Buying a new computer, tiny bit of advice needed

[Roto13]

What would be a good brand name to get? :P I currently have an HP and I'm fully aware of how :skull::skull::skull::skull:ty HP is, so I'll be staying away from that. I'm not asking about the specs or anything because I know what I need and I have it covered. I just want to know who makes reliable laptop PCs. xP

Also, I'm not building my own or having someone else custom build one for me. I cannot be assed.

[o_O]

I've had very good personal experiences with Acer, Toshiba and Asus. You'll find mixed reviews on Acer and Asus and generally good reviews on Toshibas.

The higher-end laptops from Dell are also good (unlike anything else from Dell, including tech support for said laptops :p), but they're expensive.

[Baloki]

Toshiba are the devil :( Acer are nice though. Asus I've only had experience with Desktop PC's, very reliable but prone to needing odd drivers. Fujitsu make some nice laptops though too :)

[Roto13]

Yeah, I won't be getting anything too high end. It's not going to be a gaming PC or anything.

How about Samsung? My husband has a Samsung. It's taken a lot of abuse. (He's the reason I need to get a new laptop! xD) It still works fine, though the casing is cracked.

What's wrong with Toshiba?

[o_O]

Samsung make awesome LCD panels and TVs and pretty average phones except for their PDAs and high-end mobiles (they have a phone with a 10.2MP camera). I have no idea how good their laptops are though. :p I'd imagine that they're pretty decent. As far as electronics go, I trust Samsung more than most other brands.

In my opinion, Asus make the best motherboards and graphics cards in the world. I've never used Fujitsu.

For every good review of a brand you see you're going to see a bad one. Don't take them too seriously - I'd advise that you look carefully at each laptop and decide for yourself what fits your needs and price range best.

For something relatively low-end you'd be looking at:
160GB hard drive
1GB RAM
GeForce Go 6600 GT
15.4" LCD
AMD X2 4000+ CPU (I'd definitely go dual core)

Something like that is at the bottom end of today's market, but to give some perspective, it would run Oblivion on medium-low settings.

[rubah]

my HP desktop was a beast, so I tend to disregard any HP bashing people tend to do.

My mom's toshiba satellite (since 2002?) is falling apart. The casing around the screen was cracked and barely staying together. It was frightening to use because I thought I would be the one to sever the screen.

Dell laptops are pretty much far better than their desktops imo. I'd just find something that had really good specs for cheap (because very soon they will be terrible specs)

Or you could get a refurbished macbook ^_^

[MistaCloudStrife]

Vaio and Alienware laptops has yet to let me down. My Vaio lasted a really long time and didn't lag as much as the laptop I have now does, and my Vaio was from back in 2000. Alienware laptop was a beast... but your pockets really pay for what you get.

And don't get a Dell... I'm using one right now and I hate it. Unless perhaps it's an XPS. I've heard good things about those. I'm using an Inspiron right now. Don't like it much... had it for a little more than a year and I feel it's time I get another one already.

[Baloki]

What's wrong with Toshiba?

Build quality and repairs are of poor quality.


In my opinion, Asus make the best motherboards and graphics cards in the world.

My motherboard has done pretty well since I got it :)


I've never used Fujitsu.

We have two Lifebooks here and both are quite old and still in perfect nick, their quite good little survivors :D


my HP desktop was a beast, so I tend to disregard any HP bashing people tend to do.

I've never had anything but trouble from HP's, the components always seem cheap and need replacing well before they should do, but that's just personal experience.


Or you could get a refurbished macbook ^_^

Come to the dark side luke?


Vaio and Alienware laptops has yet to let me down. My Vaio lasted a really long time and didn't lag as much as the laptop I have now does, and my Vaio was from back in 2000.

Vaio's are awful machines, full of proprietary hardware and software you can't get rid of easily, even with a complete reinstall of the OS using a Windows CD you would have to borrow from someone else as they don't come with them.

[o_O]

Or you could get a refurbished macbook ^_^This is clearly a superior solution. :p

Vaio's are awful machines, full of proprietary hardware and software you can't get rid of easily, even with a complete reinstall of the OS using a Windows CD you would have to borrow from someone else as they don't come with them.This is also good advice. If I were you I'd keep my laptop (or any computer, for that matter) as open-platform as possible.

[Roto13]

Hey, is Vista less :skull::skull::skull::skull:ty yet?

[o_O]

Not even slightly.

[Yamaneko]

Samsung can make less-than-stellar panels too. My Thinkpad has the dimmer, less crisp Samsung panel compared to others who have LG panels, so you really don't know especially with laptop displays. I would recommend Lenovo, though. There Thinkpad T and X line have a very good reputation. If you like boring, like I do, the notebook doesn't try to make any fashion statements instead showing off excellent build quality and easily the best keyboard on any portable out there.

You also can't go wrong with Asus. They have the best standard warranty inside the U.S. and possibly Canada (three years standard, 1 year accidental and 30 day zero bright dot) and they have the whole style thing going on. Some of there lower end models, however, do have build quality issues.

[Roto13]

My laptop is going to be relatively lower end, whatever it is. I just want something practical for my few needs. :P

[Rostum]

What are your needs?

You'd probably be able to get a good Sager. To be honest, they are probably the best quality I've used/seen/heard about.

They pretty much just use Asus cases and put their own stuff in there. I forget what panels they use, but I haven't seen anything wrong with them.

If you are just going to doing the most basic of basic stuff (like internet, emails, im, office, even some photoshop) then you don't need anything spectacular. You could seriously just go for Dell (just make sure they don't try to sell you a bunch of extra crap, and opt for Windows XP instead of Vista).

My sister just recently bought a simply notebook from Dell and it runs absolutely fine. I had a look over it and apart from the crap they install for you, it's very decent quality.

Though, check out Sager if you can. Here's a good place to buy them from:
Custom Laptops by PowerNotebooks.com™ - Discount Custom Notebooks & Cheap Laptop Computers (http://www.powernotebooks.com/)

By the way, please don't go for some over-expensive piece of crap like Voodoo or Alienware. You will be wasting your money, especially with what you want to do.

If you want to do a bit more research, check this out (helped me heaps):
Notebook Forums and Laptop Discussion - Powered by vBulletin (http://forum.notebookreview.com/)

[Roto13]

I know what what I want the insides of my laptop to be able to do, and I know what I need for them to do it. :P I just want to know who makes laptops that don't fall apart. Also, I really don't want to buy something as expensive as a laptop online. I'll be buying mine in a store. :P

Dell sets off my consumer alarms, for some reason. I think I'm leaning towards Asus.

[ValiantKnight]

Friend who works at best buy told me that when it comes to laptops, its becoming harder to put windows XP on them, because of the wireless cards and other components not having even basic XP drivers.

That they frequently blue-screen during a Windows XP install on the newer laptops, yet go through a Vista install, just fine.

But as I don't deal much with laptops, I'm not sure how trustful this is.

If you go vista, just make sure you double your RAM from XP, or even triple.

1gb will handle most non-gaming needs on a laptop for XP. 2 or 3 is needed for vista.

[escobert]

Asus makes good stuff along with Acer. Acer has always made good products.

[edczxcvbnm]

Toshiba or Acer is good in my experience. CDW - IT Products and Services for Business (http://www.cdw.com) has some fairly good prices depending on what you are looking for.

[o_O]

Friend who works at best buy told me that when it comes to laptops, its becoming harder to put windows XP on them, because of the wireless cards and other components not having even basic XP drivers.

That they frequently blue-screen during a Windows XP install on the newer laptops, yet go through a Vista install, just fine.

Manufacturers aren't going to stop making XP drivers any time soon.
It's no secret that Vista has been plagued by problems since the release of the Beta testing versions early last year, so hardware manufacturers would be a bit silly not to develop XP drivers.


If you go vista, just make sure you double your RAM from XP, or even triple.

1gb will handle most non-gaming needs on a laptop for XP. 2 or 3 is needed for vista.

1GB is perfectly sufficient for use on Vista. I'm able to run VMWare or Bioshock perfectly well on my PC with 1GB of RAM.

[rubah]

1gb for xp?

when it came out, 256mb for xp was more than enough xD

[ValiantKnight]

I shall "rephrase" that then :)

1gb for Windows XP with a real-time memory hungry internet security suite such as norton, 16 programs in the task bar, including a p2p sharing program, 3 instant messangers, 3 music players even though only one is playing music.

:)
See similar for vista.

Vista with trimmed settings, and no internet security software, just a non memory-hog antivirus will run well at 1gb. It certainly can use 2gb though. Xp will run fine at 512, even 256 if you don't have an internet security suite loaded.

It is just better to be prepared than to come up short.


256mb is more than enough for "Windows XP"
Problem is, very few people just run windows xp.....
Sorry if I went heavy on the recommendations. When you are at a realtive's house with a 256mb windows xp machine with norton, real player, quicktime, limewire(/sigh), AIM, Yahoo Messanger, and a few other programs that they "Won't take off, because they need", and trying to show them ways to speed it up.... you want more ram.....

Also windows XP has had numerous patches, updates, and so have many other programs that run on it. Updates can increase ram usage and bloat the ram needed for the system. Virtual memory can adapt to most of this, but it is much slower

Sorry if caused any problems. I just thought its better to advice a little higher for expansion, and possibility of lots of programs running. The PC with 16 things in the taskbar, and norton internet security is "just for internet" the same as a machine with only internet explorer/firefox, avast, and nothing else loaded on it. Yet, one runs smoothly on far less ram than the other.


As far as brands go, Toshiba seems ok. However I have had friends who had lemons with them.

[Roto13]

A guy I worked with used to say that Vista is for people who have pretty good computers, but like to pretend that they don't. :P

[Baloki]

I shall "rephrase" that then :)

1gb for Windows XP with a real-time memory hungry internet security suite such as norton, 16 programs in the task bar, including a p2p sharing program, 3 instant messangers, 3 music players even though only one is playing music.

:)
See similar for vista.

Vista with trimmed settings, and no internet security software, just a non memory-hog antivirus will run well at 1gb. It certainly can use 2gb though. Xp will run fine at 512, even 256 if you don't have an internet security suite loaded.

It is just better to be prepared than to come up short.


256mb is more than enough for "Windows XP"
Problem is, very few people just run windows xp.....
Sorry if I went heavy on the recommendations. When you are at a realtive's house with a 256mb windows xp machine with norton, real player, quicktime, limewire(/sigh), AIM, Yahoo Messanger, and a few other programs that they "Won't take off, because they need", and trying to show them ways to speed it up.... you want more ram.....

Also windows XP has had numerous patches, updates, and so have many other programs that run on it. Updates can increase ram usage and bloat the ram needed for the system. Virtual memory can adapt to most of this, but it is much slower

Sorry if caused any problems. I just thought its better to advice a little higher for expansion, and possibility of lots of programs running. The PC with 16 things in the taskbar, and norton internet security is "just for internet" the same as a machine with only internet explorer/firefox, avast, and nothing else loaded on it. Yet, one runs smoothly on far less ram than the other.


As far as brands go, Toshiba seems ok. However I have had friends who had lemons with them.

I can run an anti-virus, web browser, IM client and Winamp fine on 256 megs of ram on XP, however 512 adds a safety margin. So saying you cannot run a decent install of XP on 256 megs of ram is bull:skull::skull::skull::skull:, pure and simple. Also if you need to run Norton to browse the internet and feel secure rather then a lighter product then you shouldn't be (a) on the internet and (b) should definatly not be using Limewire as Norton would be useless as Limewire is basically a backdoor for virii and Trojans :p

Edit: I'm not saying Norton isn't any good, it is a decent product when configured properly but if you're just going to install Norton and think your completely safe then you are very, very wrong.

[rubah]

512mb of ram is for when you start using firefox xD Why should you use a resource hogging antiviruses when there's a lot of others that don't require such resources? (sometimes for free!)

[Aerith's Knight]

i have acer.. and it works just fine. Just make sure that you dont take an intergrated video card. Because if you do.. you cant play FFVIII on it ; ;

[Roto13]

I just use free stuff. AVG and ZoneAlarm ftw.

[Baloki]

Roto, I recommend buying a Linux brand laptop, it'll be delivered in pieces, be complex to construct and setup, but will be completely reliable and safe from outside threats breaking it :p

[Aerith's Knight]

IBM laptops are impossible to break.. and are delivered contructed and all

they are made from that stuff that phones get made of nowadays.. you know that stuff that doesnt scratch

[Avarice-ness]

Well, I have my happy little Compaq laptop which is one of HP's sub-brands and I can say without a doubt in the 2 years I've had this I've knocked it over -alot-, just yesterday I knocked it off the sofa into the table then onto the floor and it still loves me!
My only issue is their power cords suck. My original one got all jacked up 3 months ago, I bought a new one and it's already starting to die, and thanks to me overusing this my battery is basically nothing.

I can say though that it's been a good computer for basically everything.

My sisters had two dells so far, one got killed by a virus my computer-illiterate bro-in-law got in it, and the other one's been doing well and she drops it alot, not to mention she has a 9 year old who plays on it and a 3 year old who tends to hit at it or try to shut the lid when people are playing on it.

Since your last one died of being knocked over you should really prolly look into one that's can handle being knocked over, like my compaq or my sisters Dell. Trust me, we don't treat our compy's with love, but they still love us! :D

[Roto13]

My only issue is their power cords suck. My original one got all jacked up 3 months ago, I bought a new one and it's already starting to die, and thanks to me overusing this my battery is basically nothing.

That was the most annoying thing about my laptop. I ended up having to get three different power supplies, and the third one was on it's way out at the time of the accident. Actually, the power supply is broken again, but so is the laptop.

Also, I'm solving the knocking over problem with divorce. (Kidding.)

[ValiantKnight]

I can run an anti-virus, web browser, IM client and Winamp fine on 256 megs of ram on XP, however 512 adds a safety margin. So saying you cannot run a decent install of XP on 256 megs of ram is bull:skull::skull::skull::skull:, pure and simple. Also if you need to run Norton to browse the internet and feel secure rather then a lighter product then you shouldn't be (a) on the internet and (b) should definatly not be using Limewire as Norton would be useless as Limewire is basically a backdoor for virii and Trojans :p

Edit: I'm not saying Norton isn't any good, it is a decent product when configured properly but if you're just going to install Norton and think your completely safe then you are very, very wrong.

I don't use norton, just my relatives seem to :)
I was just mentioning that if Roto did decide to go the norton and p2p sharing route, Roto would need to get more ram in the laptop.

Friend had a Windows 98 computer with absolutely nothing on it besides an internet connection, browser, a few CD kids games, and then he put Internet security on the computer With 256mb of ram, the startup time went from 30sec or less, to over 5minutes.

[Roto13]

I know how much ram I'll need, thank you. xP

I got my new computer today. I settled on an Acer Aspire 5920 (http://www.staples.ca/ENG/Catalog/cat_sku.asp?webid=728959&AffixedCode=WW), with a nice 3 gigs of ram and 320 gig hard drive, and it was on sale for $699 as opposed to the usual $849. :P The only down side is the fact that I couldn't get XP pre installed, only Vista, and the warranty apparently won't cover it if Vista isn't installed. I'll have to install XP myself. I think I have a disc around here somewhere.

Anyway, I wanna thank everyone for your help. :)

EDIT: If the link asks for a zip code, say A0N 1A0.

[Baloki]

*wins cos he has an Asus EeePC*

*dances*

[Rostum]

I know what what I want the insides of my laptop to be able to do, and I know what I need for them to do it. :P I just want to know who makes laptops that don't fall apart. Also, I really don't want to buy something as expensive as a laptop online. I'll be buying mine in a store. :P


Well you'll be having a lot of trouble, unless you can find a Sager in-store. Because I believe they are the most well built notebooks you can find, and you can generally make them as cheap or as expensive as you want.

Edit: Nevermind, looks like you got a decent enough computer.