Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests laptops

ok been discussed before i know, but they always seem to get better and things change, so my question is, whats a good laptop?
Ill be going to school next fall and my current PC is dying, so even though its a tad earlier than id like i have begun to look at notebooks. I dont play PC games much, got a PS2 for that. Apparently duo processors are the way to go, but which brand? I see alot of MDG ads and Dell ads, but they usually have about the same specs. Im prepared to spend up to a grand.
I do know that notebooks are hard to upgrade, so thats the reason i was holding off on buying one, but if i got a good one i wouldnt have to worry about upgrading much right?
Any info or suggestions would be appreciated.

Man, I've looked at a lot of posts in different forums, and they all have problems.

Dell has exploding batteries, and everyone jumps all over them, but I just caught a post with a picture of a blown up Mac Ibook where the battery is fried. Nice shrapnel hole and all.

It's a crap shoot; ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances.

From personal experience, I have an old (really old) IBM Thinkpad and it's built like a tank. Still quite useful for net browser and word processing, but it doesn't have USB or Cardbus, so it's pretty well obsolete.

If I was buying another one, I'd go for a mid speed used IBM, but that's just me. I'm not willing to spend much more than 250 for a laptop, but I have a bunch of full sized boxes to use for main computers.

Do some Google searches for the ones you're thinking of buying. I always put the name of the laptop followed by "problems" in the search field, and I get tons of hits.

If I were you I would check the internet and electronics stores for something within your price range and with the features you want. Then go online and do some reasearch. Look at reviews and such. The sad part is computers on clearence or sale are usually
a: Obsolete (or heading there fast)
b: crappy in build with some design or functionality flaw
c: open box item, so it was probably malfunctioning before

Intel's core processors are newest tech. Somewhere near the 2.0Ghz range is normal for these. 512MB of ram is minimum these days, a GB is becoming increasingly neccessary. DDR2 is the newest memory standard, but DDR is ok too. I feel any HDD under 80GB is too small. If you plan on using Vista anytime soon, you need a very nicely equiped machine.

but it is all based on what you need.


side note: Tablet style laptops are becoming increasingly popular.

Oh man, get this:
drool...



They have one of these at the bookstore here at the U. OMG it's amazing! This thing is barley a laptop, 20lbs! I was disgusted when I first saw it, but now I want it bad! WSXGA screen, detachable wireless keyboard. The CD/DVD burner is a slot load type. Those buttons on the top by the DVD unit arent traditional buttons, rather touch sensors like you would find on an iPOD. When you press eject, the DVD unit pops up and thats how you load the disc. Its quite amazing, and only $3500

Thinkpad

End of story.

I agree with the DELL XPS, but not necessarily the one posted above.

I have the DELL XPS M140. It's the base XPS model with a few upgrades and I have a very nice computer for a little over 1300 bucks...You could probably get one for around $1000 if you didn't upgrade much. But it's very versatile, doesn't come with the exploding batteries, and has been good for the past 6 months with no problems.

i like the tablets, but they're waay too much money. I didnt suggest IBM because i never see any ads for them, maybe they arent as popular in canada, but ill check them out.

I've had a Toshiba for about 2 years with no problems, but I have always heard that Dells are the best(exploding Sony batteries and all).

Acer has a nice few models out. I was checking out onr for myself over at http://www.tigerdirect.com