Choosing a laptop

[Jmac 10+ year member]

Uh ... Outside of the hard drive and memory, you'll basically need to order ANY part for ANY laptop directly through the manufacturer, with the exception of DIY laptops.

you wont have to work about the computer crashing in the middle of your report of losing a weeks worth of work because the boot file of windows went missing.

This makes no sense whatsoever ... Besides, if you're doing a week-long report, you should still be doing a backup to flash drive on your Mac. Believe it or not, the "infallible" Macs still have hardware failures and crashes, too. I'm posting from one that has been in for repair 4 times since it was purchased in August 2007.
SP1 basically took care of every major and most of the minor issues Vista had. There really isn't much, if anything, wrong with Vista now other than it doesn't perform as well as it can on slower hard drives without some tweaks. SP2 is on the way (due Q1 2009, so within 3 months), though. I haven't tried the beta, but I've heard good things.

Windows 7 is shaping up quite nicely. The most recent build (available from your favourite torrent provider or newsgroup) runs quick, even on laptops, and has some nice new features, though I wish they hadn't pulled some of the software they did from Vista. Given that it's 90%+ similar to Vista, the launch should go much smoother. It really shouldn't be called Windows 7, though, as it's more like Windows 6.1 ...

 

[bigaudiofanatic 10+ year member]

Dued do you work on computers? Do you know what the proses of repairing a PC? I have been doing this for about 4 years now and I know what I am talking about. I am just trying to help him vista is still a little figity and just want to warn him about that. Also ifa hard drive dies you have to send it to the manufacture to get the data off and for them to put a new one in under warranty. Also anything including the mother board you do need to order form the manufacture because there is a serial number on them the corresponds to the windows install disk.

 

[Jmac 10+ year member]

Yeah, I do ...

When did I say you don't need to send the hard drive into the manufacturer if you want to have it replaced under warranty ? When did I say you don't need to order the motherboard from the manufacturer ?

I was responding to this:

if something goes on a dell you can only get the part form dell and you usually have to ship it to them or take it to a certified place to get it ordered.

You have to do that with just about any manufacturer, so I don't know why you're knocking Dell for it. That's my point.

 

[tigerf117 10+ year member]

Well working on computers and diassembling many many laptops, I'd avoid HP/Compaq at all costs. IBM are solid. Really the biggest consideration is tech support. HPs tech support is not very good. Best advice. get a Dell business class machine with a 3 yr extended warranty. Automatic tier 2 tech support. overnight shipping for any parts you need. Or an IBM, they have excellent tech support. HPs/Compaqs are in more than any other brand for laptop repairs.

 

[arizona 10+ year member]

Thanks for all the responses guys, I'll keep it in mind and do a bit more looking.

 

[MikeofTulsa Moderator]

sent ya a pm let me know if I can help.

 

[adio 5,000+ posts]

^^^^ this guy can help too (mike that is)

 

[Ignatowski 5,000+ posts]

Gateway,sent it back for a full redund........slowest POS I ever used

Dell,loaded with more junk than the gateway

HP,bought one for my wife,runs pretty good......

ACER,had one - screen hinges broke every 6 months,ACER wants 400.00 to fix it now that its out of warrenty - its on my shelf collecting dust......Open,I cant close the screen since the hinge is broke

Panasonic tough book,broke every year as well, repaired 3 times in warrenty and now I use it for my race car program - over weight and heavy

COMPAQ-my fav of all of the ones I have owned...3 years old,never a problem fast and light

replaced battery a few months ago - used every day for my work/biz

Compaq is the only laptop Ill buy from now on

When it comes to laptops durability is key - ask 10 people and youll get 10 answers

I stick to what works for me

 

[profundus-sanus 10+ year member]

from installing comcast internet on hundreds of laptops i'll say, acer/toshiba's are ALWAYS struggling to even open internet explorer. Even the one's that aren't running norton :lol:

sonys are usually alright.

macs are of course great..

for cheap laptops hp's/compaqs are my choice by far.

I have 2 compaq laptops, one for work and one i keep around the house or vacations.

My work one is 5-6 years old and still runs like a champ, hard drive failed on me once, but it was 95% full and forgot to turn it off when i put it in my bag. it overheated. So it was definitely my fault.

Other one is a couple years old running vista just fine. 0 problems thus far.

 

[Untouchable11 10+ year member]

I know you said you didn't care for Apple/Macintosh, but I would seriously look into a Macbook or Macbook Pro with VM Fusionware or Parallels with a copy of XP Pro. I've never had a problem with my Mac, and working in the virtual environment isn't bad(I use MatLAB, AutoCad, and ProE). Little pricey, yes, but it is cheaper than the three Compaq's I purchased/fixed in the same time period. Not to mention the down time of not having a laptop due to sending it to the manufacturer to get fixed.

 

[Scoobydoo 5,000+ posts]

from the ones you have chosen i guess this is going to be a desktop replacement because anything over 14" isn't portable

this is the forum you need

http://forum.notebookreview.com/

 

[Ali1 10+ year member]

Dell or HP.

Those are what you DON'T want

 

[Ali1 10+ year member]

for college? you haven't really mentioned anything about what you would like to do with your laptop aside from playing a couple games and owning a 250gb HDD. As for the HDD, you can select that from any manufacturer so this shouldnt narrow your results based off company. As for playing games, not much notebooks are constructed for gaming purposes, unless its specfically geared towards this. Me personally, i wouldn't use a notebook for any gaming period, but to each its own. If your looking on multitasking, i'd suggest toshiba or a lenovo x61. I've owned plenty of dell's in my life and they don't perform up to par with the toshiba/lenovo. For college use, I suggest looking at tablets so notetaking, reveiwing, and assignments are easier than can be, yet interactive at the same time. toshiba and lenovo makes rock solid tablets, while keeping prices competitive. If money is not a concern, you can look into fujitsu for tablet use. shoot me a PM with any questions/concerns.

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:category.details?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087&current-category-id=329576204C9E42289967E79E0E7C9A2D

 

[MikeofTulsa Moderator]

Those are what you DON'T want

please explain? i have h ad excellent results with those companies.

 

[Scoobydoo 5,000+ posts]

please explain? i have h ad excellent results with those companies.

Me neither, I am guessing his is a typical uninformed response.

Buying a laptop is just as hit or miss as buying any other electronic component. Just cause it is not a name brand doesn't mean it isnt a good product. Most companies use the same hardware anyway, it is just rebadged. You can see this in the lcd threads here when people say Olevia, Visio, Westinghouse, etc. **** because they are sold at Walmart. Those are some of the same people that buy Bose speakers and Monster cable to go with their name brand lcd.

I had a Compaq r4000 laptop for a few years and just sold it a few months ago. The thing worked flawlessly, but it was a brick and not very portable at about 6 pounds and 15.4"

My current laptop is a 14" Dell P3 1ghz that gets 7 hours hours per charge and I cant bring myself to sell it for anything less than $300 because that is what it is worth to ME. It will do all the web browsing and word processing anyone needs forever on a single charge, but of course it wont play games very well or compute a 1M of Superpi in under 1 minute

It depends on what you are going to use it for, but for a college student you're gonna want some decent cpu power and portablility

I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but IBM/Lenovo make one hell of a nice laptop at a decent price

If I were in college I would get a 13-14" Dell XPS or IBM Thinkpad along with a 22" lcd to hook up to while not mobile

But, hey, I dont work at Best Buy in the Geek Squad so whattaiknow