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Laptop Recommendations Wanted

19:07 / 09.02.06

Work is going well lately, and though I'm currently sending all extra cash debt-ward, my current laptop is on shaky ground. I would like to buy a new one in the not too distant future. Currently have a Gateway Solo 5300, w/ Intel Pentium III, 701 MHz, 320 MB RAM (given to me by my dad some time ago).

I definitely want a laptop, not Mac because our home network is PC. I use Photoshop fairly often for simple photo editing, run a small website that doesn't take up too much room, need a good amount of space for tons of jpegs. Other than that, accounting software and Internet are really all I ever run. I don't do any online gaming... DVD-RW would be a lusted-after plus but not a deal breaking necessity. Would like to spend under $1000, probably in the $800 area if possible.

All suggestions welcome (but if you suggest I get a Mac I'm going to politely ignore you). If a starting point helps, a little while ago I was looking in Best Buy at the HP Special Edition Pavilion 370 because it was on sale and the salesman thought it might suit might needs... who knows if he had any idea what he was talking about, but probably more than I did....

20:24 / 09.02.06

this post left intentionally blank 'cause it would otherwise be politely ignored

20:53 / 09.02.06

To be fair, I'll explain further why I won't get a Mac. My roommate has a PC and we share both the printer and wireless router through a home network. Maybe it's possible to hook a Mac up to that situation - I really don't know - but I assume not, and there's no way I'm buying all that gear over again if I don't need it.

ONLY NICE THINGS

20:57 / 09.02.06

It is, but to be honest if you're not comfortable with a Mac it's probably not worth getting one...

21:05 / 09.02.06

But yeah PCs and macs can share wireless networks and wireless printers with no worries whatsoever - The home network I am typing this on right now serves two mac laptops and one PC laptop... all off the same router...

Mon Oncle Ignatius

21:06 / 09.02.06

You can share a printer and router with Mac and PC, pretty easily. The latter is irrelevant as to the OS being used if it's wireless, and the former is a matter of installing drivers and setting up the host machine to share it.

Anyhow, Macs are still more expensive.

As for Laptops, I'd actually recommend looking at the Dell range as they're reasonably cheap and well-specced. Dell may not have the best customer service rep, but their gear works for the most part.

I also find Acer laptops have a good price-to-feature ratio.

We're about to get an Dell for work but I can't recall the spec right now, and it's the sort of thing which is cheap but powerful enough. We're getting an Acer as well, on the basis that they've made a really nice lightweight one - again, spec to follow if needed, though the price is somewhat higher.

Whatever you get, if you get a Windows* machine, don't get a Celeron processor-based laptop if you plan using Photoshop much. It's well worth seeking out the high-res scren sizes too (eg 1600x1024) to save you some eyestrain and to ease the photoediting, even if they cost a bit more. Likewise (and this applies to all computers), get as much memory as you can or leave space for expansion in the future - Windows in particular eats it up, so the more the merrier.

(* I always feel obliged to recommend installing Linux at this point, but that's just me.)

Mon Oncle Ignatius

21:08 / 09.02.06

(Ah, the joy of all posting the same info at once: sorry for any unintended re-stating the point about routers/printers).

21:09 / 09.02.06

A Mac will work fine with a wireless setup like that. Mine found my router etc. as soon as I'd turned it on. And it's just lovely, too.

21:26 / 09.02.06

Okay. Well. I will look into Dell. I don't need a very powerful computer... all I ever do to my photos is resizing and adjusting color balances. The reason for the DVD burner would be that it would be sweet to burn DVDs for my business photos, as a DVD portfolio or whatever - just photo slideshows basically.

21:34 / 09.02.06

I've been a Mac girl all my life, but I've just bought a Dell Inspiron 9300 and I highly recommend the change.

Mac's are so expensive that going Macward if you have a budget means you get so much less.

01:29 / 11.02.06

Try searching for Acer and Averatec. Dell is okay, although their customer service is getting grim. (As a teenager I know said, "No worries, if you're not planning to have a problem.") Averatec and similar are some of the Taiwanese, Chinese etc. companies that actually make the computers for the big brands. They've decided to also start selling in the West under under their own names. PC laptops are really commodities at this point, and there are lots of unfamiliar named companies selling them very cheap. Check out the reviews, but generally these are the same machines as the big brands, just cheaper.

I've known three people who bought Averatecs the past year, and had no problems. These were laptops in the six-seven pound range, big screens, multi-gigabyte hard drives (40 or 60 GB), and cost around $700. I don't know if they have wifi, but if not, get a USB wifi connection for about $50.

Buy it off the internet. Don't even think of messing with Worst Buy. For instance, search "Averatec" at www.epinions.com, and follow any interesting links. (Read carefully though. Some of the lowest prices are "factory refurbished." There's nothing wrong with that, and those are generally excellent machines, but you want to know what you're getting.) No need to deprive yourself of a DVD-RW drive. You can get that for under $800, I'm pretty sure.

07:23 / 11.02.06

I also find Acer laptops have a good price-to-feature ratio.

Indeed. I've just recently bought myself a new laptop, this one as a matter of fact, and am very happy with it. Acer have a pretty good reputation for producing solid little machines with a price tag that won't hurt too much, and, given that you have no interest in online gaming with the intended laptop, you don't need to go for the more expensive ranges (the majority of their prices are for the graphics card anywho).

Another advantage is that pretty much all new laptops now come with a DVD-RW drive. The Acer I've mentioned above actually comes with a dual layer burner, which allows for a 9.4gb burning capacity, as opposed to just a 4.7gb.

trouser the trouserian

10:03 / 11.02.06

I recently acquired a 'laptop' (actually more of a desktop replacement) from Rock Direct and, though I admittedly haven't used it for much more than gaming (256mb graphics card!) it runs high-end applications like Photoshop & InDesign very well. The manual was surprisingly good, with advice on how to add a second HD, raid striping, etc.,. Rock do a three-year collect & return warranty as standard which is worth bearing in mind if you're going to splash out. Rock also do 'ruggedised' laptops. Admittedly, they're not the cheapest provider - my TiX cost nearly £1700 (but then, it wasn't me paying for it!)

02:40 / 13.02.06

Don't get a Dell. Nowadays getting a Dell laptop means that you're playing Russian roulette with your money. Only the gun's loaded with 5 bulets instead of just one. And it's a semi-auto.

Short and all: Dell sucks monkey buttocks. Blows donkey cock. Eats horse rooster.

What do you plan on using your laptop for? Mobility? A replacement for your desktop? Playing video games? Typing up stuff?

02:42 / 13.02.06

Oookay, now that i've actually read the first post on this thread....

Get a Thinkpad. An IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad. Preferably something in the T4x series. Like a T43. That model should run you less than a grand nowadays. They're fast, reliable, and tend to have good hardware support. Plus the specs will match your current needs.

21:35 / 13.03.06

After asking around elsewhere, I got a lot of negative replies about Dell. It was said that their customer service absolutely blows, and they also happen to be supporters of the Republican party. I managed to confirm online that in the last election, Michael Dell, chief executive of Dell Inc., topped the list [of IT CEOs donating to political parties], giving $119,750 to Republican candidates and $5,000 to Democrats. Dell gave $6,000 to Bush, but nothing to Kerry.

Any opinions on Toshiba?

21:57 / 13.03.06

I'm currently typing this on a Toshiba as we speak. Mobile Intel Celeron 1.50 ghz, 250 MB RAM, 20 gi hard-drive. I don't actually know the model of Toshiba (I bought it used), but I heartily recommend it. I had a ThinkPad before and it featured the nice little dot for a mouse as opposed to the mousepad, and that stupid little dot made an impression upon my monitor. With Toshiba, this monitor is very sturdy. When I press a thumb to the screen, it doesn't "shadow" like other monitors. The screen is large enough that I could happily do graphics. All in all, Toshiba seems to be a strong laptop.

I would avoid Dell and Sony VAIOs because of their un-upgrade-ability. According to my uncle, who has a Masters in Computer Sciences, Dell and VAIOs are difficult to upgrade. If you want more RAM, say, for your VAIO, you're screwed. Dell is a horse of a similar colour. It was cheaper to buy a used laptop than to upgrade my VAIO.

22:27 / 13.03.06

Steve Jobs appears to donate lots to the Democrats

Disco is My Class War

03:03 / 14.03.06

As far as I know, Dell has a bad reputation for respecting the privacy of its customers, ie here and also here. (That last article says the rumors about Dell are false, but I'm not so sure.)

I just borrowed a Toshiba laptop from my uni for three weeks. It wasn't the best model -- I think the Satellite models are the best -- but it was fast, light and quiet.

02:48 / 15.03.06

I'm also in the market for a laptop, and have been looking at a couple of Compaqs with the 64 bit AMD Turion processor. They're surprisingly cheap fot the specs: 1.6 Ghz Turion, 60G HD, 1G ram, plus the ordinary bells & whistles. Right now I'm wondering:

1) Is it in any way useful to go for the 64 bit proc? I won't be able to afford more than 4 gigs of ram for the thing any time soon anyway, and I'm not sure about the benefits of 64 bit above the possibility to address more memory.

2) The first thing I plan to do upon purchase of said machine is to scrub the HD clean and install Linux (I haven't worked on a Win machine in years, and it would make me feel icky to do so.) Does anybody have any recommendations of hardware to AVOID due to poor driver support under Linux?

julius has no imagination

09:54 / 15.03.06

Hardware to avoid in terms of Linux support? Flippant answer - most laptops, I think. More seriously: Take a close look at the laptops wireless chipset, that's likely to be a problem. Everything else is generally OK, I believe. Especially, avoid ACX100 chipsets.. those *can* be made to work with Linux using the Windows driver and some hacked wrapper system, but if you want to run proper 64-bit Linux on a 64-bit chip you're out of luck.