Notebook Computer Recommendations....

wingnut4772

I currently have a Toshiba M55 S3512 and I am wondering if I should get a different laptop for school as this is the 'house' computer. I know NOTHING about computers (even though I can assemble a HT with ease ) and the counselor was recommending to get something with a lot of memory etc. I also need something VERY rugged as I am a bull with things. (Taurus)The computer I have now is missing a key or two thanks to my Rat Terriers but is it an ok computer? Should I get something else for school?

POLKOHOLIC

dont get a dell, gateway, hp/compaq or sony. the only 2 brands that i trust are IBM/Lenovo and Toshiba. I own both machines and they work flawlessly. Infact I have a toshiba that I spilled some water in after the warranty expired and the laptop stopped functioning. the next day i took it in for repair and they fixed it in a week for free - no questions asked. Toshiba and IBM/Lenovo are excellent machines. Sony makes some aesthetically apealling laptops for a hefty price tag and are usually not as good feature wise as other machines in the same price range.

Systems

I saw a commercial yesterday for that Panasonic toughbook I think it was called. Looked pretty interesting, you might investigate that one...

POLKOHOLIC

yea i've always wanted to check those out. i have no experience with Panasonic Notebooks but those tough books DO look interesting. They might be a bit pricey though..not sure

brettw22

I use to have Toshiba's and liked them, Sony's and HATED them, but I now have a Fujitsu that I love over everything I've owned before. I didn't even know that Fujitsu made computers, but I've been extremely happy.

Here's their website to see if anything works for your needs.

I have a 17" widescreen that I love and granted it's big by most people's laptop standards, I like that it's got some heft to it and I don't feel like I'm going to damage it by moving it around.

Bill Ayotte

The toughbooks aren't as tough as they look, and are out-dated technology wise. How much are you looking to spend and what are you going to use it for specifically? (I know it s for school, but I am thinking drafting, graphic design,etc.) I can't really suggest anything before I know this.

ben62670

You can get 5 normal laptops for the price of 1 tough book. It would definitely be helpful to know what kind of work you will be doing on it. From your previous post school daze I am assuming that you will be using it for research and documents. You will want 512meg of ram or better, and I really suggest getting one of those key chain usb drives to backup your data. I work on computers for a living, and when it comes to laptops they are a lot closer in quality than desktops. Stay away from Sony is the best advice. I personally like Dells. The costumer support is pretty decent as far as company support goes. Dells are kinda like Mercury outboards in boats. They catch a lot of slack because you here about a lot of them being broken. When you are out on a boat you see a fair amount of Mercury's broken down. But the thing is there are more mercury's on the water than the rest of them combined. Same with Dell. Most companies that have IT guys working for them use Dells. Most State departments use Dells. Most schools use Dells.
Can you guess what I would buy.

Good luck with your purchase, and with school
Ben

RuSsMaN

Love my Sony Vaio, the most reliable notebook I've had, much moreso than Dell, and without all the garbage they preload, some of which is near impossible to remove without partitioning and starting over. I've got friends with Tosh's and they speak very highly of them.

Used a Panny Toughbook in the field for quite sometime, they are a Godsend if the conditions warrant the price.

Cheers,
Russ

Demiurge

Tosh.

Bill Ayotte

Check these out:
http://www.alienware.com/product_detail_pages/Area-51_m5550/area-51m_overview.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-AREA51M5550-R3&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT

I know this looks a little extreme for what you will be doing, but I have yet to come across a owner of one of these that complains about them.

Mike682

IBM/Lenovo are solid notebooks. I've also been using a Compaq pentium m for running data analysis/stat programs with no problems. I am also doing some picture editing, although I prefer my main computer for this.

Dells are good too..

Check with your school bookstore. Many schools offer discounts on computers when ordered through them.

wingnut4772

What is wrong with Dell? That's what my college recommended and I have an account with them. I also do with Sony though.

I will be using it for papers and research. I would also like to use it outside my house and go on the internet and be able to write and research at Starbucks etc.

What about a Mac? Could I use that with my wireless router even though my other notebook will be windows?

Demiurge

Bill Ayotte wrote:

Check these out:
http://www.alienware.com/product_detail_pages/Area-51_m5550/area-51m_overview.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-AREA51M5550-R3&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT

I know this looks a little extreme for what you will be doing, but I have yet to come across a owner of one of these that complains about them.

Too bad Dell owns them now.

Bill Ayotte

A Mac is an awesome choice. I am the last of my family to jump on the wagon, only for $$ reasons. They are real easy to set up and get used to as well. They don't come with all of the crap on them that most windows computers do either. You will have to buy all of the software that you need (Office,etc) for the mac, but they have it in the store and will even install it for you if needed. Yes, you can use the mac with your windows wireless router as well. They call it Airport.

ledhed

wingnut4772 wrote:

What about a Mac?

This will probably open a can of worms so, IMHO,

Macs are way overpriced for the hardware you get though, any Mac software released for your computer is guaranteed to run flawlessly.

I don't like Mac/Steve Jobs at all. My iPods have messed up to the point of being returned twice, same with my friends. I am of the personal persuasion they have horrible business tactics and that Steve Jobs (CEO) is one of the devil's personal minions. But, they are pretty and will let you post here :rolleyes:

Bill Ayotte

Almost forgot.....They have a killer student discount as well. I think it is like 20% off of everything.
I would check out the Black Macbook....It seems to have what you are looking for.

Demiurge

ledhed wrote:

This will probably open a can of worms so, IMHO,

Macs are way overpriced for the hardware you get though, any Mac software released for your computer is guaranteed to run flawlessly.

I don't like Mac/Steve Jobs at all. My iPods have messed up to the point of being returned twice, same with my friends. I am of the personal persuasion they have horrible business tactics and that Steve Jobs (CEO) is one of the devil's personal minions. But, they are pretty and will let you post here :rolleyes:

Having done the research myself a while back, I was sold on Mac for a while, and then I couldn't justify the money when they're not even close to being worth it. They become obsolete much faster than your standard PC laptop and you can upgrade the PC.

See this thread...

dylan

Warranty, warranty, warranty. Being in IT, I'm partial to IBM/ Lenovo laptops, but most pc's are the same anymore. Its what happens when a component dies that can separate all of them. Also good experience with Vaio's.

Not a fan of Dell, but if you get a discount and a great warranty, go for it. Ben had a good analogy, as they have a lot of bulk contracts (school/ govt/ etc). A lot of them out there, a lot of them will break.

Laptops are much more prone to failure than desktops (think of the different lives they lead). Not trying to scare you at all, any computer owner should backup, and backup often.

ledhed

If you are only using it for word processing/internet then you don't need a very powerful, expensive PC at all. My computer was originally a 2.6GHZ P4 w/ only 512MB of RAM. The only reason I have changed things is for Video creation/editing along with some minor gameplay. This set up would be considered painfully slow by today's standards but it is more than enough for your purposes.

EDIT: The best advice I can give is to buy by features and not brand. Find a friend you trust who is a computer geek (everyone knows one), have them format the thing out of the box and reinstall the Operating system and set it up just for you. Even if you spend more to buy the OS, it is worth it to have only those programs you need. You would see a major increase in responsiveness down the road also.

ben62670

Macs are a very nice computer. they are less prone to break, and get viruses, BUT if they do break it is hard to find someone to work on them, labor is more expensive, and the software is far more limited for Macs. IBM's have been pretty solid for a while except for hard drive failures. IBM/Hitachi travel stars, and their desktop hard drives the Desk star are known in the biz as death stars due to high failure rates. They aren't the fastest things out there. As far as companies loading up computers with junk soft ware HP and Compaq (same company) take the cake with useless software.

Almost forgot the worst thing you can do to a laptop is set it on a bed or a pillow. If you do this it blocks off the cooling ports, and they fry. Also be cautious about the power cord. the jack they plug into is attached to the motherboard. If you brake the jack you will need a new motherboard. Price to replace the motherboard is the price to buy a new laptop.

disneyjoe7

Own a Dell XPS m140 like it, never had a problem running Win XP Pro.

exalted512

disneyjoe7 wrote:

Own a Dell XPS m140 like it, never had a problem running Win XP Pro.

I have the same laptop and absolutely love it.

If Dell is good enough to take the abuse of 100s of thousands of stupid college students here using them, its safe to say theyre pretty reliable.

If you can stand to wait, they have specials on them about once a month
-Cody

wingnut4772

Ok...now let's say when I am not doing schoolwork I want to run some HD movies (Blu Ray) on it through my HT....?:p

ledhed

wingnut4772 wrote:

Ok...now let's say when I am not doing schoolwork I want to run some HD movies (Blu Ray) on it through my HT....?:p

I'm not that up to date on notebooks but, you will pay a good amount to get a BR drive and it will take ALOT more processing power in order to decode it more than likely

disneyjoe7

wingnut4772 wrote:

Ok...now let's say when I am not doing schoolwork I want to run some HD movies (Blu Ray) on it through my HT....?:p

Only if **** nothing else will work. But I don't think this will be a problem since I hear you got in trouble because you're into **** now.

wodom1

I went through three Sony Vaio's in 2.5 years at my last job, so I'm not a fan. When I started my new job, I got an IBM Thinkpad T60 and this thing has been great -- it's never crashed on me, it's fast, and it's extremely lightweight. Check out a T60.

avguytx

Here's my $.02 coming from someone that travels a lot and takes the laptop everywhere for work. If it's for that purpose (travel, etc) they all suck. I've been thru 3 of them in the last 5.5 years. The HP was the longest lasting at 3 years before the LCD went out; the Gateway broke after 1 month and no one wanted to fess up to it (MAJOR orderl); and finally, the Toshiba. Ahh..what a big piece of crap. When it worked, it was ok I guess but one month out of warranty, the typical Toshiba power plug problem happened and it broke off the circuit board, it crashed and lost all my emails, spreadsheets, etc. Luckily I had backups. Toshiba didn't care to help in any way, Office Depot was no help, etc. Kinda pissed me off seeing that I've spent about $7,000 with them in the last 5+ years on PC,s laptops, office supplies, office supplies, office supplies, etc.

Bottom line...I'm sure traveling with them and using it non-stop for work is rougher than a normal person will put it thru. Most ANY laptop would have issues with that. But, when I replace this POS, it's going to be the cheapest (within reason) one that I can find if they all are going to break. And if I can keep from it, it won't be a Toshiba. Unless (sigh) it's the cheapest. lol. I might get a Mac this time. That's all my parent's company used was Mac desktops and laptops for their advertising company...and they never had issues like these PC based POS's do. I swear, it's just like the PC/Mac commercials on TV (with those 2 dudes).

Ok...I'll get off my rant and step down from the soap box. lol Maybe my dilemmas aren't normal.

disneyjoe7

Toshiba is off my list big time, as I needed a driver for a Tos Laptop and I couldn't get it. Poor Poor support.

BottomFeeder

"Once you go Mac, you never go back!"

I did & I aint!

brettw22

First of all, business travel of any kind is a lot more abuse than most will ever see just going from school to home etc..

I 100% agree about the extended warranty suggestion. ON my Fujitsu, it had a 1 year and then I extended it through Fujitsu an additional 2 years for only $179. The average part that's gonna go (screen, mother board, cd drive, hard drive, etc) is going to be well over that, and for an item that's natively being moved around and is fragile, the likeliness is that it WILL break at some point.

I do wish that more computers adopted the Mac's magnet power cord, but if it's not the power cord that can get ripped/yanked, it's the Ethernet cable as well. I had tripped on my cord a month or two ago and had the whole motherboard replaced and it was done in a day and a half. Get to know your local repairman and they'll order parts and you can take it to them to do an immediate replacement and you'll only be down for a few hours.

ledhed

One nice thing about HP (I'm sure this goes for Compaq also) is that on their website they list the components in your computer and even the make and model of your motherboard so you can always get the drivers you need (usually on the HP site). I had a XP disc that didn't have all the drivers I needed and the HP site did. Just a plus for them.

Also, Staples warranties are awesome. They go though a third party company to do it. Last time I called, I got a guy in the US who was not just using a script/map to fix my problem but was actually an IT guy. He also told me everything I needed to know about some upgrades I was looking at.