to reformat and reload drivers.

I still Favor Toshiba because I think they make a much better product. Only make Notebooks and they do it right.

[Tesha]

59. That sounds like a good feature! (NT)

[Atlant]

60. Thanks!

Ahh -- so THAT is what that number on the bottom of my
Dell-laptop-at-work means!

Thanks!

Atlant

[Deja Q]

61. Well, a PC laptop for $799 will come with more RAM than that Mac

Both have their ups and downs, and both Mac OS X and Windows XP will want more than a jokey 128MB RAM.

Stick to what you're used to, which means you may as well stay with the PC.

Or if you use a Mac, stick it to them and go PC because the hardware they sell, CPU aside, isn't as powerful considering the extra cost associated with it. But I won't digress.

I prefer laptops with nvidia graphics cards for better/faster Linux compatibility, and I don't like ATi anyway.

Be careful with the LCD screen though. The laptop companies usually sell replacements for ~$1000. Pretty sad if the laptop itself had cost less to begin with...

[Liberal Classic]

63. Not too hard

The real question is what you do with it. If you know what you want to do with your new laptop that helps you to decide which one is right for you.

The 1GHz Mac Powerbooks are attractive to me, because they have some features of Unix. If you have a need to Windows applications then as a rule of thumb I would avoid Centrino and Celeron in favor of plain old Pentium. The reason is while Pentium won't have quite as much battery power, overall the machine will have a much longer useful life due to having the same processor as desktop machines. Battery life is increased by a decrease in CPU power in essence, and which is more important to you should determine what you want to get.

[Atlant]

73. They have *MOST* features of Unix. :)

> The 1GHz Mac Powerbooks are attractive to me, because they
> have some features of Unix.

As long as you're okay with a BSD variant, they have all the features
of BSD Unix because they are *RUNNING* BSD Unix. :) Fire up a terminal,
launch vi (which, lately, gets you gvim*), write your Perl script or
bash script or c program which you then pass through gcc, and you're
off to the races!

Atlant


*I'm not sure if I'm happy about that, but I've been meaning to learn
to exploit gvim's richer feature set for several years now, so I guess
I've now got my chance. ;)

[burythehatchet]

65. MAC powerbook G4