Laptop/Notebook

[Patriot]

sometimes sucketh supporting family on disability/fixed income

kids and I are hoping to find an affordable portable:

I'm looking for a laptop/notebook that's a screamin' deal

would rather like something from a store (like new) -> open box and refurb is fine

that's how I've purchased most all my electronics: DVD player, flat screen

nothing ultra powerful...enough RAM (2gig min?), lotsa hard disk (250-320g)

nice size and pretty screen

CD/DVD burner

most reliable - looks like ASUS and Toshiba win

extended warranty ???

any thoughts???

 

[Deacon51]

tigerdirect dot com often have great deals on refrub's

 

[FJRay]

My wife got me a Samsung notebook for christmas from Costco.com . I think she paid around 250.00 for it. NIB , windows XP, web cam and more **** than I will ever use. sure fits in the top box better than my lap top.

 

[Patriot]

tigerdirect dot com often have great deals on refrub's

yep, been looking at them lately; I agree

they have a smokin' deal on a Samsung BD-P3600 bluray player with wifi/internet connection that plays netflix instant movies

$199...well geez, 2 weeks ago it was free shipping (anything <35#)

now they changed it to <25#, so shipping is additional $29...dang

My wife got me a Samsung notebook for christmas from Costco.com . I think she paid around 250.00 for it. NIB , windows XP, web cam and more **** than I will ever use. sure fits in the top box better than my lap top.

no Costco around here and buddys in the north swear by them...will check out costco.com

I might have to check out Sams as big bro let's me use his card...bought my last tires from there

keep 'em coming...I've looked hard for a week and my eyes hurt

do see consumer records seem to show Asus and Toshiba most reliable

I thought I should look at Acer the most, but maybe not

around $300 would be affordable...I keep seeing what I think I'm looking for around $450 ;-(

Consumer Reports advises the only merchandise to purchase an extended warranty is laptops...that's another $100 or so ;-(

whatta ya'll think about purchasing extended warrantys???

thanx for your advice...I appreciate it...kinda overwhelmed here and it's a high priority when the kids need it for school work

my BIL donated linksys broadband stuff, so I have a network in the house going to my cox cable modem

 

[Cibrd0wn]

The dell outlet has some good refurb deals with full warranty.

 

[Nightshift]

sometimes sucketh supporting family on disability/fixed income
kids and I are hoping to find an affordable portable:

I'm looking for a laptop/notebook that's a screamin' deal

would rather like something from a store (like new) -> open box and refurb is fine

that's how I've purchased most all my electronics: DVD player, flat screen

nothing ultra powerful...enough RAM (2gig min?), lotsa hard disk (250-320g)

nice size and pretty screen

CD/DVD burner

most reliable - looks like ASUS and Toshiba win

extended warranty ???

any thoughts???

I bought myself an Acer e notebook last Dec. It is model AS1410 has 2 GB RAM @ 1.4Ghz CPU using DIsc space of 220GB Hard drive. It does everything I need it to to but in hindsite I should have gotten a laptop and sacrificed some HD memory. I paid out the internet door $404 for the Acer , then had to spend $68 on an external CD rom drive so I could Download my printer driver. Acer comes with standard 1 yr factory waranty on parts.

 

[feeger]

Here are some of my favorite bargain hunting sites:

techbargains

slickdeals

fatwallet

 

[Checkswrecks]

www.microcenter.com

I picked up a Acer Aspire One 10.1" netbook early this year for $280 on sale with a 6 cell battery and have come to swear by it. The old Dell stays on the docking station full time now.

Open Office and Paint.net & good to go.

 

[Rogue]

Definitely check out ACER. I have an ACER laptop I've used daily at work for years and I haven't had any problems with it.

 

[Patriot]

tigerdirect dot com often have great deals on refrub's

I made my purchase from TigerDirect...thanx all for your advice

Going by Consumer Reports, I was looking for a Toshiba or Azus which was on the top of their reliability chart

However, Acer, Gateway, and others were right behind and the stats used were so close to be meanless.

HP and Compaq were at the bottom, but not really a significance score difference.

My goal was to find something under $400, but that market seems to favor the new classification called "Netbooks".

I want a full blown laptop that could easily replace a desktop computer.

I decided after seeing the below Gateway, that I could afford a 17" screen with a nice amount of memory, 320gig HD, and a DVD burner. Looked at having decent battery life and the standard web cam. Wanted the fastest, best processor I could afford.

Gateway unit now unavailable

So kept looking and found this one:

Acer unit purchased for $430

purchased it and it's scheduled for delivery on Tuesday.

let's compute safely and be careful with the mouse out there,

Mike in Nawlins'

 

[jhedges]

Stay away from Acer!

Stay away from warranties.

your going to spend $100.00 for a warranty on a $300.00 laptop? no go man!

 

[Checkswrecks]

Stay away from Acer!
Stay away from warranties.

your going to spend $100.00 for a warranty on a $300.00 laptop? no go man!

My experience with Acer has been great.

When looking at netbooks, it was one of our agency I.T. people who is REALLY into comparing these things who told me that she bought the Acer 10.1". She too said not to get the extended warranty because if they die, it'll be in the first weeks. The size is a great compromise, I've beat the hell out of mine all over the world and on countless airline flights, run it daily on an aircard, and even run photo shows in the Open Office version of Powerpoint.

 

[jhedges]

glad you've had good luck with Acer!

I would still recommend you stay away from them.

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/computers/acer.html

 

[Zorlac]

Looks pretty good for the money.

I'd prefer up/down volume buttons instead of Bluetooth & "backup" buttons.

Good Luck with it Mike!

"I would still recommend you stay away from them."

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/computers/acer.html

How do you think they get the refurbs? :dribble:

 

[chrisflock]

I got my laptop from Best Buy for 279. Windows 7, dual core AMD, 3 gigs of ram, 250 gig hard drive, and all the usual (dvd burner, wireless N, etc.)

As for the "Stay away from Acer" advice, I'd just ignore it. Acer is one of the largest manufacturers of OEM computer equipment in the world (read: they make the stuff the other companies use to make ). Basically, if you buy a PC/mac today, you're getting either Dell, Asus, or Acer. Take your pick.

You'll find complaints out there for any and every brand (although I admit, reading through most of those complaints was entertaining).

 

[jhedges]

What the F$ck am I doing arguing about what the best $300 laptop is? Kinda moronic ain't it?

In all seriousness get a laptop that will give you the best battery life. You'll appreciate not having to find a power source for your laptop after 45 minutes for example. Everything else is secondary at a $300.00 price.

I wouldn't buy a Dell either.

The company I work for has literally bought tens of thousands of PC's over the past 20 years. From Compaqs, to HP, and now to Dells. Our most success we've had has been with HP PC's. The Dells we currently are leasing are POS. Our PC Desktop Services area looks like a PC hardware graveyard. Say what you will, Dell is putting some cheap Sh!t in their equipment these days. Now before you walking Dell boner dudes start chiming in, I know there is always an exception to a rule! Good Luck, just tryin to help a brother out.

 

[Zorlac]

"walking Dell boner dude"

I think I'm gonna create a new forum account under that name.

 

[Patriot]

What the F$ck am I doing arguing about what the best $300 laptop is? Kinda moronic ain't it?Good Luck, just tryin to help a brother out.

wow, I was wondering the same thing :blink:

opinions are like...well you know h34r:

my 30 year career with all avenues of the computer world has taught me something

computers are female

good luck to you too :yahoo:

 

[Checkswrecks]

In all seriousness get a laptop that will give you the best battery life. ...Everything else is secondary ... The company I work for has literally bought tens of thousands of PC's over the past 20 years. ...

Thought I'd leave this for those who find this thread in the future, as everything else is NOT secondary when the machines die. Batteries are indeed vital, but motorcycles are very hard on computers and our work group is REAL experienced at - ahem - aggravated environmental testing. Want to know what survives bumping around in a backpack during a week of swamp time in Cameroon or on the side of a cliff in Greece? Our real world Gummint-funded torture test experience has been that:

Dells are ok for the office and conference rooms and while we do regularly go through them, the IT group buys them for us by the bunch at a real good contract price, plus you can get parts and fixed anywhere in the world. Literally. The various Dell refurb laptops and desktops we've bought on our own buck for kids computers have been quite reliable, even at college. The kids have found that even when they do something physically stupid, they can generally find cheap parts and somebody who has fixed worse. Leading to the later story: "Yeah Dad we were sitting on the judging stand at the arena and after it bounced down the stairwell, then we used a cake knife to replace the hard drive..."

Panasonic and HP's ruggedized laptops worked but generally seem to run a generation behind, cost a BUNCH more, and get left behind because they are like a ton of bricks in a backpack. Nice machines but budget busters and you can't use what you don't carry along.

HP's regular laptops haven't been any better or worse than the Dells work-wise for some folks we've worked with, but in college use, our little parent collective thinks that they fail a little more often and it's a pain to clean out the bloatware.

The worst have been everything we've gotten from Sony. Girls LOVE the looks. We bought them for the features and using their products is great while they work, but they're not made for our environment. We've killed every camera and laptop we've gotten. Well, a Columbian Army jeep did run over the last laptop, but that's another story.

On the upside and for outdoor/travel use, most of the netbooks have been really hard to beat, so much so that many of our field guys have bought them on their own buck. Bootup time of 25 seconds to back up field photos, place captions, and type notes on a work break. Newer ones have built-in aircards. If you keep them in a ty-wrapped plastic bag with some paper towels they work in the rain (laptops are too big), batteries can go 6-8 hours on an airplane ride (my Dell laptop sure can't), not too big for a seatback tray, and when they die (rarely) you just throw the thumb-stick in another one for cheap. Downsides are the external DVD drives, slower use of Powerpoint and other memory/processor intensive use, and smaller screens/keyboards.

I think tablets are up & coming, once we get past some hurdles. The touch screens are only good for a limited life, we need to figure out how to protect the screens for that amount of time, and the guys who tried the last generation for us said they were tempermental with weather.