Let's talk Laptops

I may have to invest some $$ into getting a laptop soon.

I have very specific needs, which I am listing below in order of importance.

1) Durable - I am a putz
2) Tons of memory capacity - I take a lot of pictures & use a variety of programs (will a 250GB hard drive be enough, or am I smart to get one with a more?)
3) Must have a slot to insert a memory card to load my pictures to the computer
4) Speed - I multi-task very often (should I definitely get a 4GB RAM, or can I get by with a 3GB?)

Also, what does it take for a laptop to be Energy Star qualified?

I am looking online for starters at Best Buy (I don't have a local computer store - Best Buy is an hour from me & about it for choices to buy "locally"). Now Dell has a computer that one review said the cover (which is pretty colors) cracked easily, so surely not the one for me.

I'm looking at Gateways as well as Toshibas, and am open to other brands. Have ruled out almost every Dell I've looked at. Budget is very important, the cheaper the better - but it must fit my needs. My goal is to keep it under $500, but if I can't find what I need for that I will look at more $$ ones.

Suggestions of laptops are welcome, but I'd be quite happy to get general advice & steered in the right direction. Never looked at a laptop before, and it's been 5 years since I've bought a computer!

Thanks!

The only computer that I have been happy with in over a decade is my mac. I bought a refurbished laptop from apple. It has an aluminum body so it won't crack, you don't have to get antivirus software for it and everything works together with it nicely - no bluescreen of death. I know that macs are a little spendier that windows systems, but they are totally worth it. This one laptop has made a believer out of me.

We have Toshibas, Matt dropped his down some stairs at a jobsite and it still works fine.

Bigger harddrives on laptops often put them into high price ranges, I have a 1TB portable drive I bought for $60 on sale and save many files onto that so I can use them on my laptop / home or work.

Depending on what programs you use, you could get away with 3GB but if you can get more for the price, I would. I can run photoshop and firefox without issues on 3GB and photoshop is a memory hog.

I think most if not all would have a memory card slot, but it depends on the type of card, mine does not take xd cards

Go look a cnet and other sites that do product reviews. Know what processor is in the dang thing before you buy it - people always make that mistake and wonder why their computer lags.

Don't fall for any "green" label. This means older hardware.

You don't need a huge hard drive on your laptop. In fact it's a bit of a bad idea. If anything happens and you have to send it in to the manufacturer to be fixed, you run the risk of the hard drive being wiped and return to factor default. Go with a smaller hard drive in the laptop (closer to 200gig), then buy an external or an internal and an external enclosure. If you're going to be a windows user you'll have something go seriously wrong with the os at some point and have to reinstall it - an external HD saves you a lot of trouble. (be careful buying HDs, too, some of the really large ones from some brands have issues.)

It'll probably be windows 7 - got for as much ram as you can put in it unless your idea of multi-tasking is 2-3 programs.


I suggest you buy online and take advantage of any shipping deals you can. If you can avoid salesman that will tell you half-truths or outright lies to make a sale it'll be a lot easier.

ETA: Here's some in the $600-700 range that sound a bit more like what you're looking for. These have large HDs - I still recommend an external for your files. If you really set on the $500 and under range that will put you in netbook category. They're meant for lighter use.

Why do you need a laptop? Laptops can't be upgraded, desk tops can. You seem to have a pretty good budget for a computer. You can get way more bang for your buck with a desk top and then be able to upgrade it in a year or so when you need to IE: more hard drive and/or RAM.

Have you looked at Dell's clearance store? They have some good prices there.

I personally shop at Fry's. Four of the last five desktops I've bought have been refurbished HP's I bought there, none of them for more than $300, and all of them are still working (but with people I gave them away to when I upgraded). In this case, "refurbished" means unsold as one model and upgraded to another model.

And it's true you can upgrade a desktop much easier than a laptop.

Originally Posted by strange_wings

Go with a smaller hard drive in the laptop (closer to 200gig), then buy an external or an internal and an external enclosure.

It'll probably be windows 7 - got for as much ram as you can put in it unless your idea of multi-tasking is 2-3 programs.

ETA: Here's some in the $600-700 range that sound a bit more like what you're looking for. These have large HDs - I still recommend an external for your files. If you really set on the $500 and under range that will put you in netbook category. They're meant for lighter use.

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I can't get your link to work. I am checking out CNet right now, though. We've had this computer with windows for 5 years & never had any problems with it. We've got an external hard drive, but it's for business purposes.

I know I definitely need a laptop for several reasons, one being I need to be able to move my computer. Trust me, I could buy a very nice desktop for what I've budgeted, and would love to - but I need a laptop for the simple factor of I'll be moving around/working on it. (job & school related - and no, job doesn't pay for laptop)

Sorry. missed an / in there. The link works now.

Definitely spend a little more if you can manage it. You don't want a single core 1.3 or 1.6ghz when you can get a dual core 2.23-2.6ghz etc for not that much more. If you go low end you better have another computer to handle the heavier work you might need.

Basically it goes like this
netbooks - cheap and weak. Not meant to replace a solid laptop or desktop. Fine if the extent of your computer use is surfing, sending emails, and listening to music. Expect scaled down os's (or xp) unless you want to switch to a lightweight linux distro.
Budget laptops/low end ones - for the people that just want some sort of laptop.
$650+ range - better to good. Can replace your desktop for most serious work. Might even hold it's own for a couple years until you start feeling the need to replace it.
$1000+ range - macs, gaming laptops, and those aimed at audio and some video editing.

Plan to get yourself an external just for your own junk. You don't want to lose any pictures after all


And it is possible to upgrade laptops. People do change out cpus, add ram, add a larger HD. It's just trickier than a desktop. And on that note, double check and see if you can add extra ram later - some of those are upgradable to 8gb of ram on a 64 bit os.

How much hard drive space do you use at the moment? That should tell you how much you're going to need.
I don't do anything on my laptop besides run MS word for school and photoshop on it, and I don't need any hard drive space at all, at the moment I'm using less than 100 gb in pictures and some music..
My boyfriend on the other hand has a few external hard drives that are full and recently got a time capsule from mac, and is still complaining about not having enough space and needing to buy more hard drive space
My opinion is always biased on hard drive space because I've never been able to fill any of my computers hard drive space, so I opt for the smallest hard drive they offer.

One concern I always have with buying laptops is the graphics card, it's always so confusing too because they don't usually list details on the graphics card in the description of computers, but it makes a big difference on performance IMO. I'd try to get one that has at least 512 mb memory.

ETA: I have a dell, but I don't know if I'd buy a dell again. They don't have support for older models and keep making new models really quickly to get you to buy more based on just the fact that it's a newer model, and not the specs

Originally Posted by ut0pia

One concern I always have with buying laptops is the graphics card, it's always so confusing too because they don't usually list details on the graphics card in the description of computers, but it makes a big difference on performance IMO. I'd try to get one that has at least 512 mb memory.

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The depends on if she's interested in gaming at all or video. Less would be fine if the extent of the her testing it would be watching a dvd.
As for harder to find stats - look it up. Someone somewhere has bought it and raved or complained about that. I find lots of useful information in product reviews and tech forums.

My big thing is that it will be my computer, thus giving up the desktop I currently use (have to share with family units). I'm not interested in gaming or videos.

I crop pictures to put adoptables on petfinder, but I can delete those after I upload them to petfinder. But now for my personal pictures, I don't know that I want to delete them. Right now I delete the crappy ones & keep the ones I like.

I'm now looking into & reading up on Intel processors, as they seem to be better than AMD. Pentium is better than Celeron, but Core II Duo is superior to both yet. However, the Core II Laptops I've looked at are $200 more than the ones I'm looking at, topping out at a little over $700 - $750. If I can get something for $500 or under, I'm good as gold. For instance, these are 3 laptops I was comparing earlier tonight.

I don't like gambling with my money, and I feel like I'm gambling here - it's a matter of just "picking" one & hoping I like it.

Originally Posted by white cat lover

I'm now looking into & reading up on Intel processors, as they seem to be better than AMD.

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It's not quite that simple. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/27...-intel-dummies That site and similar tech sites will find you very detailed hardware info - probably too detailed.

As mentioned in that thread. AMD owns ATI, consider it when dealing with integrated graphics.

Originally Posted by strange_wings

It's not quite that simple. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/27...-intel-dummies That site and similar tech sites will find you very detailed hardware info - probably too detailed.

As mentioned in that thread. AMD owns ATI, consider it when dealing with integrated graphics.

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Oh crimeny, now after reading that I have a headache.

So maybe I'm open to AMD. We had Gateway computers for years & they were wonderful (there was a gateway store not too far away). I had ruled out Gateways as the have AMD processors, but now I've put a gateway back in the running.

Mines a Hewlett Packard and i love it!.

My new pc at work came with Windows 7, and because it's so good on security it's crashed my Sage 50 accounts 3 times in the last week, so he's took my tower away this morning to remove it and install XP

Dell or HP, all the other computers are honestly crap. I'm a total computer geek(I build my own desktops, OEM machines suck but I'm stuck with it when it comes to laptops) and while I'm less than thrilled with the recalls on my HP(they had an overheating issue that fried my motherboard and made the thing holding the left side of my screen in break, the display still worked so it was more of an annoying thing.) I truly love it because of what it offers and the big screen(my laptop has a larger screen than my desktop.) Honestly I wouldn't take a Gateway or a Compaq if you gave me one for free. Compaq is and always has been a pos(piece of s***) and Gateway has gone that way. Really HP and Dell are the only ones worth owning and using. If I had it to do over again I would have still got the HP laptop I have now or a Dell.

Seriously Gateway is almost worse than Compaq(and that is saying something because Compaq is a giant POS.) LIke I said I wouldn't take anything other than an Apple, HP or Dell if you gave it to me. I also prefer AMD to Intel. However I will say that my favorite computer geek friend told me that in laptops Intel is better than AMD but it's not a huge difference. Mine has an AMD and it's perfectly fine and played WoW(back when I played WoW) without any problems or lagging. They also have better graphics cards, I couldn't even find an Intel with a video card I wanted. Mine has a GeForce video card(same as I have on my desktop.)

You can find refurbs for the amount of money you want to spend. Honestly stick with Dell or HP, they are the best. I would spend more if I were you(but if I had an unlimited supply of money I'd have an Alienware, so I understand finances and having a budget that is set in stone) but there are nice refurbs for the money you want to spend.

Taryn

I just got an ACER laptop a couple of weeks ago and I love it. The only drawback is a short battery life and only 2 usb ports. One is used for my cordless mouse. It does lag a bit sometimes but I think it is my wireless connection. And it is much faster than my old old desktop

Although mine is a single core, it is enough for me. I don't do heavy duty things. I put my pics on it and such.

When I decided to get a new computer, I did some research but I asked people I know. The computer techie at work and others. They all recommended ACER. I do know it is a lower end machine and basically a step above a netbook, but I am very happy with it. It does make my pics look good.

Originally Posted by white cat lover

Oh crimeny, now after reading that I have a headache.

So maybe I'm open to AMD. We had Gateway computers for years & they were wonderful (there was a gateway store not too far away). I had ruled out Gateways as the have AMD processors, but now I've put a gateway back in the running.

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I'm just glad that it looks like you're seriously looking into things. Find what you like online, look it up for people complaining, know it's drawbacks and such. You're not going to find anything that's 100% what you want unless you get something custom built.

You want to know whats really headache inducing? I had too many tabs open last night and was opening more looking up some laptops for you. Lag, hang, and my Xfce went boom (not literally, of course). Now I've got that and some desktop issues and the config files are not where they're supposed to be.

I have a Dell XPS 1210 laptop that is now 3 years old and it's still plugging right along. It only shows it's age with a couple big programs - like Visual Studio 2008. I use it for computer programming, internet, Microsoft Office & other Microsoft programs, and downloading pictures from our camera. I returned to school in January 2008 (the laptop is a 2007), and my little Dell is still plugging along. While I know a lot of people whose (newer) computers have crashed multiple times or had a full meltdown in this time. Usually they weren't Dells.

I also recommend if you get a laptop, invest in a GOOD carry case. I have a couple cases for mine that are extremely cushioned. Swiss Gear and Timbuk2 are the best ones I have--they were definitely worth the $. I have a Dell backpack too, it's not my favorite but *is* well cushioned . I think the cases have played a major roll in the life of my laptop.

I would also go as fast/high end as you can afford, as it will be able to handle newer programs for a longer period of time. I really like the Dell XPS line, the Alienware M11x laptops look really nice too. I've been using my 1210 long enough, that I really like the small portable size of it.