laptop recommendations, please...

[paysensmom]

Motherboard on mine is toast. I mainly used it for pictures and research papers. What would you recommend? I would like it to be speedy, have a dvd drive, sd card slot and NOT have windows 8.

 

[BridgetBordeaux]

Our main one broke about 2 weeks ago We got a laptop from the Dell outlet on Friday. It was a Latitude model with Windows 7, i3 processor, 320gb hd, 8x dvd+/- Rw, and 4 gb RAM for 479. It has a one year warranty, but we added 2 more with 24/7 support for 206. Came to 726 delivered to our door.

We also did not want windows 8 and could not find what we wanted in a brick and mortor store.

I am not saying that it is a screaming deal, or super powerful, but it met our needs.

edit- it is not here yet so I do not know about the card slot

 

[wekhogan]

Staples still sells Windows 7 machines, so I would expect other retailers to. From my experience, I wouldn't touch an HP - I've had 2 that have had too many stupid problems. My daughter has an Asus which has been trouble- free for 1.5 years. I got her the i5 processor and 6gb of RAM. I do a lot with pics on my desktop and use PS. If you also do, I wouldn't do less than 8gb of RAM. You'll need a sizeable hard drive, too. My husband has a Mac, and while I love the "hit the on button and it's on and ready, no boot up time waste", I can't get used to the lack of the right click drop down menu.

 

[pryncess527]

IMHO, you can't beat a refurbished mac for quality and price

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

 

[timmac]

Budget? That's the biggest thing that will dictate responses.

My most recent is a Dell Inspiron 17R Special Edition, though I got my fiance an Acer not too long ago as well. (In both cases, a good dedicated graphics card was a big part of it.)

Recommended a refurb Inspiron 17R to my ex-SIL, who loves it.

Since you're looking for (presumably) Win7, shopping online and grabbing a refurb and/or new-old-stock model is almost certainly your way to go.

 

[wiigirl]

Budget? That's the biggest thing that will dictate responses.

My most recent is a Dell Inspiron 17R Special Edition, though I got my fiance an Acer not too long ago as well. (In both cases, a good dedicated graphics card was a big part of it.)

Recommended a refurb Inspiron 17R to my ex-SIL, who loves it.

Since you're looking for (presumably) Win7, shopping online and grabbing a refurb and/or new-old-stock model is almost certainly your way to go.

100% agree on the refurb. I would check Amazon.com or they come up on Woot.com a lot. Also I would recommend trying to get one with an i5 or i7 processor.

 

[timmac]

100% agree on the refurb. I would check Amazon.com or they come up on Woot.com a lot. Also I would recommend trying to get one with an i5 or i7 processor.

One note I'd add to that is that if battery life is a consideration, to prefer the i5. It doesn't sound as though performance requirements demand the i7.

ETA:

Depending on portability requirements, things like screen size will start to come into play too. Of course, the more we know about what OP wants (and more importantly, can afford to spend), the easier to give a better answer.

 

[paysensmom]

I would like to spend around $500. My hubs told me to get whatever I want though I would love for it to last longer than 2-3 years. I'm not going to buy a Sony, HP, or Toshiba if that helps. I've had all three of those. The motherboard on both the Toshiba and HP died just after 2 and 3 years. My husbands Sony has no working USB ports and the DVD drive is also broken. I want enough space to store my pictures and word documents and have it load pages and start up quickly!

 

[timmac]

Given all that I'd definitely recommend Dell. I have had almost universally good experiences with their stuff. I'm also a huge fan of geeks.com (I get about half my stuff from them, the other half from newegg). I narrowed it down to two top picks in your situation. Keeping in mind of course this is only my opinion, but:

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=I14Z-5000SLV-XC&cat=NBB

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SIL-DELL-15R-5520-2B&cat=NBB

Both are Win7. The second one is a bit faster processor, but for what you're doing, the difference is likely not even to be noticed. Also, the second has a bit more memory, and a larger hard drive, though again, either should be more than adequate. The first one will likely have faster boot/load times, however, due to the caching SSD.

Hope this helps

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

We just ordered this one yesterday:

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product...1eac14f81704e7f51c40041en02&SearchPageIndex=1

I am in Canada, but I'm guessing that the US counterpart would carry something similar....and probably at a more favourable price.

I am partial to having a numeric keyboard (the little number pad to the right of the letters), so that put out a lot of models. We also wanted a 4-core processer (seemed many, many were only 2).

Glad to hear from a PP that Asus has proven to be reliable. Fingers crossed this one impresses me as much as my trusty (and cheap) Acer that is being passed down to DH.

 

[timmac]

We also wanted a 4-core processer (seemed many, many were only 2).

As a general piece of advice, don't get too hung up on this, particularly when comparing AMD chips against Intel. The A8-4500, although four cores, is out-performed by any number of dual core processors, in particular all of the third-gen i5, and even most of the third-gen i3 chips.

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

As a general piece of advice, don't get too hung up on this, particularly when comparing AMD chips against Intel. The A8-4500, although four cores, is out-performed by any number of dual core processors, in particular all of the third-gen i5, and even most of the third-gen i3 chips.

At this price point, though (and for my home use only), I still think we got a fairly good deal. I am betting that here in Canada, we could not purchase a laptop with the high performance dual core processers for under $500.

 

[timmac]

At this price point, though (and for my home use only), I still think we got a fairly good deal. I am betting that here in Canada, we could not purchase a laptop with the high performance dual core processers for under $500.

Oh yes, you probably got a pretty good laptop for the price, no doubt. I was only noting that "quad core" in and of itself, isn't always meaningful of performance.

ETA: My original response wasn't meant at all as an opinion of your system, of course

 

[csp131]

This is good deal here on a Dell. (Dell Latitude E5430 with i3 processor).
http://moofi.woot.com/offers/dell-l...2&utm_campaign=Commission+Junction+-+10956019

You may not have heard of this website, woot!, before but I can assure you they are legit, (they are located in Texas and owned by Amazon). I have bought from them before. They have $5 all day shipping on all items. Hope this helps!

 

[csp131]

I just noticed from a NewEgg review that the Dell Latitude does not have an optical drive. This may be because it has an SSD? Not sure, but I thought I would point that out.

 

[paysensmom]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009AF1DYI/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2TC87EJKQMY9O

How about this one? It's much higher than i would like to spend, but hubby sent me the link.

 

[timmac]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009AF1DYI/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2TC87EJKQMY9O

How about this one? It's much higher than i would like to spend, but hubby sent me the link.

For about $80 cheaper, you can get one that is higher resolution (full 1080p hd) and has a slightly better graphics card here:

http://www.overstock.com/Electronic...pspla&ef_id=UVRGcwAAARgLsUPJ:20130627015532:s

I have this same laptop, and love it. Note that the one I'm pointing to is a Win7 as well, rather than Win8.

 

[bearloch]

this is off topic but does anyone have any info or refurbs I phones? you seem very wise on the computers so I thought I would ask! thanks

 

[vicki_c]

this is off topic but does anyone have any info or refurbs I phones? you seem very wise on the computers so I thought I would ask! thanks

Apple sells refurbished iPhones on their site, I believe. We just bought a refurbished iPad a few weeks ago and I thought I saw phones in the list.