The Geek Forum
Main Forums => Hardware, Software, and Other Imperialist Crap => Topic started by: Socrates on August 22, 2008, 10:28:57 AM
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I am about to enter the market for a new laptop and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for websites with good reviews/pricing.
Or if you just plain have a suggestion that works also.
Looking for something travel oriented and not Mac.
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/me pays close attention
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Back in January I bought a Dell XPS m1330 laptop, fairly pimped out, and it still came to under $2000. I'm very happy with it, though it sounds like they've become a bit less flexible with options in the months since then, so YMMV.
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Yukon Mary Masturbates Vigorously?
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Yapping Marmosets Move Vigorously?
I haven't been a fan of Dell laptops here at work but I will check it out.
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Your Mileage May Vary?
no, that might be right...
Yodeling Mothers Might Vomit?
The thing about all computers is, the longer you wait the more you get for your money.
I bought a laptop for $600 just for word processing and stuff.
A month or two later I could've gotten a laptop twice as good for the same money.
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Yodeling Mothers Might Vomit?
Winar!
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When you say travel oriented, do you mean just for checking emails/internets while on the road? It wouldn't take a lot of money for something like that.
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The problem with casual endorsements is that if you have a bad experience with my suggested vendor, you will hate my living guts for eternity.
But... I'm a happy return customer here. (http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/store_access.do?template_type=landing&landing=notebooks)
Usually about 2 weeks for delivery, but even if you don't want to wait that long, the build-your-system feature lets you do some comparison shopping in a fairly awesome manner. You can't get an identical unit for any less at a brick-and-mortar.
I don't know how HPs compare to other systems, but I've had zero problems with the 3 separate laptops I bought, the oldest of which has been used daily for 3 years.
I stick to the 15.4 inch models. You can get a decent workhorse for well under $1000.
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I'd like a small, light laptop for school this year. Just something that can run word at a reasonable rate and have OK browsing speed. What's the finest, cheapest laptop for this kind of thing? I'm completely out of touch with what's new and exciting out there these days. I used to be with it, but then they changed was it was and now I'm no longer with it and what's it now seems weird and scary to me.
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When you say travel oriented, do you mean just for checking emails/internets while on the road? It wouldn't take a lot of money for something like that.
That, and downloading and organizing the photo's taken while traveling. Being able to run Office and such like to do some work at home wouldn't be a bad thing either.
Mostly what you said, light weight and durable are the biggest things.
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Might I add that it's important to find something that is pratical to carry around with you. This might be a no-brainer but there are plenty of laptops out there that I wouldn't really want to carry around with my because of their size and weight. I'm not saying spend $2000 on a Mac Book Air, but something that is as large as a 3 or 5 subject notebook and weighs about a pound or two is probably a good guide line to go by when in the market for a new laptop. Generally speaking, the laptops from Dell that are marked as being "media friendly" aren't good for traveling around as they're too bulky.
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Might I add that it's important to find something that is pratical to carry around with you. This might be a no-brainer but there are plenty of laptops out there that I wouldn't really want to carry around with my because of their size and weight. I'm not saying spend $2000 on a Mac Book Air, but something that is as large as a 3 or 5 subject notebook and weighs about a pound or two is probably a good guide line to go by when in the market for a new laptop. Generally speaking, the laptops from Dell that are marked as being "media friendly" aren't good for traveling around as they're too bulky.
I've used the Macs here at work and wouldn't buy one. Just don't like using em.
The HP's Ivan mentioned and the Dell Demo mentioned are both around 5 pounds, little under mostly. I had a Toshiba which was great until all the ports decided they just weren't going to work anymore. I used to love the thinkpads but I'm leary of the quality now that it's Lenovo.
Maybe I'll try to find a consumer reports comparison.....
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After some comparison shopping the HP's look to be the best bargain.
Ivan, which model do you have. we are looking at the dv4t and the tx2500z (which has to be the cheapest touch screen model I've seen)
Off to find some customer reviews....
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When I was laptop shopping in January, my choices were narrowed down to Dell pretty quickly, mostly because they had the most flexibility out of the various manufacturers. Because I run Linux as my primary OS anymore, I had some specifics as far as what I preferred for hardware (Nvidia for graphics, something Linux-friendly for wifi), and I wanted something that I could pimp out without breaking the bank.
I was also interested in something smaller and lighter, but still with decent processing power.
That's essentially how I ended up with the XPS m1330. I ordered the smaller model (13.5" screen, if I recall correctly), with 2 GB of RAM, the Nvidia 128 mb graphics module, the beefiest battery they offered, the slim LED backlit display, a 160 GB hdd, and the 2.2 GHz Intel Core Duo CPU. Still came to under $2000, too. :)
HP was my runner-up. At the time, they didn't have much flexibility in available options on their smaller, lighter offerings, but I'm pretty picky, too.
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I was tempted to go with the Dell for the pimp out factor, plus Dell really does seem to have the most choices available.
However Ivan made a pretty good point, we really are looking for something portable not uber-powerful. I'm really leaning towards the tx2500z at the moment because it has to be the cheapest tablet I've ever seen. With the AMD dual core 2 ghz, 3 GB of Ram and 250 HDD it was under 1100. I'm looking at some reviews for it now.
Plus I don't mind running Windows on it, for the moment anyway. I do computer stuff at work, at home I just want it to work.
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Socrates, mine are the heavier and cheaper Pavilion models (dv5z and dv6700t series).
The one minor complaint I had was all the useless extra free software that HP loads up on their new units. I don't know if Dell does that, but I'd love to some day buy a new system with which I don't have to spend hours figuring out what I can uninstall. It's the kind of thing that I know would drive Demosthenes up a wall, so I'm wondering if Dell might be a little less pushy in that regard.
If you're a Costco member, you can buy HP systems on line at Costco.com. There's a slight advantage to doing that.
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Dell does that too, but since I normally just format the hard drive as soon as I get a machine from them, it's never bothered me. :-D
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At work I have a Dell D620 Intel Core Duo T7400 @2.16 GHz and 1.99 Gb ram. It travels well and has good battery life. It's running XP Pro. No problems so far after 10 months.
I had problems with my home Toshiba Satellite which didn't have a standard power source. Really expensive part and not available at Fry's/Best Buy/etc. Allegedly the newer ones don't have that problem but never again for us.
My last work had a Renovo Stink Pad. Lightweight and reliable, but slow, however that was probably because it was the bottom of the line version with a slower processor and I think only .5Gb RAM. Glad I'm gone from those cheap ass bastards.
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http://pcdecrapifier.com/
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http://pcdecrapifier.com/
Now that rocks.... thanks!
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Yep. I used to use that at my last job, when one of my job duties was setting up and cleaning up new machines before they got handed out to employees. It works really well.
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http://pcdecrapifier.com/
Totally cool.
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http://pcdecrapifier.com/
Total e-cool.
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I sullied myself to visit Circuit city last night with the wife and check out the HP tx2500. I like buying online but for big ticket items I liked to have handled something like it first. The model at Circuit City was not the touchscreen tablet version but we liked the size and weight so I just ordered it from HP.com. I found an online coupon that saved me nearly $400 so I got it with the fastest processor, free ram upgrade and larger HDD with other increases for only 1000 with 2 day shipping. I'll post here about it when I get it a have a chance to de-crapify it and use it a bit.
Thanks for everyone's input.
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Cool!
Yeah, I'm the same way. When I bought my last monitor (http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-SyncMaster-2053BW-20-inch-Monitor/dp/B0013PZW5O/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1220019688&sr=8-1) I went into our local Circuit City to get a good look at it in person... and then went home and promptly ordered it on Amazon. :-D
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Laptop arrived today!
I've been spending most of the morning de-crapifing the thing, then installing the must haves, like firefox, etc.
So far I'm pretty happy, not liking Vista all that much at the moment but I'll give it a shot.
Will post more when I have to chance to really use it
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Vista is getusedtoable. Pop the analog clock with the second-hand up on the sidebar, and also maybe the CPU Meter, a slide show, the FRAK RSS feed and maybe a radio feed. Sidebar nosehair clippers are Vista's little spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.
Wait... what was that sound? It sounded like a loud, derisive snort from somewhere out of Minnesota.
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Vista is getusedtoable. Pop the analog clock with the second-hand up on the sidebar, and also maybe the CPU Meter, a slide show, the FRAK RSS feed and maybe a radio feed. Sidebar nosehair clippers are Vista's little spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.
Wait... what was that sound? It sounded like a loud, derisive snort from somewhere out of Minnesota.
First thing I did was turn off the damn sidebar, I only have a 12" monitor I didn't want to spare the real-estate
So far I'm liking, the tablet and touchscreen are pretty cool. Not sure how really usable they are. When I get it home tonight I'll put it on the network there and put some photos and music on it.
Performance is pretty good, every now and again it just hesitates, not sure what it's trying to do but twice now it's just become unresponsive for a minute while something goes on. I'll have to keep an eye on it
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Vista is getusedtoable. Pop the analog clock with the second-hand up on the sidebar, and also maybe the CPU Meter, a slide show, the FRAK RSS feed and maybe a radio feed. Sidebar nosehair clippers are Vista's little spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.
Wait... what was that sound? It sounded like a loud, derisive snort from somewhere out of Minnesota.
Nah. I've used Vista quite a bit, via VMWare. It is getusedtoable. I wouldn't install it on anything, mind you, if there was something else better that's already installed. But it can be dealt with.
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I just really loathe the cutesy bells and whistles with which MS adorns its products. And I loathe myself for falling for this latest one. I totally dig the sidebar. Of course, at work I have dual monitors, so real estate's not an issue, but even on my laptop I feel, oddly, lonely when I turn the sidebar off.