Laptop Q's?

[miller821]

So with Christmas coming up my parent's are looking at getting me a laptop... I'll have to pay most, but there willing to throw a couple hundred out there to help me. I'm looking to spend $500-800, and am just going to be using it for school purposes mainly.

I've been looking at Toshiba, Hp's, and Dell's. So what's everyone's opinions on these? Good/bad Comments welcomed please!

[SRH]

i just got a dell from walmart for 700 with window vista, works great, i just use it for internet and what not but i like it well worth it to me

[miller821]

I've been browsing on some Dell Inspirons, but i'm not to sure about them yet... I'm really leaning toward HP, but I've heard stay away from them...

[SRH]

mines the inspirion, i like it alot, my friend has a hp had alot of issues with it, im not a computer guru but i like mine

[miller821]

I really like the Inspiron for the customizable skins and stuff... What model number did you get do you know?

[Gray33]

Alright, even tho you bash me alot i will give you my 2 cents.

In my opinon Acer computers are really good and i picked mine up for 300 bucks at walmart the day after thanks giving. I had to pick this one up because my hp had multiple problems. Overall i think Acer is a good brand and i would consider it and save a few bucks.

[miller821]

I've bashed you one time and you kinda brought it on yourself... I'm not trying to start stuff, but its a freaking quad website... Show respect for your fellow riders.

Back on topic... What kind of problems did you have with your HP? I really like their graphics and know a few people who own them and really like them.

And I haven't really looked into Acer, but I will... I mainly just need one for school, but it needs to have good memory and ram for other stuff.

[Gray33]

Originally posted by ride hard man
I've bashed you one time and you kinda brought it on yourself... I'm not trying to start stuff, but its a freaking quad website... Show respect for your fellow riders.

Back on topic... What kind of problems did you have with your HP? I really like their graphics and know a few people who own them and really like them.

And I haven't really looked into Acer, but I will... I mainly just need one for school, but it needs to have good memory and ram for other stuff.

I am just goin to throw this out here. I will give people respect when they give me respect.

Back to the thread topic.

I bought my hp in 2006, and worked for the half of the first year till i started experianceing random shut downs. Also, the display would shut off, while the computer was still on. another problem is i have to have the ac power cord turned half way to the left for it to turn on. Also, the cd rom went out and its a pice of junk in my opinion. I have it if anyone wants it

Another problem was that the hard drive went out, ac adaptor (went through about 4 of them in the 2 years i had them) Also, mine didn't have wifi and it cost like 800 bucks and my 300 dollar acer does.

I just would double think about goin for a hp, i think acer is a good brand all our computers at school are acers. Like i said watch for after thank giving sales and get a cheap lab top.

[miller821]

Originally posted by Gray33
I am just goin to throw this out here. I will give people respect when they give me respect.

I just would double think about goin for a hp, i think acer is a good brand all our computers at school are acers. Like i said watch for after thank giving sales and get a cheap lab top.

I'll probably be searching the ads right before thanksgiving and see what there going to have at a good price... I think i'll just go to best buy and price a few and check them out to see what the options are.

And the whole respect thing... Rightfully every person has my respect from the get-go... Once they violate that, then thats when they have to regain it back.

[Sportrax10]

I just bought a Gateway, awesome computer. Great price for what I got too..

I would check some of them out...

[mittman]

i got a hp Compaq 6715b last year and it has been great. for some odd reason it crashed on me and now after trying almost every thing my wireless wont work. glad i got 3 year warranty anyway but other than that it has been great i would go with dell or hp.

[spanky101]

Hey man, I personally have a toshiba and got it about 5 months ago and this thing is great! i mainly use it for school and then for using the internet. This is a great computer in my opinion, i have only had it for a short period of time but for the time ive had it its been a great computer.

I will say this about HP's, they can be good computers but when you go to upgrade it, if you so deisred to, you can only use HP brand products.

[Sjorge450R]

you guys have bad luck with HP.

I bought a dv2000 back in December of 07. Its a lower end model, but I snagged it for $500. There was no way i was leaving without it. 2gb of ram, 240gb hard drive. AMD Athlon(NOT TURION!!) and vista premium. This computer is the ****. I run a dual monitor setup with it i constinetly have photoshop, illustrator or BOTH opened along with winamp, aim, firefox and skype. Comptuer does not slow down at all. I LOVE IT. Its mainly because of the desktop processor in it.


I go by this.

If i am buying a windows based computer, it will be a HP.

Otherwise, it will be a macbook pro or imac (cant beat them, but you can beat the price)

[TRX_450]

i must work on at least 20 laptops a week and i can tell you from experience....stay away from toshiba! theyre customer service is chit and were in the top 10 of the best toshiba service centers in the US. they have chronic motherboard problems and once in a while you may get lucky and not have problems, but over time things will happen.

as far as the others id rank them like this dell,gateway,acer. acer does make some good stuff for the money, but certain models have overheating issues, and the heat "goo" they use isnt the best and breaks down faster than the other companies will.

[Ralph]

I'd say dell for the quality of service and Acer for the value. I own an Acer myself when I'm not at home and it works just fine.

The most important thing is that it wont matter what computer you buy if you don't take care of it.

~Make sure windows update is turned on and set to automatically update.

~Get Anti-Virus. I would recommend AVG Free Edition

~Use Firefox for browsing the net

[miller821]

Based on everyone's it seems like either one I choose should work fine... I will be taking good care of it, and like said will have anti-virus and all that stuff...

Now i've narrowed it down to three... But don't really know what a lot of the stuff means.... I like the dv5t and dv5z systems... And the dell inspiron...

Is wireless G card good? Or should I do N card?
Is athlon good or should I bump to Turion?
32bit or 64 bit?

This is the inspiron... Seems really nice for the price.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8892987&st=inspiron&lp=5&type=product&cp=1&id=1211587729067

[Sjorge450R]

the athlon is better than the turion mainly because its made for a desktop. The turion will be much better on battery life, but if youa re like me, you dont worry about that, just bring the cord with you if you truly need to do work. I have the athlon like mentioned before and I only have a 14.1 screen and i can squeeze about 1.5 hours out of my battery if I keep the wirless off.


As for teh N or G.

G is so last year...lol

Either way, n or g you will still have great wireless, but the N is going to be a little faster.

[Ralph]

Originally posted by ride hard man
Based on everyone's it seems like either one I choose should work fine... I will be taking good care of it, and like said will have anti-virus and all that stuff...

Now i've narrowed it down to three... But don't really know what a lot of the stuff means.... I like the dv5t and dv5z systems... And the dell inspiron...

Is wireless G card good? Or should I do N card?
Is athlon good or should I bump to Turion?
32bit or 64 bit?

This is the inspiron... Seems really nice for the price.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8892987&st=inspiron&lp=5&type=product&cp=1&id=1211587729067

I have the 64 bit version and i really don't see the benefit. Sometimes stuff is not even compatible and most applications don't utilize 64 bit anyway.

If i were you as soon as you get it spend a lot of time just uninstalling all of the pork that comes on the machine pre-installed. free trials of ms office, norton etc.

Look in your task bar and see whats running and cut out the stuff you don't need.

Also, dont pay for Microsoft Office. Download OpenOffice or StarOffice. Both are compatibly with .doc, .xls, etc

Thinking of this. I don't know if it still stands true but when i purchased my Acer laptop it came with nearly no extra applications that just try to get you to buy stuff and do what windows already does natively which i believe is a MAJOR plus.

N or G - N will be faster when there is a N connection available. Most hotspots / networks are generally G. Only get N if you want to or plan to buy a N router.

Also, N really only shines when you are streaming stuff over your network etc. G should be plenty fast for just browsing etc.

[907Rider]

Originally posted by TRX_450
i must work on at least 20 laptops a week and i can tell you from experience....stay away from toshiba! theyre customer service is chit and were in the top 10 of the best toshiba service centers in the US. they have chronic motherboard problems and once in a while you may get lucky and not have problems, but over time things will happen.

as far as the others id rank them like this dell,gateway,acer. acer does make some good stuff for the money, but certain models have overheating issues, and the heat "goo" they use isnt the best and breaks down faster than the other companies will.

Ya I agree, I have a toshiba and its a piece of crap. my sound card fried on to my motherboard,dvd player only plays cds and wireless internet card doesn’t work and yesterday my touch pad stopped working

[brian76708]

i just got a dell xps love it allthough it is way over your budget i think the cheapest ones 15" are around 900 though

[Warnerade]

sony vaio

[beaker1214]

Go With a toshiba thats what I have there are alot of nice ones for the price range you want to spend....I spent a grand on one with 3 gigs of ram back durring the summer and now they are like 650 bucks just to show how much the price has dropped. I'm on my second one and that's what I recommend to all our professors here at school when they are looking for personal machines. I do also work on alot of laptops and my family has a pretty large networking business and most of the techs have Toshiba's also....maybe we have been luckier with all of them. There isnt a perfect laptop out there, they all have their flaws some worse then others.

[kawabunga]

Get a Mac. Better than anything listed thus far.

[beaker1214]

Originally posted by kawabunga
Get a Mac. Better than anything listed thus far.

AGREED but not in a 500- 800 buck price range

[kawabunga]

Originally posted by beaker1214
AGREED but not in a 500- 800 buck price range

True, but they're worth it.

[spanky101]

macs are completly worth it, a macbook pro will be my next computer. The new MBP's are sooooo sick!!! but start at like 2g and only go up from there!

[miller821]

I went to the local best-buy today and checked out some of theirs... I thought the dell seemed kinda cheap... I checked out a few Toshiba's, and they weren't bad... This HP caught my attention though... It was 649 in the store though.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8913884&st=dv5-1004nr&lp=1&type=product&cp=1&id=1213399970436#tabbed-customerreviews

[XCRacer236]

SCREW WINDOWS! spend a little more and get a macbook!!! they just recently rebuilt them, and are INSANELY well built!!

ONCE YOU GO MAC, YOU NEVER GO BACK!!!

[brian76708]

Originally posted by kawabunga
True, but they're worth it.


NO not at all if you can buy another brand and put mac software on it and it will be just as reliable faster and way cheaper IMO mac's are way overpriced i have had a mac and a dell and i much prefer the dell if you want even better then a mac then install http://www.ubuntu.com/ its a free operating program. you can go anywhere with linix( unbuntu is a version of linix ) and not get virus's, also it is compatible with a lot of things.

[FasstMidnightZ]

Acer ;)

[kawabunga]

Originally posted by brian76708
NO not at all if you can buy another brand and put mac software on it and it will be just as reliable faster and way cheaper IMO mac's are way overpriced i have had a mac and a dell and i much prefer the dell if you want even better then a mac then install http://www.ubuntu.com/ its a free operating program. you can go anywhere with linix( unbuntu is a version of linix ) and not get virus's, also it is compatible with a lot of things.

I'd rather stick with something that's tried and true, have a support staff I know is there, and have a good warrenty. I use downloaded programs, but you won't catch me using a downloaded operating system.

[Sjorge450R]

that HP is very well put together. Great video card for a laptop and the processor is nicly clocked at 2.1. Ram is at 4gb, expandable to 8. Thats what i paid for my system not even a year ago and I dont have the goodies.

[Ralph]

Originally posted by kawabunga
I'd rather stick with something that's tried and true, have a support staff I know is there, and have a good warrenty. I use downloaded programs, but you won't catch me using a downloaded operating system.

You can request a free cd. I have been using Ubuntu linux on my laptop for a while now.

[brian76708]

Originally posted by kawabunga
I'd rather stick with something that's tried and true, have a support staff I know is there, and have a good warrenty. I use downloaded programs, but you won't catch me using a downloaded operating system.

wow you must not know a lot about computers if you dont know about linux

plus you can have 4 screens at once.

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee50/pelbri08/Screenshot.png

[beaker1214]

yeah I use a few of the different distro's of linux for class and its good times...gotta love open source....there isnt a such thing as a Operating System that is immune to viruses off the shelf. They all get them its just Windows that you hear about the most bc of obvious reasons....they have the largest percent of the market. Linux is fun to play with though but Im not comfortable enough to make it my default operating system. But there is alot of cool features with ubuntu that windows doesnt even have such as the "cube" effect shown above. But dude stick to windows vista isnt that bad as long as you have a computer that will handle it.

[brian76708]

Originally posted by beaker1214
yeah I use a few of the different distro's of linux for class and its good times...gotta love open source....there isnt a such thing as a Operating System that is immune to viruses off the shelf. They all get them its just Windows that you hear about the most bc of obvious reasons....they have the largest percent of the market. Linux is fun to play with though but Im not comfortable enough to make it my default operating system. But there is alot of cool features with ubuntu that windows doesnt even have such as the "cube" effect shown above. But dude stick to windows vista isnt that bad as long as you have a computer that will handle it.

yea for me at college i like having vista as a secondary OP for projects and compatability issues but its nice running Linux, knowing that its almost impossible to get a virus.

[miller821]

If I had the money for Mac I'd look into it... But for a starting out laptop i'm not about to drop a pretty penny on one... I've ran Ubuntu before and really liked it, but found it not to be compatible with some of the programs I needed. Not to say it wasn't worth it, but I didn't have the capacity to dual boot so I had to re-install XP.

[kawabunga]

Originally posted by brian76708
wow you must not know a lot about computers if you dont know about linux

plus you can have 4 screens at once.


Nowhere did I claim to know a lot about computers. I'm simply stating that there's something that works just fine out there, and I know it'll work just fine with everything I want to do. You even said yourself that there are compatability issues. My mac does everything I want it to do and then some. No need for me to download a different operating system. I'm not a computer guru and need to have the best in the business, regardless of free, or how awesome it is. I love my mac, and I know a lot of other people that feel the same way.

[08mxkfx]

i have a 20" iMac and a new macbook and i will never go back to windows. They have the worst customer service ever and vista is horrible. If i were you I'd get XP instead of vista.

[Sjorge450R]

Originally posted by 08mxkfx
i have a 20" iMac and a new macbook and i will never go back to windows. They have the worst customer service ever and vista is horrible. If i were you I'd get XP instead of vista.


i hate when people say this. You need a optimal system in order to run vista corretly. When vista came out, alot of people were trying to run it with 1gb of ram and thats no where near sufficient. 2gb works great. Also, the featurs and functions of vista are soo much better than XP.

Sure XP may use less resources, but I love vista and anyone who gives it a chance (more than a month) will grow to love it.

[beaker1214]

Originally posted by Sjorge300EX
i hate when people say this. You need a optimal system in order to run vista corretly. When vista came out, alot of people were trying to run it with 1gb of ram and thats no where near sufficient. 2gb works great. Also, the featurs and functions of vista are soo much better than XP.

Sure XP may use less resources, but I love vista and anyone who gives it a chance (more than a month) will grow to love it.

I totally agree with ya, I work in IT and the only issues I have with it is deployment but thats way above what will matter to anyone lookin for a laptop. It requires alot of resources, we know this but if you have a computer above 2gig of ram it works great. But alot of people that complain about it hasn't given it a fair chance or just heard from other person that it wasn't good and jumped on that bandwagon....Its funny the amount of people that think vista is crappy, bc half of them are basing this hearing from some other person and not their personal experience.

[907Rider]

Originally posted by beaker1214
alot of people that complain about it hasn't given it a fair chance or just heard from other person that it wasn't good and jumped on that bandwagon....Its funny the amount of people that think vista is crappy, bc half of them are basing this hearing from some other person and not their personal experience.

Totally, vista kicks butt.

[miller821]

So I ended up getting a new DV6000 from best buy and am now wondering what I should do to protect it... It has a 60 day trial of Norton, and its nice and all.. But how does others compare? I've heard good of Avira and downloaded that, but it doesn't seem like it blocks everything, just some certain things.. What do you guys recommend that I should get to kinda make sure that its all protected?

[brian76708]

use firefox and download some add ons like popup blcoker and i use flash blocker that way when you go to a screen with flash items on it you have to press a button for it to show up i personaly like it.

[Ralph]

Originally posted by ride hard man
So I ended up getting a new DV6000 from best buy and am now wondering what I should do to protect it... It has a 60 day trial of Norton, and its nice and all.. But how does others compare? I've heard good of Avira and downloaded that, but it doesn't seem like it blocks everything, just some certain things.. What do you guys recommend that I should get to kinda make sure that its all protected?

uninstall norton and get the AVG Free Edition. Use Firefox 3.03 and download something like ad-aware to run periodically.

[beaker1214]

Originally posted by Ralph
uninstall norton and get the AVG Free Edition. Use Firefox 3.03 and download something like ad-aware to run periodically. I agree norton sucks....I think its funny that its soo embedded in the operating system that they had to make a special program to uninstall the older versions of it.

[miller821]

AVG is what we use on our home computer, but I haven't gotten around to download that yet...

But Firefox was the first thing that I did, I hate I.E.

[Sjorge450R]

if you have comcast, they offer free mcafee virus and spywear protection. I love it and i will never go back to norton. Norton has too many conflicts with other programs.

Good choice on your purchase, I am sure you are going to love vista. Just make sure you change your battery mode to "High Performance" in order to get the most of out your new computer. Only two downsides of high perfomance is it drains the battery really really fast and youcannot put the computer in sleep mode. I have talked to the techs are HP and they say hibernate is better for your pc anyway.

[miller821]

Vista seems like a really good program, but its kinda hard to get used to. I'm liking it so far though.

I changed the battery to High Performance... What exactly does it do? Make it run faster?

[beaker1214]

Originally posted by ride hard man
Vista seems like a really good program, but its kinda hard to get used to. I'm liking it so far though.

I changed the battery to High Performance... What exactly does it do? Make it run faster?
PM sent haha