getting a new laptop

[stretch]

any recommendations? i dont plan on using it for a ton of stuff. just using MS office programs, itunes, watching movies, and perhaps playing some old NES/SNES games on emulators. what would you recommend? i dont wanna pay a shitload, but i still want something nice that would last. im not a big fan of HPs because ive had a few and they always would somehow get fucked up, but perhaps they have gotten better in recent years. i had a Sony Vaio that was great for a long time. what about Dell? any suggestions?

[METALMiKE]

How much are you willing to pay?

[stretch]

i dont wanna spend more than $1,000, unless its a ridiculously good deal

[koriwhat]

whatever you get, unless it's a macbook, do yourself a favor by reformatting the hard drive and installing a linux distro like ubuntu on it.

[resistanze]

I've always been a fan of ASUS laptops. Good build quality, good warranty.

Not sure how many inches you're looking at, but you can get a real nice 16" for $799.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220520

[resistanze]

And HP is still dogshit.

[Bender]

I bought a used HP 9727 laptop 6 months ago. Its a 17" multimedia machine. The reseller store (Mr. Notebook in san antonio) wipes out the hard drives of used machines, and does a clean install of Vista - without all the crap that new machines come with.

It's been great so far. My first laptop, so I don't really have anything to compare it to.

It was only $599.

[stretch]

whatever you get, unless it's a macbook, do yourself a favor by reformatting the hard drive and installing a linux distro like ubuntu on it.

why? whats so great about linux?

[stretch]

I've always been a fan of ASUS laptops. Good build quality, good warranty.

Not sure how many inches you're looking at, but you can get a real nice 16" for $799.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220520

never really heard of asus, so i dont know much about them. ill check em out.

[stretch]

I bought a used HP 9727 laptop 6 months ago. Its a 17" multimedia machine. The reseller store (Mr. Notebook in san antonio) wipes out the hard drives of used machines, and does a clean install of Vista - without all the crap that new machines come with.

It's been great so far. My first laptop, so I don't really have anything to compare it to.

It was only $599.

that is what always was the issue with HP. i would have to take all that pre-loaded bullshit off. but it seemed like i would always find something new that was slowing the machine down. an endless process.

[Bender]

yep, that's why I never buy new computers. I home-build my own desktops, and this laptop was "used" with a clean Vista install, absolutely nothing else on it at all. I guess I got lucky for $599 (on sale from $799), has 2GB (or 3?) of RAM, a separate nvidia video card, 250 GB hard drive with an empty spot for a 2nd H-D, DVD burner and all sorts of ports and slots around the edges.

[koriwhat]

why? whats so great about linux?

compared to windows... everything linux is great!

[Bender]

with linux and Open Office, people can no longer say "but I have to have windows, I use MS office...".

Open Office can read MS office files, AND can save in Office format also, so who needs Office?

free linux > expensive windows

free Open Office > expensive Office

however, if I bought a machine with windoze already on it (xp or vista or windows 7) I'd leave it on it, and add linux, for a dual-boot machine.

[Dex]

Macbook.

[ChumpDumper]

If you are buying a new windows machine, I'd wait a month or two. Sellers are going to start including free upgrades to Windows 7 on their Vista machines around that time.

[stretch]

with linux and Open Office, people can no longer say "but I have to have windows, I use MS office...".

Open Office can read MS office files, AND can save in Office format also, so who needs Office?

free linux > expensive windows

free Open Office > expensive Office

however, if I bought a machine with windoze already on it (xp or vista or windows 7) I'd leave it on it, and add linux, for a dual-boot machine.

i still dont know a lot about linux though. more information as to what makes it better than windows would be great.

i do use open office though. great stuff :tu

[stretch]

If you are buying a new windows machine, I'd wait a month or two. Sellers are going to start including free upgrades to Windows 7 on their Vista machines around that time.

you know, i was actually thinking about that too. good looking out.

[Bender]

what's the eta on windows 7 for the masses? I mean, buying off the shelf.

can you get it at an upgrade price if you have XP? or you have to be upgrading from vista?

[Heath Ledger]

asus is a big step down from hp, vaios are overpriced, i have had 4 hp laptops and from my experience they have all been solid. Dells are great with great customer service.

[stretch]

asus is a big step down from hp, vaios are overpriced, i have had 4 hp laptops and from my experience they have all been solid. Dells are great with great customer service.

yeah ive always heard very good things about dell

[ChumpDumper]

For some reason, my HP/Compaq laptops have always run stupidly hot. They were quick to honor the warranty on a failing hard drive though.

My Acers run super cool by comparison -- I got those used and downgraded to XP Pro as those models had all the drivers more or less available on their websites. I might downgrade or dual boot the HP I have now to see if it acts any differently, as someone independently compiled XP drivers for the model I have.

[resistanze]

For some reason, my HP/Compaq laptops have always run stupidly hot.

This. I had to friends over the past year who had their overheating HPs kill their wireless cards. Overheating seems common for HPs.

[FaithInOne]

LENOVO!

Here is what you do. Wait for them to have a 10-15% off sale. They are usually around all holidays. Then do some Sherlock Holmes'n around the interenets for "special" coupon codes to stack onto the initial discounts.

I got almost 40% off this way on a T500 a couple months ago.

Choose the cheapest RAM (1GB or Less) and the cheapest Hard Drive. Replace these components yourself with hardware found on Newegg.com. 4GB Ram & a 250+GB 7200 RPM HDD.

If you are lucky you can get cheap windows vista ultimate through a university.

[Cry Havoc]

I second the Lenovo recommendation. They are rock-solid laptops, and have always had better reliability ratings than anything else out there -- no exclusions.

HP has become better in the past couple years, but I would only qualify them as "average" or slightly above. Asus is very good. I have a Dell laptop that has ran absolutely perfect for 3 years now with no problems other than needing one of the fans replaced.

[baseline bum]

asus is a big step down from hp, vaios are overpriced, i have had 4 hp laptops and from my experience they have all been solid. Dells are great with great customer service.

I gotta disagree with you on Dell customer service. At my old work our artists were using $4000+ decked-out Dell desktops with "premium" technical support, and it took them either 1 or 2 hours on hold to finally get to some Indian guy who read a few things off a script, and then was stumped as to why they couldn't boot (a file had been deleted). I told them I could fix it in 5 minutes if I downloaded a Knoppix boot disk and just copied the file from a bash shell, but the corporate world is stupid and they figured they were going to use that great tech support they paid out the ass for that in the end couldn't solve a simple problem that most high-school kids with any interest in computers could handle.

[koriwhat]

I gotta disagree with you on Dell customer service. At my old work our artists were using $4000+ decked-out Dell desktops with "premium" technical support, and it took them either 1 or 2 hours on hold to finally get to some Indian guy who read a few things off a script, and then was stumped as to why they couldn't boot (a file had been deleted). I told them I could fix it in 5 minutes if I downloaded a Knoppix boot disk and just copied the file from a bash shell, but the corporate world is stupid and they figured they were going to use that great tech support they paid out the ass for that in the end couldn't solve a simple problem that most high-school kids with any interest in computers could handle.

technical support is just that... a fuckin' saying! there's no real technical support in this day and age. i can't count how many times i waited patiently to tell the techy on the other end that they don't know what the fuck they are talking about when dealing with time warner cable internet. they are the worst!

[baseline bum]

Phone support is ALWAYS just some guy with little real training reading off a script but trying not to make it sound like that. At least for a very large company like Dell, Time Warner, AT&T, etc.

[Cry Havoc]

technical support is just that... a fuckin' saying! there's no real technical support in this day and age. i can't count how many times i waited patiently to tell the techy on the other end that they don't know what the fuck they are talking about when dealing with time warner cable internet. they are the worst!

Is your cable modem on? Is it plugged in?

[spurster]

I've had a Lenovo SL400 about 3 months. It's been solid so far. I had a IBM Thinkpad T42 before that, which lasted nearly 3 years.

[METALMiKE]

if you are still looking i have a laptop for sell for $1000.

http://sanantonio.craigslist.org/sys/1235169896.html

[to21]

Phone support is ALWAYS just some guy with little real training reading off a script but trying not to make it sound like that. At least for a very large company like Dell, Time Warner, AT&T, etc.Exactly, those kinds of support are called first tier or first level support. Of course they're gonna start with the basics.