Laptop recommendations

What are good components to look for?

[MatthewHSE]

I'm looking into buying a laptop in the next couple of months, and would like some recommendations. I've heard you pretty much can't build your own laptop, so I count on buying "out of the box." But, what are some components to watch for to be included? For instance, what's a good processor, or amount of memory, hard-drive space, speed and cache, etc.? Also, are there any points on which to be particular about the monitor, accessories, etc.?

I'm looking to spend between $600-$800, which I know won't get me anything cutting-edge. But I want to get the best I can for my money. Any and all recommendations are appreciated!

Thanks,

Matthew

[Livenomadic]

1. Waiting until the Day After Thanksgiving

2. Go to BestBuy at 4:00am in the Morning

3. Stand in line for 2.5 hours

4. Buy an awesome laptop for $500

[isitreal]

Be very careful with getting cheap laptops, when components fail you can't replace them, IBM stands alone in reliability, that's currently the only laptop I would buy, new or used. That's after seeing laptop after laptop have failures over the years, Toshiba used to be up there but seem to have suffered a drop in reliability.

Gateway, Fujitsu, compaq, etc I'd avoid. Dells might or might not be ok, hard to say for sure. Sonys are pretty but I think not quite as durable.

You can currently get a new IBM g series for about $1100 on the ibm site, those are a really good deal, but are new, so you won't be able to find a used one yet.

Ibms get their reliability by not offering a load of extra features, they are solid corporate laptops, made to be used, not gaming things etc.

If you get a used one, this becomes very important, a failed screen costs about $600 to replace, give or take, a failed internal modem/networking etc means a motherboard replacement.

Others will disagree, but I go by this simple procedure:

google: laptop brand, model number + the word 'problems'.

Since people tend to publish or review products when they have bad experiences, it's pretty easy to find out which products just aren't getting bad reviews, I helped a client do this, we were looking at fujitsus and toshibas, most reviews ran about 80% plus [and keep in mind many positive reviews on sites may have been placed by the pr companies the manufactorer pays to do things like that] 20% negative. I was not able to find negative reviews on the model of ibm that she ended up getting, she's had a compaq, nothing but trouble, in and out of the shop, another client went fujitsu, nothing but trouble, in and out of the shop, current reviews indicate this problem is not resolved. I was foolish enough to buy a gateway a long time ago, screen has big bug in it, hinge shorts out screen connection at random times.

[microcars]

But I want to get the best I can for my money.

OK
refurb Apple iBook direct from Apple or from Smalldog or Expercom

sorry, no links for you, but I've had really good luck with Apple Factory refurbs from those sources.

[nalin]

I had horrible expiriences with one of the larger vendors - something like 4 or 5 warranty replacements, probably the better part of a day on hold, escalation through low-level managment and then a BBB complaint which recently was brought to closure by a full refund.

Consequently I'm into companies that provide better customer satisfaction, Apple and IBM rank best in this department (for laptops) according to a PCWorld survey a few months ago.

Incedentally you can build your own laptop. Acer (or mabye Asus cant remember for sure on this one), and ECS Desknote series are both available barebones though the ECS line does not include an internal battery.

[isitreal]

which brand? let people know, save them your painful experience.

[skibum]

I would never, ever buy anything from Gateway. Terrible experiences with the computers and their service department.

Switched to SONY & got the FRV37 at Best Buy for about $1,100 last December. It's heavy but I haven't replaced the desktop yet cause this thing has everything, is lightning fast, stable, CDRW/DWDRW.

It doesn't have built in wireless, its heavy and the battery is only good for about 2 hours but based on the performance so far, I'm hooked on SONY.

Make sure you get a large enough hard drive, as the space fills up fast.

They also had killer deals on Toshiba for as low as $500.00 with a bunch of rebates when this one was on sale.

[nalin]

which brand? let people know, save them your painful experience.

Dell (incedentally a friend and I purchased two almost identical machines a day apart and both had problems aboundant enough that they were refunded) - but the model (5150) was one of the first to incorperate a p4 desktop version processor and as such my expiriences may be a typical. All I know is I have no plans to purchase notebooks from them in the near future.

[podman]

I had a Dell laptop at one point. First there was a special deal about getting an extra battery, and some other stuff, which did not arrive with the machine, and took six months to resolve.

The machine worked fine till the warranty expired, then the internal battery failed. On a desktop machine I would fix it myself, and it would cost $5.00. Dell told me it would be $100 for the battery and $150 labor to replace it.

Then the drive failed, I'm in Canada and I was quoted many hundreds of dollars just for the drive. I then called Dell USA, where I was quoted about 60% of that but they refused to ship to Canada. Either way the cost of the drive was robbery. I did not even ask for labor costs since it was going to take a few weeks to get the drive.

I took the machine apart, found the brand and model, called my local drive wholsaler, drove over, and got a new drive for $80, and installed it myself.

These days, I've managed to avoid buying a laptop and try to borrow one from clients.

[isitreal]

They also had killer deals on Toshiba

run from killer deals, there's a reason a laptop is cheap, on sale, etc, and it's not because it's a rock solid performer.

The dell story is interesting, my impression of dell stuff is that it's not very good, but has an excellent service contract, however I think there is probably a big difference between their corporate service, which is excellent, and their consumer service. But having great service doesn't help you when you got the 3 year service contract and the display/mobo/harddrive fails at 3 years and a day. And if you didn't get any service contract, or a 1 year one, have fun.

My experience with gateway is the same, junk, garbage, there's a reason gateway is failing fast.

[maccas]

If you want more bang for the buck have a look at the aopen 1557 g/gl barebones system, and build it up youself or get it custom built.