Help! I need a Laptop!

[SuuT]

Well, salt spary and wind have finally taken their toll: this thing is doing all kinds of whacky stuff.

It will mainly be used for internet access and word processing. Money is not really an object, but if it costs $3,000 it better be able to perform sexual acts.

Any suggestions? I don't know much about computers.

[Absinthe]

I thought you were begging for one, I was about to offer you an old-timer that I don't use anymore :D

[Psychonaut]

I'd go for one of the new Dell (http://www.dell.com/home/laptops) laptops that come with Windows 7. If all you do is internet surfing and word processing, you should easily get what you need for under $1,000.

[Ulf]

I like these, small, cheap, easy to use.

Asus eee PC (http://www.google.com/products?q=asus+eee+pc&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=0bvcStz3C9PilAeWgtmhAQ&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CC4QrQQwAw)

Asus eee PC (http://eeepc.asus.com/global/index.html)

[anonymaus]

I'd recommend a 13 or 15" MBP but the magsafe chargers are notoriously bad. You'd be constantly buying new ones and fighting with Apple to get the chargers replaced under warranty. The alternative is a second battery and a battery charging station to keep the direct charger use down.

It's a pain in the ass but there is no better designed lappy around--and the only one with the direct option to run either win7 or osx.

Or you could just buy a 700 dollar acer, HP or whatever from best buy. They're good enough.

[Aemma]

I just got a Toshiba Satellite 500-something or other. It's great! Let's you do all that stuff. Has Harman/Kardon speakers if you like to listen to music through your laptop. Is user friendly (believe me I'm a techno-peasant so these things are important to me as well---where's the easy button?!! :D). Has all kinds of bells and whistles comparatively speaking to what I had previously an Acer which was about 4 years old.

Happy Shopping SuuTie! :D

[Ulf]

I like these, small, cheap, easy to use.

I can't believe I missed a perfectly good midget hooker joke. I'm slow today. :(

[Frigga]

I've got an HP laptop that I'm pretty happy with. :) It was just about $1000 including taxes, and I bought it almost two years ago.

[Wölfin]

I use a MacBook, it's about 3 years old now, I want a new one but this baby is still running just fine. It has had idiots spell vodkice on it, bootlegger and other similar horrible, sweet, sticky things and it has never once failed me. As we say in the horse world "never missed a step or took a wrong step in it's life". They're fairly expensive as opposed to PCs but so far its been worth my money, because I never had to spend anything in repair or check ups etc.

[RoyBatty]

Assuming you're using Windows, Lenovo (used to be IBM Thinkpad) are great. They're well solid. If you want to go cheap, Dell may be worth considering provided you don't go for any "add-ons" or "upgrades" because this is where they will rape you.

[Fortis in Arduis]

I recommend the MacBook Pro, because it works for me.

A second-hand Mac laptop would have been fine. I wasted my money in fact.

[Conservationist]

Assuming you're using Windows, Lenovo (used to be IBM Thinkpad) are great.

Good advice. Basically, get anything but a Macintosh, because then you join the horde of trivial people.

[Osweo]

The Computer Feller who works for my Dad was very anxious to get me to buy a Lenovo, for all sorts of weird esoteric computer-jargony reasons.

I'm just put off by the fact that the name looks like it's a Russian village full of lenivie (lazy) people...

[Fortis in Arduis]

Good advice. Basically, get anything but a Macintosh, because then you join the horde of trivial people.

Oh, absolutely. What are you, about two years old? ;)

[Germanicus]

I have a Samsung R700, it let's me do everything i want, it is nearly foolproof, it has a 1.66GHz Intel core 2 Duo mobile T5450 processor, with 2GB of DDR RAM memory. It has a vast 17" Screen.
I also use a 500 GB* exterior Clickfree automatic Backup.
So if my laptop goes down i will never lose my photo's.

[Grey]

I've also got one of these Toshiba Satellite laptops.

I find it nice because I was stuck on a pc from ~2000 until a few months ago. The battery life's not great, but it'll last through a couple of classes (and when I'm not in class I let it charge) and there's only 150 gigs of space, but that's enough for me.

It's shit for games, but I'm not a gamer. But it is powerful enough to run all of the big, memory-devouring programs I need for my engineering class easily, and the 18" screen means I don't need to scroll around on every web page I visit. The speakers are nice too, which is uncommon on laptops.

Other than that the speakers are nice and if anyone were to get one (I find it's not bad at all for the price, $400) all I'd suggest is installing a new operating system or taking a good long time uninstalling shit, because it comes bundled with every piece of crapware you can imagine. By default, the operating system took up between 45 & 50 gigs of space (in other words, 2/3 of the total space I had).




Also, I strongly suggest against getting a Mac. They're fine and all, but come severely overpriced considering their comparatively weak hardware (as opposed to non-Apple computer in the same price range). I have to admit though that my ass was saved in one class by the bundled movie making software.

[RoyBatty]

It used to be possible to get a reasonable performance Macbook (except for graphics intensive type usage) for a decent price but that was before they replaced most of the plastic models with the aluminium ones and jacked the prices sky high. This happened about a year ago.

The current budget model is underspecced and overpriced while the rest of the lineup have just become wayyy overpriced.

There's always the illegal "Hackbook" option for those who can't live without OSX but one would need to choose the make and model of base laptop very carefully in order to enjoy maximum compatibility and may need to spend a bit of time getting things to work. Imo it often isn't worth the hassle and for general usage OSX doesn't offer anything that can't be done or done better on a Windows machine.

Imo the main motivating factor for getting a Mac (and paying the premium) is for use in multimedia related fields (audio production, film editing, desktop publishing etc) where excellent software is available and system stability is very good. All those things can be done under Windows as well but not always as well or with as few hassles.

Linux is another option depending on what uses one has in mind for the comp. If it were mostly for typical Internet usage, typing documents and watching films then it's an option worth considering since laptops supplied with it as the base OS should cost quite a bit less than those supplied with Windows. It's usually possible to reinstall it later with Windows if required.