Purchasing a Laptop Computer

[Heads22]

I love my PowerBook (around 2500 after customization, but hey, it was gift $).

 

If you decide to check out Apple, and you are tied to a school/university, make sure you check out the Education store. Saved me at least 500 with a free ipod and printer.

[Whitewashed in '05]

Dell and get a gig of ram if you can (the more ram the better).  Aside from that the mobile pentium is really nice, but if your not gonna really care about how heavy or thin it is, often times you can find better, more powerful machines for a little less money than those that are super thin.  Just depends on your preference.

 

Definately get a DVD player/burner in there and opt for a nice monitor.  Depending on the useage you may be interested in spluring for an extra battery (some of them don't last long so if for osme reason you plan on using them often without having access to a plug its nice to have 2). 

 

They should pretty much all come with wireless, but if they don't make sure you get it (definately super super nice). 

 

Oh and with Dell take advantage of the warranty. Laptops fail more than desktops since everything is more compressed and fragile.  Because of that its nice to know if something goes wrong they'll replace it.

^^^ I agree right on with everything.

 

Get as much memory/RAM as possible. 1GB should be your goal if you're thinking about more then it will cost you. A DVD player is pretty much standard now with laptops.

 

If I was buying one I would prefer a Dell, their customer service is pretty good. The only thing I hate about them is that their installing so much junk in them out of the box, it's like they come preloaded with adware. That's really with any computer manufacturer nowadays though. I would recommend to uninstall any program you know you definitley won't need. Or you can just make sure their not coming up on startup and disable some services u don't need, that's all after u get it though.

 

Oh I almost forgot! If you have a chance to pick which anti-virus software comes with it pick McAfee. Nortons (Symantec) software usually comes buggy.

[Balta1701]

I have a Dell laptop...working on 2.5 years old now. Had a couple of problems with it, but their servicefolk took care of them.

 

1 thing that has bothered me is that the computer does have a DVD-Rom drive, however either the computer itself or the video card seems to not be fast enough to be able to run the DVD's...they always skip. That's ok 512 mb of RAM. I have never been able to figure out what the problem was.

[Wise Master Buehrle]

If you're looking for a good affordable laptop, get a Toshiba.

 

Dell preloads your computer with tons of useless garbage, and they don't give you your operating system CD's as a standard (WHICH IT SHOULD BE!).

 

HP and Dell both have history of using bad parts on their computers, instead of using quality parts. These parts are designed to last a long time (which is why some of you are so happy with your Dells and HPs) but they are not designed for performence. Basically they try to tell you that just because you have a Pentium M processor, your computer will be top of the line and there will be no performance issues. But the fact of the matter is that it's not just the processor that makes the machine. They may try to stick you with a measly 256 MB of RAM with your nice processor, rendering your processor basically useless.

 

At Toshiba's website, I picked out a Satellite M60 and chose to customize it- and for $1300 you get:

 

-Intel® Pentium® M Processor 740 (1.73GHz, 2MB L2, 533MHz) (Much better than the standard Celeron M and only $150 more)

 

- Windows XP Home (You don't need to spend an extra $79 for Pro)

 

- Blue color, copper and gray are $30 extra.

 

- No Microsoft Office software ($250 more, honestly you can use WordPad and get the job done, or just download a word processor unless you need Excel or Powerpoint)

 

- 512MB PC4200 DDR2 533MHz SDRAM (512MBx1) (Trust me, this is sexy, add $100 for a gigabyte of RAM)

 

- 17" Diagonal Widescreen XGA display (1440x900)

 

- ATI® MOBILITY™ RADEON® X600 with 128MB DDR SDRAM (This is a good mobile graphics card made by a good manufacturer. ATI and NVidia are the only ways to go and if they try to stick you with something else, screw 'em)

 

- 80 GB Hard Drive (I've seen Seagates in Toshibas at where I work, so if Seagates are standard you're in really good shape. Seagates are the best, in regards to durability, reliability, performance, and warranty )

 

- CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive (Can burn CD's, read DVD's, doubt you need to burn DVD's)

 

- Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200BG (802.11b/g) (There's your wireless connectivity)

 

- 1 Year Standard Limited Warranty

 

That's a damn good computer for the price. Something I'd definately consider buying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You want to get as much bang for your buck as possible.

 

Make sure whatever you buy, spend the extra money to get your operating system CD's, cause when (not if) your computer becomes fubar you can ask a local friendly computer nerd to reinstall your operating system.