Which laptop do you recommend?

[low&slow]

Dell 700M has worked well for me so far.

It's light (4.1 lbs) and easily fits in a flight bag etc. Mine has a 1.6 ghz Centrino, 60 gig HD, and a 12.1" widescreen (great for DVDs) so it does everything except for heavy video editing or 3D games. I bought it in Oct. while Dell had their one day $750 off sale. The total came to $870 for a $1500+ notebook! So far no problems and I use the thing all the time. Battery life could be a little longer, but the extended (optional) battery will give around 5+hrs on one charge. I use the lighter 2.5 hour battery to keep the weight down while traveling.

I also looked at the 12" & 15" Powerbook but found this to be a better deal.

I have the 700m as well, but I think I paid a bit more then you. It works great for me, just the right size and weight. I have the bigger battery and it lasts a long time as long as you're not using the wireless. I would highly recommend it if you want to use it for travel, it's not especially fast (but not slow) but just the right size.

 

[Nostromo]

OK.....can you emphasize a bit?

And for the books I'm a windows guy.

Nostromo,

What do you think of the small 10.4" screen? Isn't that a bit on the small side? I definately want something durable, light weight, descent speed and affordable.

10.4" is a little small but it's a wide screen, so it makes up for it with movies etc. The display resolution is 1280 x 768. The display uses Sony's Xbrite technology and sitting next to all the other laptops it stood out in brightness and contrast, way above and beyond the others. Even in direct sunlight the screen is viewable. As for the size, it's not for everyone, but the main thing I wanted was for it to fit in my flight bag. The Dell 700m was the next closest but it was a little more and I didn't want another Dell. Hope it help,

N

 

[ILStoMinimums]

Thanks guys. Any idea what the best one is in the 15" screen size? I'm looking for something that I can use also at home, I think the 10-12" screens would be a bit small for home use, although nice for travel.

 

[apdsm]

And whatever you decide, unless you are planning on a new laptop every year, buy the extended warranty (assuming you are purchasing a higher dollar machine). Just my opinion based on personal experience. I do not buy extended warraties on anything except laptops. This amount of travel is tough on any laptop no matter how high quality. My current warranty has paid for itself several times over. Not because it was bad machine but because it is a great machine and has been beat to death for 4 years now.

Also, from personal experience, I would say the smallest lightest machine that would be functional for you. 5 lbs seems pretty light until you put in your bag and start lugging it all over the country. I'm looking myself and the first two things I look at are size and weight. Check out the Fujitsu Lifebook P7000. A buddy of mine has that and LOVES it!

 

[Nostromo]

And whatever you decide, unless you are planning on a new laptop every year, buy the extended warranty (assuming you are purchasing a higher dollar machine). Just my opinion based on personal experience. I do not buy extended warraties on anything except laptops. This amount of travel is tough on any laptop no matter how high quality. My current warranty has paid for itself several times over. Not because it was bad machine but because it is a great machine and has been beat to death for 4 years now.

Also, from personal experience, I would say the smallest lightest machine that would be functional for you. 5 lbs seems pretty light until you put in your bag and start lugging it all over the country. I'm looking myself and the first two things I look at are size and weight. Check out the Fujitsu Lifebook P7000. A buddy of mine has that and LOVES it!

Wait a second! Use your Amex and get double the manufacturer's warranty and check with your home owner's policy. I pay $50 a year to cover my laptop on my home owner's, I also purchased it with an amex. I had a motherboard go bad about 2 months after the warranty expired. Amex stepped right up and paid for the replacement. If that had failed or if the laptop was stolen, home owner's steps in from there. Don't pay $400-500 extra for the warranty when a combo of credit card and homeowners will do the same for a fraction of the price.

 

[NoJoy]

Check out alienware.com
I have one, and its great. Very fast and very upgradeable. Mine is considered a desktop replacement; but I wanted a laptop that could do everything under the sun including gaming and this is it. Their prices are competitive with other high end laptops. The only down side is the wieght, but I was fine with the compromise. Desktop replacements tend to be on the heavy side. I use it for home and on the road too.
Also look into Laptop magazine. They review many models of laptops every month.

 

[Ty Webb]

I think small and light is the way to go. I bought a SOTEC two years ago from Best Buy. It had most of the features of the big boys, weighed in at 4.4 lbs, titanium alloy case, and was only $750. after the rebates. I never put it in a case; I figured if it survived 2 years, I would be money ahead, anyway. They are called AVERATEC now, and run around $900 for a 40 GB HD, DVD burning, wireless connecting, 3 USB porting little dynamo.

Well, anyway, it lasted exactly two years before the screen cracked. It is now hooked up to a keyboard and monitor in the kids' playroom. I bought a Treo 650, which is pretty cool, but is not a laptop replacement, in my opinion. Currently thinking about another Averatec. Small, fast, and cheap . . . . it just might not love you long time, GI Joe.

 

[Crizz]

Let me preface this by saying that I USED to be a hardcore Dell guy. In my former life as a computer network consultant I purchased $1m+ of equipment from dell, and fitted dozens of businesses with exclusively dell products from the laptop, to server, to desktop. I was a firm believer in Dell.

Fast forward to today.

I have had endless problems with Dell laptops in the last 3 years. Ever since they shipped production to Malaysia the build quality has been very poor.

My roommate and my dad both own Inspiron 5100s. Both have been riddled with problems with the touchpad, battery, hardware glitches going into and out of standby, screen flimsyness.

Another roommate has a 600M. Its been sent to service and had problems with the screen and keyboard.

Another roommate has an 8600 ($2500+). It had a bad motherboard and would only boot half the time.

All the above machines were bought per my recommendation to these people in the last 18 months. Needless to say, I ended up feeling really bad that they had so many problems. Apparently I got what was comming to me - read on.

I own a 5150. It has been to service twice. Screen problems, keyboard problems, hard disk problems, battery problems. Those are all minor compared to the most recent problem. At about 14 months old, it started sparraticly rebooting for no reason. It progressively got worse untill it was unusable. It turns out to be a flaw in the way the motherboard was designed, in that when it goes through heat up and cool down cycles some parts of the printed circuit board collapse and separate. Therefore, it turns into a brick. The little secred here is that EVERY ONE OF THESE MACHINES EVER MADE will fail. What sucks? My warranty only went to 12 months. Dell wouldnt help me at all. I ended up sending it to a 3rd party repair shop to get it fixed permanently with a modification of the motherboard. It was $200, but sure beat the $750 that dell wanted to charge me for a new motherboard that would eventually fail again.

There is a thread on the dell community forum about this particular problem. 59 pages of posts and not one single moderator reply. They finally just locked it. I cant believe it! There are alot of very pissed off people. We're talking class action baby...

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_general&message.id=166703&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

Hundreds of people alone on that message forum have had this problem, and Dell wont do anything to help them.

That last situation pretty much made me very anti-dell, not to mention their horrendous phone support with "Larry H" who happens to have a thick indian accent.

Sorry for the rant. Long story short, Dell still builds great desktops and servers. STEER CLEAR of their laptops. Buy an IBM laptop. You'll spend extra, but it will be worth it.

Good luck!

 

[atpcliff]

Hi!

We have a Dell laptop (an old one, so good quality), and Dell desktop (hard drive failed at about 1 year-otherwise fine) and an old windows desktop.

Obviously we use Windows. I WON'T make that MISTAKE again!

I went through about 30 games for my old Acer, none of which worked as Windows components interfere so much with each other.

Because of our heavy use of the internet, both our desktop and my notebook have had spyware/virus problems. I quite using Explorer (I now use Mozilla Firefox) because of it.

The Apples are so much better. The software is designed much better. When you buy something for an Apple, it basically works-you don't have to worry about compatibility. The basic software is much more secure, as is their web browser.

There are divisions of Microsoft that DON'T want to stop spam and want to keep Explorer and Windows less secure than it could be, so that they can solicit people. MS is fighting a war within itself over those divisions that want to make it more secure and those that don't.

It used to be that Windows machines were cheaper-No longer! I was pricing Dells and Apples, and the price is about the same. You can get a cheaper windows machine, but then it's CHEAPER!

Give up the MS and switch to Apple. You will be very glad you did!

Also, think about what you want your computer to do. I want mine to surf the net, play the most recent video games, watch movies, store and play a ton of music, store/catalog/display all my photos, and edit video.

Basically, I want a multi-media entertainment center, and guess which company is better at doing multi-media? APPLE.

Make the change, improve your life, and maybe MS will get a clue and actually try and deliver a quality product instead of screwing people for the max cash they can.

Cliff
YIP

 

[sweptback]

Thanks guys. Any idea what the best one is in the 15" screen size? I'm looking for something that I can use also at home, I think the 10-12" screens would be a bit small for home use, although nice for travel.

Don't buy a 15" screen. Trust me on this.

If you plan on using it at home, buy a nice 17" or so LCD screen, and just plug it into your laptop. It will be bigger and brighter than any LCD in a laptop, and it won't cost as much as you think (they're getting pretty cheap now). Plus you'll have the display for your next computer.

Either that or just spring for one of those Sonys with the wide screen. They're not that big and very light. But any run-of-the-mill laptop with a 15" screen will be HEAVY and suck down battery. Both of those are not qualities you want for a traveling laptop.

I suppose if you wanted a laptop to take with you occasionally, and you don't mind lugging around 8 pounds it would be alright. But if you plan on taking this thing on every overnight with you, you'll love the fact that it's small and light even if it's a little slower or less flashy than what you could have gotten. Plus, smaller laptop = smaller bag to carry around.

As for the extended warranties, there's different kinds. Steer clear of the retail store warranties (Best Buy, etc), as the way they're written it's almost impossible to get your laptop fixed right (they exclude about anything that can possibly break). Plus, every time you need it fixed you send it away for a week or two. Not cool if it's your only computer.

The extended warranties offered by the manufacturer have much better turnaround times, often 2 or 3 days. Usually they'll only cover the battery once (all laptop batteries die after about 2 years of use), but the cost of a replacement battery will probably cover the cost of the warranty. The manufacturer's warranties also won't have all the restrictions that the store warranties will. They're still a bit of a ripoff, but for something that will get as beat up as a laptop, it's a nice thing to have.