Notebook choices

[PardeGT]

A client/friend has asked me to help choose a laptop. It will be used for internet, home office and travel (not much gaming). The budget is ~$1200 and don't want to get too big, probably 15 - 15.4" screen.

I have read a lot of plugs for the Dell 6000 and have also looked at the Asus z63a and z93e as well as a few offerings from toshiba. Sticking with pentium m for battery life.

I have a Dell inspiron 1100 and am not real impressed, too much plastic, heavy, etc. I've also had experience with an Asus Z9 and it seemed to outshine the dell in all categories.
I suspect the dell 6000 is a far better than my old 1100 but I still hold some uncertainty. Not really much experience with Toshibas.

Any suggestions, points for comparison (besides Dell CS and warranties please), etc?

Thanks.

[flanzig1]

All most all of the field service people I deal with use Dells. What ever brand you choose, you will want to get an extended warranty or service contract. Laptops on the road can take a beating.

[Game420]

I got a Gateway 3500 series. I know most Gateways are worthless. But I havent had any problems with this one whatsoever. I have had it about 4 months and it has been awesome thus far. I got it at Best Buy for around 800 bucks. Got a 1.30 GHZ and 480 MB of RAM.

I use it for home and travel.


So, um yeah.

[PCBrandon]

Well, I wouldn't purchase from Toshiba, but I'm extremely biased. The school I work at has a laptop lab, a cart on wheels with 24 laptops inside for teachers to check out for their classes. The Toshiba's are Satelite A60-S159 which IMO suck. We were going to purchase Dell's, but the Dell representative didn't call back so we went with Toshiba (yeah, we are a company that has 500+ Dell Computers and 200+ Dell accessories all under warranty, who cares if we want to make a $45,000 purchase in a matter of a one hour conversation)...

But yeah, back on topic. The Toshibas don't really get too much abuse, the teachers are really careful about them, and IT techs setup and pack up the cart themselves. Guess what? We've had to replace five monitors, replace the motherboard on one of them, had to send quite a few in to check the mouse pad (it would move randomly without you touching it, and not where you wanted it to go when you did), for a hefty price. Not to mention they hate Wireless routers (or at least the zillion we've tried) all within less than a school year.

Just a small rant :)

*EDIT* Oh, the other side... I would go with Dell because they are known for their customer service and warranties. Just go for the best and longest warranty you can get, if a part on a laptop goes bad, you're pretty much looking at getting a new laptop or paying excessively high prices for replacement parts and labor. With the warranty, you avoid that :) (Well, most of the time...)

[glc]

The Dell 6000 is an excellent lower end laptop - the 1100 is a toy in comparison. If you look around for coupons, the 6000 can be had for an unbeatable price.

[thefultonhow]

If you look around for coupons, the 6000 can be had for an unbeatable price.

You mean, like $800 (http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=i6000dsapp&s=bsd)? That model also has the X300 graphics card.

My school bought 1100s and I can say with authority that they were probably the worst computer Dell has ever produced. The 6000 is significantly better.

[Jaggannath]

Don't they offer ones called the 2200 now?? Just so that if you got suckered by the 1100's and aren't too bright they can get you again :D

[thefultonhow]

Don't they offer ones called the 2200 now?? Just so that if you got suckered by the 1100's and aren't too bright they can get you again :D

The 2200s actually aren't bad. I think they're made by Quanta, which is a fairly good ODM. My school bought the 1000 and 1200 series laptops starting from when they came out, and they have been fairly reliable, but they got tired of dealing with Dell support and switched to the IBM ThinkPad R-series. They're a bit more expensive, but there's a local authorized repair center that will fix them, no questions asked.