Laptop Advice?

[hdlynnette]

I'm shopping for a laptop and wanted to know if anyone has any advice as to what to and not to get. I basically want to be able to get to my email, play the games at pogo.com, listen to CD's and watch DVD's. I get a discount through my work with Dell, so that's already decided. Any suggestions or good and/or bad experiences would be greatly appreciated.

 

[rollinlower]

um i have a inspiron 1300 and love it

 

[cd1_christine]

Well...

I'm shopping for a laptop and wanted to know if anyone has any advice as to what to and not to get. I basically want to be able to get to my email, play the games at pogo.com, listen to CD's and watch DVD's. I get a discount through my work with Dell, so that's already decided. Any suggestions or good and/or bad experiences would be greatly appreciated.

My first suggestion would have been don't go with Dell, but you're already decided on that.

If all you need is some basic Internet stuff, music and movies, and the odd online game, you don't need anything overly powerful. A Celeron a slower-clocked Pentium M would be fine. 512MB RAM would be a bit of a speed improvement, and make your hard drive last longer, but 256MB would do. 40-60GB hard drive...

One thing you will want to do, though: Every Dell machine (actually, pretty much every name brand) I've seen in the past little while comes with spyware preinstalled. That way they can sell them cheaper, because some advertiser pays for part of your laptop. Get it cleaned off properly. If you can do it yourself, great, but you definitely want to get rid of the spyware, as it can really slow down any system, as well as continually install more spyware.

You can uninstall MyWaySearch from the Add/Remove programs in the control panel, and the AOL software is a resource pig, too. I'd suggest running a couple of good spyware scanners on it after that, though, as there's possibly more.

 

[SweetErika]

Even if you get a discount, Dell might not be the best choice financially or equiptment-wise. Just something that we considered when we were buying last year and could have gotten a 20% discount on Dell.

We've been very happy with fairly basic Compaq/HP and Toshiba notebooks that we've bought. With this last one, we bought a Compaq that fit our requirements on sale at a major retailer (I think the laptop, an all-in-one printer and a wireless router were $550 total after rebates), and just stuck some more RAM from NewEgg.com in it, and it's turned out to be a great deal that suits all of our needs, from gaming to web design to web stuff.

We're big on comparison shopping, and didn't make this decision hastily. Many of the other brands were too expensive, not very upgradeable, and didn't get good reviews from a variety of sources. I think we even asked here in How To -- at least I know I've seen many other threads asking for laptop recommendations, so try searching if you haven't already.

It sounds like you don't need anything special, just a good, solid machine that will perform well and last. Take care not to get talked into more than you need or overly-expensive upgrades like RAM that you can get elsewhere cheaply and easily. Make sure the brand you buy doesn't have proprietary parts that can't be swapped with other brands. Do some research (http://www.newegg.com and other sites have tons of honest reviews), don't get set on a certain brand, and you'll be fine.

 

[Ravin the Poet]

Throw the Dell against the wall. Discount or not, its just not worth it with all the problems you will have.

As stated, you don't need something huge. You need something with a DVD player and a half decent video card. Anything else is just an add on, besides of course the normal stuff.

 

[ammre]

i have a dell inspiron 8100, it's about 6 years old now, maybe more. I love it. I loved it.
It still works, but it has some quirks. Eventuitally i broke down and bought a macbookPro, mostly because it's better for what i need to do on it, but the dell lasted me for a long time. (not that it's not warented anymore i'm going to wipe it, take it apart, put it back together again, then partition it so it runs windoze and linux. raaahhh)
If you get a dell, get a warente. Shit happens, and yeah soemtimes you can spend a long time waiting on the phone for tech support, but once you reach them they'll do shit like send a techie to repace your screen, not just once but twice! (that alone must have cost them twice what i paid for it) so the warentes are fantastic.

 

[Guest]

 

[silverwhisper]

HDlynette queried
i'm shopping for a laptop and wanted to know if anyone has any advice as to what to and not to get. i basically want to be able to get to my email, play the games at pogo.com, listen to CDs and watch DVDs. i get a discount through my work with dell, so that's already decided. any suggestions or good and/or bad experiences would be greatly appreciated.

if you're looking specifically for a laptop and not a desktop, you might want to reconsider your decision to buy dell. in the past 6 months or so, the failure rate of dell laptop motherboards has gone up considerably--enough so that my IT consultant (he's our support/networking/security guy) recommended that i not get a dell.

having said that, my work-issued laptops (i've had 2) were dells and i got good use out of 'em. my first was an latitude 600m, which was replaced a month ago with an inspiron e1505. good graphics, a keyboard i like, the touchpad is good. my last laptop died after 2.5 years of service--a motherboard death at that stage was unexpected, but up until that point, it served me well.

given that your requirements are extremely light, i would recommend considering instead another manufacturer. i'm not crazy about HP/compaq hardware. sony's vaio's are good quality (although as a personal note, i don't like the action on the keyboard but that's very subjective).

i don't know how often you'll be using your laptop away from an outlet, but if you'll be doing that often, consider springing for the bigger batteries, btw. yes, plural: a second one might not be a bad insurance policy.

ed

 

[TBKahuna123]

I'll join the fray in suggesting NOT to buy a Dell. Even with the discounts, the Dell's are often more expensive than similarly configured models or other manufacturers. Seriously, I'd go look at your local Best Buy or Circuit City. I was shocked at the prices of computers at Best Buy. I bought my new desktop last month for less than I could have built it from parts.

Here at work we run all HP's. My current laptop is an NX8200, but that's way more system than you are looking for I'm sure. Still, we have a lot of different models here that I'm responsible for and I've had ZERO problems since we switched to HP 3 years ago. Good product, reasonable prices, and my recommendation.

One other thing, whatever you decide make SURE you get 512MB of RAM. Not only is this the real minimum for running Windows XP efficiently(don't by MS's 256MB Min.), but most laptops these days have Shared memory. This means that your computer shares your main memory and video memory. With 256MB you are really going to slow down your system. For the extra $50-100 you'd spend to double your memeory, it's the best upgrade you can make. Way more important than processor speed.

 

[Bert Notorius]

Are you absolutely sure you need to go with a laptop? They are still quite a bit more expensive than an equally equipped desktop. Are you set up with a wireless router? Otherwise you will still be tied to a cable somewhere. And there is the danger of damage to the machine. If you really plan on travelling with it, buy a good warranty- a 2 or 3 year plan. I paid $2500 for a hp Pavillion, but I use graphically intense programs and Dell didnt have a good solution for my needs. Dell is a good company and has good products. I maintained 50 Dell desktops for a company and had little trouble.

 

[rcuhljr]

Just to offer a contrary opinion and cloud things up a little, I highly reccomend dell, especially for less computer literate users. Use a website like www.fatwallet.com to monitor all of dells deals until you can combine two or three and you can pull off a computer cheaper then even a handbuilt one. I can't vouch for their laptops, but dells huge quantity of production allows them a lot of discounts.

Dell offers solid computers, as good as any other major manufacturer, and does it with some of the best prices and selection I've found. My computer is still almost top of the line a year and half after I bought it, with a wonderful LCD monitor, 2 gig of ram, the XT800 radeon 120gig hard drive cd and dvd burner, and I got it cheap. It's been rock solid and I haven't had any issues to date.

 

[BigFatMeat]

I use a Dell laptop also. Mine's an Inspiron 1100 and I love this thing. I bought it off of a store that was auctioning laptops on Ebay. I didn't even pay $500 for it, including S&H. It's got a P4 processor, 2.2Ghz, 256MB, and 20GB and a DVD player. I had to get a buddy to hook me up with an operating system and all that, but it was a good buy.

The store that auctioned it off is still auctioning and selling on Ebay. Let me know if you want a name or a link.

 

[unspoken_wish]

I have a Toshiba laptop and I'm very happy with it. I even spilled an entire glass of water on the keyboard once, it soaked into the entire computer and I thought it was dead but 3 days later of drying out it miraculously came back to life full force no damage whatsoever. I'm happy lol.

 

[midwestyankee]

Mind if I toss in a curve ball? I'm considering the purchase of a new desktop pc for my office and I have a question that applies to both desktops and laptops. What makes are less convenient to upgrade? In a previous life, my company's IT guy was quite down on HPs and Compaqs because they used so many proprietary parts and were difficult to upgrade. A few comments in this thread seem to suggest that this might not be the case any longer.

In general, what brands allow the most flexibility in upgrading?

As a corollary to the idea of buying on ebay, does anyone have any experience buying through uBid.com?

 

[SweetErika]

Mind if I toss in a curve ball? I'm considering the purchase of a new desktop pc for my office and I have a question that applies to both desktops and laptops. What makes are less convenient to upgrade? In a previous life, my company's IT guy was quite down on HPs and Compaqs because they used so many proprietary parts and were difficult to upgrade. A few comments in this thread seem to suggest that this might not be the case any longer.

In general, what brands allow the most flexibility in upgrading?

As a corollary to the idea of buying on ebay, does anyone have any experience buying through uBid.com?

From Hubby: It's usually the motherboard and power supply that are proprietary and can't be switched out without changing a lot of other parts. This is only an issue if those parts fail or you want to upgrade the processor or something like a video card that requires a larger power supply than you currently have. Also, a new motherboard may not fit in the brand's case, so you'd have to buy a new one. These were our problems with Dell.

However, the average user is only likely to upgrade things like RAM and hard drives, which isn't a problem with just about any brand now. Often Compaq/HP are a good value for the average user, and by the time one wants to swap proprietary parts, it's just as cost-effective to buy a new one.

If you truly want everything to be upgradeable, your best bet is to build your own (not tough) or go with a smaller company that essentially does the same.

 

[cd1_christine]

From Hubby: It's usually the motherboard and power supply that are proprietary and can't be switched out without changing a lot of other parts. This is only an issue if those parts fail or you want to upgrade the processor or something like a video card that requires a larger power supply than you currently have. Also, a new motherboard may not fit in the brand's case, so you'd have to buy a new one. These were our problems with Dell.

I've got a Compaq in my shop right now that's a Pentium 4, only a year old, part of a bundle bought from Best Buy, and you can't upgrade the video. It's got onboard Intel, which, for onboard, is pretty good, but it still sucks. But there are no expansion slots to take even a moderately new video card. There are only 3 PCI slots, FFS! Hell, my Celeron 300A from 1999 had an AGP slot. How hard would it have been to put in something to make it upgradeable? I guess they'd rather just have the customer buy a whole new computer when it's time to upgrade.

Bastards!

And it's not even like it's a good system in any other way either. The motherboard is made by MSI (special model for Compaq only). That's a mid-quality brand that many mom&pop shops use. So what's the big advantage to buying a Compaq? Weak power supply, no upgrade capabilities, 5 year old technology for optical drives, and similar industry standard parts that any old independent place uses.

Name brands piss me off!

 

[cd1_christine]

Mind if I toss in a curve ball? I'm considering the purchase of a new desktop pc for my office and I have a question that applies to both desktops and laptops. What makes are less convenient to upgrade? In a previous life, my company's IT guy was quite down on HPs and Compaqs because they used so many proprietary parts and were difficult to upgrade. A few comments in this thread seem to suggest that this might not be the case any longer.

In general, what brands allow the most flexibility in upgrading?

As a corollary to the idea of buying on ebay, does anyone have any experience buying through uBid.com?

The hardest to upgrade are the name brands. All of them. They all use proprietary parts in some way, weak power supplies, or, like my previous post states, motherboards with no useful expansion slots.

The most flexibility is found in the no-name brands built by your local independent computer shop. They buy various parts from various suppliers, all designed to industry standards that are followed by everyone (except the big companies). They have to work with everything out there, because nobody builds, or has the money or marketshare clout to get parts custom built.
The only proprietary crap you'll find is in the name brands, although some are worse than others. Dell is, in my experience, the worst. HP/Compaq generally uses close to industry standard for everything, but with useful features (expansion slots) cut out in the name of saving a few pennies per system. Gateway I don't have a lot of experience with, as I don't see a lot in my neck of the woods, although I know they all come with a remote software installation service that is impossible to turn off using anything in the Windows interface. I really wonder why they need this on home systems. What are they up to?

If you want a desktop, buy something from a local shop, and make sure they put in a decent quality power supply. Either an ACE, Sparkle Power, or Startech.
Power supplies are often overlooked, but a bad supply will die quickly, for a start, and poor voltage regulation can lead to other component failures, as well as instability and crashing in the system in general.

 

[SweetErika]

I've got a Compaq in my shop right now that's a Pentium 4, only a year old, part of a bundle bought from Best Buy, and you can't upgrade the video. It's got onboard Intel, which, for onboard, is pretty good, but it still sucks. But there are no expansion slots to take even a moderately new video card. There are only 3 PCI slots, FFS! Hell, my Celeron 300A from 1999 had an AGP slot. How hard would it have been to put in something to make it upgradeable? I guess they'd rather just have the customer buy a whole new computer when it's time to upgrade.

Bastards!

And it's not even like it's a good system in any other way either. The motherboard is made by MSI (special model for Compaq only). That's a mid-quality brand that many mom&pop shops use. So what's the big advantage to buying a Compaq? Weak power supply, no upgrade capabilities, 5 year old technology for optical drives, and similar industry standard parts that any old independent place uses.

Name brands piss me off!

That sucks, and is why we build our own. I'm guessing they don't put in something to make it upgradeable because it's cheaper not to, and often people would PREFER to buy a new computer (with newer technology, etc.) than upgrade an older one. Most people don't know a ton about the technical aspects in the first place, and wouldn't have any idea of where to start when it comes to video cards and such.