Laptop suggestions

[vagabond]

Can you guys share your good/bad experiences with laptops ?

I have used Dell Inspiron for years and leaning towards it. What minimum RAM should I target: 4 GB ? Processor i5 ? How do you select wireless option ? Some of them have Dell wireless instead of Intel Centrino.

 

[choo]

what are you gonna be using it for?

 

[vagabond]

Mainly browsing but I would like the flexibility to program/use a statistical package.

 

[choo]

I don't exactly treat them nicely but I've had to replace the fan on every HP/Compaq I've owned but I haven't bought one in 4 years so maybe they're improved. My current Compaq sounds like an airplane. Have had 2 lenovo's one 8 gig RAM and current one 6 gig. Wish I had the 8 still but i do imo a lot of concurrent things and I usually get by fine on 6 gig (w/ i5). the 6 gig I bought was only like $800 months ago.

Not sure that helps you but those are my experiences. I have no idea on wireless.

 

[stevek173]

Dell i7
http://www.dealigg.com/story-Dell-I...QM-2GHz-6GB-RAM-640GB-HDD-Windows-7-Premium-4

blammo!

 

[Blitty]

Love my MBP

 

[Boner_18]

Troll newegg.com or woot.com for a refurb.

Any HP, Toshiba, Dell, Gateway or even acer or lenovo. I wouldn't go over 15''. Look for 4gb ram (expandable to 8), i5 or i7. 320gb HD is fin unless you horde media. Hdmi out is a must if you use the laptop to stream to tv or anticipate going that route. I wouldn't spend over $600.

 

[roguejuror]

I got a Samsung RV520 $500 bucks, not that many resolution options but other than that pretty good

 

[Polaroid]

For browsing and using a stats package, you can definitely get away with a low end machine should you want to keep it cheap. When comparing machines, always check the CPU since that's something that people generally overlook as they concentrate on memory and hard drive size.

http://bit.ly/10grCc

 

[Boner_18]

A $300 lenovo on www.woot.com today.

Might fit your needs, dual core processor, 2+ghz. Install a little more ram on your own.

 

[vagabond]

Guys,
Thanks for the suggestions. Bought a HP laptop.

 

[wal66]

I stopped on the way back from dropping off samples at the lab and bought an Acer. I only paid $380 for it so I will let you know if it's worth the price. Basically all it has to do is surf and store minimal data.

Already one knock that I didn't checkout before buying is that it doesn't have an external monitor port. That's a bummer.

 

[Matty]

durito owns an Acer.

 

[rito]

my acer has a picture of casper as its wallpaper

 

[Matty]

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

 

[wal66]

Well, it's functional and cheap so it gets props for that at least. Definitely not as fast as my other HP's have been but none of them cost less than $700 either.

It cost less and is better than the IPad so all in all I guess it's ok.


It was gonna cost me around $500 to replace the screen on my HP so it was more practical to go this route. Course this route doesn't allow for the return of WallyBubble's, sorry RJ.

 

[betplom]

durito owns an Acer.

Plommer too.

Acers are cheap. I use my laptop for web browsing 99% of the time, Acers are fine.

 

[Saulty]

Toshiba is my favorite. You get 4GB RAM and 320GB HD and depending on the processor you want as low as $300 to $600 you get a decent laptop.