New Laptop?

Hey yall, I was just wondering if someone more experienced in this field could give me some advice on buying a brand new laptop. I want to make sure that I get one with all the bells and whistles if I am going to get one. Also, what operating system do you recommend? I have heard that Linux is the way to go. Thanks

What bells and whistles do you need? A problem that I see happening more often than I'd like is people spending hundreds, even thousands more dollars than they need on a big box that they'll never fully use.

As for Linux, yes it's a great OS, and fairly user friendly, but you need to know a little about software and driver installations to get it going at it's best. For the average user, I'd recomend Windows XP. It's about as easy as it gets.

What do you intend to do with the laptop?
Games?
Email and internet?
Work? If so, what do you do?

I'd also recommend waiting for a good sale!

But, as rasobasi suggested what you get with the laptop primarily depends on what you will use it for.

I briefly owned a laptop from HP. It had 1 GB of memory, 1.8 Ghz cpu, 80 GB hard drive, Wireless Lan, I don't even remember the model number, since I had it such a short time.

Anyway, it cost me around $1600 at the time. Two weeks later, I saw my current laptop on sale at best buy. This one is an Acer Aspire 3000. 1.8 Ghz Sempron Processor, I have 1 GB memory installed, (512 was preinstalled when I got it), But a puny little 40 GB hard drive. And Wireless Lan capabilities. This one was only $600 New. ANother couple hundred for the additional memory.

Performs just as good as the hp, imo. I can deal with the smaller hard drive. I don't keep any pics or mp3's etc on here I use an external hard drive for that.



my 2 cents.

[edit on 6/17/2006 by Mechanic 32]

I really don't plan to do anything with a Laptop but log on to good old ATS on the rare occasion that I get to go out of town. I really wouldn't need a lot of stuff for that :lol. I just wouldn't want to get a piece of crap that has a lot of problems ever time you turn around.

You could pick up a good laptop from Best buy for less than a grand. Most of the problems that people experience is with the OS, not the machine itself. If that's your concern though, try dell. They have pretty good support.

Heck, with the coupons Dell offers now you can get a pretty good Laptop for well under a grand. However, it will take time removing all the rubbish they preinstall now, and this would only work if you like Windows.

Actually, I guess you could wipe the harddrive and put Linux on or something.

-O

I use a laptop at work and own two personally, I used to have Compaq's, but my last two have been DELLs and I can honestly say the support is excellent, and they are very inexpensive to boot. My work laptop is a dell as well.

As stated prior, you will have to remove a load of stuff they put on it, but thats just time.

I run one with Linux and one with XP and the XP one is just real user friendly.

I had a chance to buy a Dell laptop from a buddy a while back at a pretty good deal- like under 500.00 but someone beat me to it.

I was surprised at the quality and the durability of one of the Laptops my wife uses for work.
It's an Acer Aspire, and apparently the price was pretty good too.

Other than that , I have a couple of Thinkpads, from the IBM days, a Gateway (yuk)
And a new HP, which is broken right now, as is the one I got for my nephew.

NOTEBOOKS



Gateway MX6027 Intel Celeron M 1.4GHz / 802.11g Wireless / 15.4-Inch WXGA / 256MB DDR / 60GB HDD / CDRW / DVD-ROM / Windows XP Home / Refurbished Notebook PC


Acer Aspire AS5002WLMi AMD Turion 64 Mobile Technology ML-30 1.6GHz / 802.11b/g Wireless / 15.4-Inch XGA / 512MB DDR / 80 GB HDD / DVDRW / Windows XP Home / Notebook PC


Sony VAIO FS710 Intel Celeron M 1.5GHz / 802.11b/g Wireless / 15.4-Inch WXGA / 512MB DDR2 / 80GB HDD / DVDRW DL / Windows XP Home / Notebook PC


TABLETS
Gateway CX2618 Intel Centrino Pentium M 1.73GHz / 802.11g Wireless / 14-Inch WXGA / 1GB DDR2 / 80GB HDD / DVDRW / Windows XP Tablet Edition / Refurbished Notebook PC

The refurbished one is obviously the cheapest. I've heard really good things about Acer and Sony VAIO.