Which laptop?

[TinkOhio]

I posted earlier about this and haven't had much luck...so here goes (again.) I will be purchasing a laptop soon and have no idea what kind to get and where to find the best deal. I will only need one for normal household stuff, like checking emails, research, drafting simple documents, etc. This will be a gift, and I really don't want to spend more than necessary. What brand do you like, how much memory should I get, and what other features or add-ons should I look at? And where can I get one at a discount? I do qualify for student discounts.

Thanks for any help!

 

[gr8tdame]

Macbook... don't have to worry about viruses and they offer a student discount. The best time to buy is usually aug-sept. When I bought mine I got the back to school special... which included a free printer and a free IPOD.
Love my mac.

 

[squirrel]

I have an iBook and a Dell.

I bought the Dell last year with software for making my own DVD's of my WDW trips. I don't use it online as I want to keep it clean (no viruses).

It is true that there are few viruses for Mac's. My iBook is quite old 2001, I think so it doesn't have much memory or power.

If you can afford a Mac and like them go for it. I didn't want to spend that kind of money on another computer when I already had 3.

 

[SalandJeff]

I am also shopping for a new laptop and it is making my head spin. There are so many different configurations, it is hard to compare. I will say that even if you don't buy on Amazon or Costco, they have user ratings so you can get feedback from actual users. I have also been researching on Consumer Reports.

I know Macs are great, but they are too expensive for my budget right now.

 

[gr8tdame]

I am also shopping for a new laptop and it is making my head spin. There are so many different configurations, it is hard to compare. I will say that even if you don't buy on Amazon or Costco, they have user ratings so you can get feedback from actual users. I have also been researching on Consumer Reports.

I know Macs are great, but they are too expensive for my budget right now.

You can sometimes get a good deal on refurbished ones at Apple.com
and they have the same warranty as anew one. The refurbished ones are sometimes just open box items.

 

[A Mickeyfan]

I have the Toshiba Satellite L505D-S5983 & love it. Only problem is the battery doesn't last very long, just about 2 and half hours. I use it plugged in most of the time so I am OK with the short battery life.

My DD's have a Compaq Presario (not sure of the model #) & a Dell Inspiron 1545 T6600 (with the 500 hard drive) and they have been happy with them.
The Toshiba was purchased at Best Buy this past November, the Compaq at Walmart about 3 years ago & the Dell in November at Staples...
All were under $500, the Dell being the most expensive at $499 (got a super deal on it ).

 

[kmccain]

I just bought this for my daughter for college

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=5608152&sku=G180-15651&srkey=Gateway%20NV5387u%20LX.WGC02.044%20Notebook%20PC%20-%20AMD%20Turion%20II%20Ultra%20Dual-Core%20M600%202.4GHz,%204GB%20DDR2,%20320G

 

[suzannecstarr]

I would recommend a Mac to anyone who can afford one. They've been rated #1 by Consumer Reports for as long as it's been rating home computers. I can personally attest to the superior performance, but most important for me is the service. If you have a Mac store near you then it really becomes the best option. I can give you several examples of the best customer service ever heard of but I'll only tell you of my most recent.

I spilled strawberry syrup on my laptop. I would love to blame this on my children, but alas. Anyway, I made an appt to bring it to the Mac store for repair. I arrived a half hour late (it was not a good day) with a trunk full of creme brulee on my way to a cooking competition. They helped me immediately, took my laptop and info and allowed me to leave. They called me about two hours later and left a message saying that I must be busy "brulee-ing" but that my computer was ready and not to worry about the charge. There is not a single warranty in the world that covers strawberry syrup keyboard replacement. Mac's doesn't either but they have never charged me for a thing. I can't say enough about their customer service.

All I could think was that if I had bought a Sony (or whatever) from Best Buy, I would have had to pay $50 just to ship the darn thing for a repair estimate. Then you get the call four days later that says "we'll fix it for $400 or you can pay $50 for us to ship it back." Yuck.

 

[polineedyan]

If youre not going with the Mac, but instead looking for value, I can tell you I bought this compaq about a year ago.Model CQ60. at Best Buy I saw it just the other day for 369. Its a great little laptop for the money. As long as i stay off Internet Explorer, I havent had any problems with it. Check that, I burned up the hard drive from watching a ton of video and not keeping it cool.
Believe it or not, Wal Mart has some good prices if youre looking for a starter model.

 

[ClarabelleCowFan]

I was just coming to post a question about Mac vs PC. We are currently shopping for a new one and as much as I love the Macs I just can't justify the price for one. I worked on Macs for years but have never had one for home.

Mac lovers - convince me why I should invest in a Mac. How long do you keep your Macs? Any service issues? I fell in love with the 15" MacBook Pro at Best Buy tonite but the price is making my head spin. All I really use a laptop for would be school work, selling on ebay and playing games on Facebook. DH said to look at it as an investment.

We have managed to kill 2 PC laptops in the past 8 months from falls off the sofa onto the floor. I would hate to invest in a MacBook and then something happen to it. Is there any type of warranty for accidents on Macs thru Apple?

 

[Swimnoid]

If I had the money I would go with a Mac. But I dont so...I have had 3 dells; the first one was great, the second one not so much, the current one (inspiron 1545 or 1505...not with me at the moment) is 4 years old and still runs great. The battery doesnt last though, I have been through 3.

I just bought my daughter an HP for graduation. I cant remember the model number but it was around $600 at Best Buy and it is "SWEET"!! She loves it. It comes with windows 7 and that is nice too. I actually bought it online and there was a discount. I think it was about 4G of RAM and about 320 G hard drive.

 

[JCMHutch]

A couple of year's ago I purchased a laptop to replace my iBook. I loved the Apple but like many could not justify the cost. I purchased an Acer on sale at Best Buy and so far it has been great. I use it for e-mails, Internet surfing, some desktop publishing and Word/excel/ppt documents. The price was a lot lower than the equivalent iBook!

DH just recently replaced his Compaq Presario (7 years old) with a new one from Staples and is very happy with it. He's big on Internet surfing and iTunes and his new pc is perfect for it.

 

[gacompguy]

I would recommend a Mac to anyone who can afford one. They've been rated #1 by Consumer Reports for as long as it's been rating home computers. I can personally attest to the superior performance, but most important for me is the service. If you have a Mac store near you then it really becomes the best option. I can give you several examples of the best customer service ever heard of but I'll only tell you of my most recent.

I spilled strawberry syrup on my laptop. I would love to blame this on my children, but alas. Anyway, I made an appt to bring it to the Mac store for repair. I arrived a half hour late (it was not a good day) with a trunk full of creme brulee on my way to a cooking competition. They helped me immediately, took my laptop and info and allowed me to leave. They called me about two hours later and left a message saying that I must be busy "brulee-ing" but that my computer was ready and not to worry about the charge. There is not a single warranty in the world that covers strawberry syrup keyboard replacement. Mac's doesn't either but they have never charged me for a thing. I can't say enough about their customer service.

All I could think was that if I had bought a Sony (or whatever) from Best Buy, I would have had to pay $50 just to ship the darn thing for a repair estimate. Then you get the call four days later that says "we'll fix it for $400 or you can pay $50 for us to ship it back." Yuck.

I feel the need to point out that not every Apple Store will fix damage like this 100% of the time. My experience has been that "accidential damage" types of repairs are handled on a case-by-case basis. I've personally taken in laptops with non-functional keys on the keyboard only to be told that the laptop smelled of soda/juice and that my company would have to pay the cost of the repair... even with AppleCare added. Yet, I've also had laptops that were dropped (which I also informed the Apple Store of) that they replaced multiple components (including the outer shell) without batting an eyelash.

If you purchase directly from Dell or Lenovo, both do offer "accidential damage" coverage for additional cost (above that of the standard warranty). I've had to excercise the accidential coverage on quite a few Dell and Lenovo laptops and never had any problem. In several situations, the laptop was replaced with a more current model.

 

[bonoriffic]

While deals can be had at brick and mortar stores, you have to know what you are looking for. You are usually better off buying online (and hopefully saving sales tax) especially when stack-able coupons appear.

There are sites devoted to finding such deals for you. gotapex.com is one such site, telling you the deal, when it expires, coupons codes to apply, and suggested upgrades that are value priced. Others to look at are techdeals.net and slickdeals.net. But you have to act fast, companies will raise the price if an item is selling fast.

When comparing deals you need to be aware of the processor. Here are the processor names in order of power.
Atom, Celeron, Pentium, Pentium Dual Core, Core 2 Duo, i3, i5, i7.

3GB of memory is also the minimum you should get as well as Windows 7 Home Premium.

Common tricks to lower the price of the laptop are to install Windows 7 Starter or Basic edition and include 2 GB of memory.

When you have to pick between one or the other, always take more memory over a larger hard drive. Always take a 2 processor category improvement over memory. (So a i3 with 2GB memory is better than a Pentium Dual Core with 3GB memory for the same price)

There are other items to consider such as video cards, but you aren't doing anything with the laptop to dictate having that sway your choice as the included options will most likely always be just fine for you.

 

[jsmith]

Get what you want in the way of processor, RAM and Harddrive-along with bells and whistles-that you can afford. No computer is immune to hard ware problems-they are made of tiny parts embedded in silcone-things can go wrong. And despite contention to the contrary-NO computer is immune to software viruses-while they are much less common in unix type operating systems -Linux and MAC OS-those systems are also much much harder to remove viruses from when they do get them. On one brand is better than another and for hardware issues it can be luck of the draw. We have three toshiba sattellites that seem virtually indestructiable-and to MAC book pros that are pieces of complete junk-thats just how it goes. No two people have the same experience. Decide what you want and go for it.

 

[luvthemouse71]

I say, get a Macbook..not the cheapest things initially, but they are very reliable. I've had mine over a year-it hasn't crashed once. I also don't have to have anti-virus protection on it, since the vast majority of viruses target PC's..I look at it as a good initial investment-I poured more cash into my PCs what with the antivirus software and other software to keep it running smoothly. Haven't had to put any extra money into the Macbook. Plus, you can get the basic Macbook for under $1000.

Best thing I ever did was switch from PC to Mac.

 

[Jodijo]

Mac!!!!! I know that Mac's are expensive but not in the long run. I have had 1 Mac book to my husbands 3 PC's. He constantly had viruses and problems that made his laptops unusable. He now has a Mac and would never go back to a PC. Also, Apple has student discounts and refurbished laptops at great prices.

 

[SalandJeff]

While deals can be had at brick and mortar stores, you have to know what you are looking for. You are usually better off buying online (and hopefully saving sales tax) especially when stack-able coupons appear.

There are sites devoted to finding such deals for you. gotapex.com is one such site, telling you the deal, when it expires, coupons codes to apply, and suggested upgrades that are value priced. Others to look at are techdeals.net and slickdeals.net. But you have to act fast, companies will raise the price if an item is selling fast.

When comparing deals you need to be aware of the processor. Here are the processor names in order of power.
Atom, Celeron, Pentium, Pentium Dual Core, Core 2 Duo, i3, i5, i7.

3GB of memory is also the minimum you should get as well as Windows 7 Home Premium.

Common tricks to lower the price of the laptop are to install Windows 7 Starter or Basic edition and include 2 GB of memory.

When you have to pick between one or the other, always take more memory over a larger hard drive. Always take a 2 processor category improvement over memory. (So a i3 with 2GB memory is better than a Pentium Dual Core with 3GB memory for the same price)

There are other items to consider such as video cards, but you aren't doing anything with the laptop to dictate having that sway your choice as the included options will most likely always be just fine for you.

Thank you so much for all this "technical" advice. I find it very helpful in trying to sort out all the features and what is really important.

 

[Pumbaa_]

ipad

 

[eatsleepdisney]

Don't get a Dell. For one the power cords die quickly and so after the warranty for your laptop's up you'll probably have to spend another $80ish for a new one. Also the customer service is horrible, something not caused by me happened to my laptop and I called and I was on the phone for 3 hrs with them past midnight and they charged $100 to reset my computer. So that's fine, but the guy said my computer will be the same as it was when I got it, and word was already installed. Of course word was gone and they told me they couldn't do anything so I have to spend $100 more to get that. Then about a week later my computer started and did this automatic update thing and now the laptop won't pick up internet. I called them back and the guy told me they have to charge me $50 to try to fix it. When I explained that this all seemed to happen because of the reset he shrugged it off so I asked to speak to a manager and he laughed and said the manager would say the same thing. I haven't done anything with it so I'm not able to use it atm. I'm just so sick with them and their service- they aren't helpful, it takes FOREVER to resolve any issue, and no offence but they're hard to understand, and part of that reason is because some don't talk clear and constantly mumble.
I do not recommend a dell. The next computer I buy will be a Mac, I had one and in addition to working fabulously the customer service was awesome.