Wife wants a new laptop - advice

[evorobin]

Firstly I'm not a fan of laptops but the wife is and the Compaq presario we have is getting on a bit and at 2.13hz with 1gb ram is SLOW so

Budget pref $700-$800 max

Don't want windows vista

Needs a camera for skype and dvd burner which they all have now anyways...

So was impressed with Toshiba but have just read their warranty doesn't cover the lcd or keyboard if either of those dies - what does it cover :/

Thanks in advance

[rayray086]

My sister bought a Dell Vostro about two years back. Was $1000+ but was pretty decked out (has a built-in webcam and DVD burner) and had a 17" screen, and it's still relevant to use now (not slow). She's replaced a battery under warranty and then had to replace her adapter after the warranty period. Both times, Dell service was quick and easy to deal with.

I think most Dell computers now come with Windows 7. I have pretty much zero experience with laptops, but I've used my sister's Dell a couple of times and it's great to use. Quiet but does run a little hot.

[Water Boy]

I no computer expert but I thought Dell is like Hyandai.

Maybe HP.

[Corey_R]

I think that all brands have good and bad products. I've used 20+ models of HP, IBM/Lenovo and Dell, and I can assure you of that! Well, one of those brands I've used hundreds of models. I also used to perform random hardware servicing of IBM/Lenovo and HP/Compaq for various VIPs in the companies I've worked at/for and it was sometimes startling at how large of a quality difference there was between the IBM product and the HP over the years (IBM would be a Merc and HP would be a Hyundai in my assessment!). But it varies from series to series, and even year to year.

So that basically means you really need to do your research on specific models and figure out whether the one you're interested in is any good... which makes it pretty damn difficult!

If you are going to get a Dell, their "business" laptops (Vostro, Latitude) are usually pretty good of late, but as with any "business" laptops, they're generally much more than their consumer laptops (Inspiron, Studio, XPS). Of their consumer laptops, the Studio range were great value. Whilst they were a bit more than the Inspiron, the added features and quality made them much better value. But they got rid of the Studio range recently because of that lack of segment definition. I haven't had the opportunity to use the current Inspiron vs XPS to really evaluate whether the price difference is now worth going for the XPS over the Inspiron for the "average consumer".

My work and personal laptop right now is a Dell Latitude E6500. It's been quite reliable over the past 2 years.

[dylan8]

Until last year I had a spec'd up Dell, $2600+ worth, and it was the worst thing ever! 2 years later, i finally got in contact with someone there who spoke enough english to understand i wanted my money back...
All this was 'with' Dell's high customer service I paid more for.
Although both mums and my gfs, who have simple/low budget dells, dont seem to have tooo many problems.

Have used/seen a lot of toshibas, seem to be great computers. the two my dad had both had a hard life (on planes, in the back of cars, dropped etc) and lasted years before they gave out.

I think you have to buy windows 7 from now on...?

[Corey_R]

I think you have to buy windows 7 from now on...?

Yeah, you have to buy 7 now, but why wouldn't you? You're shooting yourself in the foot by buying a new laptop and trying to run Window XP as your primary OS. You need Windows 7 64 bit to take advantage of the hardware, SSDs and 4GB or more memory etc. I don't play a lot of old games anymore, but I do a lot of productivity work in a few "large" organisations. Thus far I've been able to get everything to work on 7 either without hassle, with using the "for Vista instructions", or by falling back to "XP Mode" which is included in the Ultimate and Professional versions of 7. I also haven't come across a game made in the past few years (since Vista's release) which hasn't worked. All the DOS games still work via Dosbox etc.

[BL33SU]

get a acer..
#1 in aus at the moment. much cheaper with better spec's.

all waranty work is done in sydney aswell!

for your price range you can find the Aspire 5742 range in most retailers.. Core i3 CPU, 4GB ram, dvd, webcam etc and Windows 7 Home premium 64bit

[The_Hawk]

My first suggestion would be to stretch the budget and grab a MacBook, if that's not an option I'd say look at Dell because they are simple and easy to get and have some level of support.

Plan C:
Check out this mob: OnLine Computer

Aim for an i3 or an i5 CPU and 4GB RAM, everything else is mostly irrelevant in a budgt laptop.

This Asus looks alright, is under budget @ $699, comes with an i3 CPU and 8GB RAM, 320GB HDD and a DVD Burner.
OnLine Computer

This too, although with the upgrade to 4GB RAM it breaks your budget:
OnLine Computer

[Corey_R]

Whilst I love the MacBook case, and the long-life battery... the insides are not very impressive... and if it weren't for the awesome case (which is sure to cost a bomb compared to standard plastic cases) their price would be criminal. I mean, they're still on a Core 2 Duo generation platform. The rest of the industry is 2 generations ahead (well, lets not mention the Sandybridge issues shall we).

[DiZzY]

Sandybridge blew away from Cyclone Yasi mate

[The_Hawk]

The MacBook Pro's use the i# processor family, but yeah, the MacBooks are a little behind. That said, OS X runs far more efficiently so it's not nearly as big a deal as it would be for a Windows Machine... that and the Core 2 Duo CPU's aren't exactly slow anyway

[Corey_R]

OS X just seems like it runs far more efficiently... mainly cause any real work gets done elsewhere

As for Core 2 Duo's not being slow... I guess that just depends on perspective and what you're doing. I'm the type of person that still has a beefy desktop or two at my disposal since laptops don't always cut it

[The_Hawk]

I'm a reformed power user

Once upon a time CPU's lasted 6 months and GPU's even less, then one day I put down the overclocked quad core and moved to a 17" MacBook Pro and haven't looked back (too much). I do miss my fps, but the laptop is that much more useful than the desktop was (for my usage anyway).

In todays market, *most* people don't need half the power they get and *most* people are buying at the lower end of the market anyway. Unless your doing lots of rendering or video encoding pretty much anything is good... hell *most* people would get buy quite happily with a Atom based machine.

[Corey_R]

Except for Apple users who are buying at the low/mid end but paying high end prices! More so in the USA than in Australia. Apples sales figures aren't nearly as impressive here than there.

I generally agree though... until you get to the Atom comments. That's pushing it a bit! hehe


(I try and make my stuff last 3 years btw... but then, for the past 15 years I've always managed a minimum of 50% overclock... so even the old Core i7 920 is running at 4GHz... considering the i7 9x series core efficiency has only just been supplanted in efficiency by the Sandybridge cores, it's prety good! But yeah, I still love to jump on and play the latest games from time to time, and I also do a lot of video encoding, so raw power is still important. Not being able to ya Core 2 Duo laptop for 15 hours whilst it's encoding a video when I can just send it to the Core i7 desktop and have it done in 3 hours is a bit of a diff!)

[The_Hawk]

I generally agree though... until you get to the Atom comments. That's pushing it a bit! hehe

If I can tollerate running Photoshop on a VIA-C7 based Netbook the Atom is fine for normal people who only do Office, Internet and Email