What kind of laptop to buy

[doubledragon5]

Hi everyone question

I'm looking to buy a laptop for the wife to use. Presently she is disabled and unable to sit very long at the desk that our current pc is on. She would like to be able to connect to the net to chat with family and do some surfing. Also she likes to write poems and is looking for something that is up to date but doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles. She thought of the laptop because she can use it from the bed. I would appreciate some ideas you have on brand names and models.

Also I want to update my Vdieo card for this Dell Pc I have, because I like playing games and want something that has more realistic graphics. So far I've been happy with the Nvidia brand.


System specs
Dell Demension 8200
Intel 1.9 ghz
512 MB RDRAM
120 GB WD harddrive
64 MB Nvidia Geforce 2 MX/MX 400 W/TV out
Santa curz sound card
19" monitor

[ktkendall]

Hi doubledragon;
Sorry to hear about your wife, hope she recovers well. I have not heard anything bad about Dell laptops. They do have a factory refurb site too. I am a feild tech and visit many coorporate customers in my daily travels and have heard nothing but good about Dell including their laptops.
KTK

[doubledragon5]

I was just there checking out their notebooks not bad even thought I have had problems in the past with my last PC from them. My present PC has been real good to me. I'm hoping to hear opinions on many different one's thanks for the info KTK. Keep the ideas comming.

[Eric H.]

for graphics, I would take a look at an ATI 8500 or 9000, with 128MB memory. Newegg currently has an ATI 8500 LE, 128MB DDR, for $94.

unless of course you want to fork out $300 - $350 for a new Radeon 9700.

I don't know much about Geforce cards, as I never buy them, but I do know that you'd want to stay away from the "Mx" versions, and buy a "Ti" version. Hopefully someone can fill my gap in knowledge.

[Tuf]

You can't go wrong with the better DELL or IBM notebooks. I would pass on anyones value line. Buy the extended warranty equivalent to the amount of time you plan to keep the computer.

[shinigami579]

there is actually a lot of options for laptop. you should really consider what is need and what uses it will be for. such as where is is going to be use such as a lap or table or if it will be used while moving around such as room to room or another house etc. so such uses you might want to consider a lightweight computer. if weight isn't a big problem you might consider a desktop replacement. toshiba, dell, alienware, and hp make some powerful computers, but usually rather pricy. weight wise compaq makes some of the lightest computer. but price wise viao's,compaq and hp are the best.

[doubledragon5]

I'm going with a Dell. The wife said she has been happy with our current PC, and she decided she wanted one also. I my self always said when I buy me another I will build, but for her I will purchase one. As anyone here ever built a loptop before? Her primary use is for writing and interneting. She has some serious medical conditions and is currently disabled and buying a laptop will be fine because she can use it in bed. I am considering a Dell refurbish with an extra warranty. My current PC is refurbished and we haven't had many problems since we purchased it.

[Preston]

I'm personally not too happy with my new Dell. Mainly the battery. Brand new machine and I can only get 1 hour out of the battery....talked to Dell and they say that 1 hour is normal for this battery....

Bought a Toshiba a couple of years ago, and it is still a very good machine....

That's my 2 cents anyway...

[Force Flow]

Brand new Laptops usually have a life of about 2 hours. That's without using the floppy or CD drive. They are a power drain.

I've had good experience with Gateway, but have also heard that Dell has a good run of laptops recently. Nowadays, you can get laptops for almost any need. Sometimes, they can be more powerful than your desktop PC.

Good luck with the search and be sure to pass on our get-well wishes onto your wife.

[ktkendall]

Hi DD:
how is your wife coming along in recovery?? just to answer a little question you slipped in there>> It isn't really feasable to build your own laptop. They are just not built that way. For you to actually obtain the parts to build just 1 Laptop just wouldn't be economically feasable, and you would have a heck of a time finding everything. Not to say it couldn't be done, but they are just not at all like a desktop. Everything is basically all housed on the mainboard, so the case has to be specifically matched for that mainboard, basically they are propriatery to each manufacturer.
Happy New Year!! KK

[j009h33rM3]

I personally like Toshibas, they seem to be really sturdy. I've seen some cheap-looking dells before. I'm not impressed with Dell as a company, they can advertise, sell decent computers, but they are bound to be cutting corners somewhere. Of course the same probably holds true for my Toshiba, but my Satellite looks nicer than anything Dell offers

Alienware Laptops offer the highest end componesnts for their laptops, and are more oriented towards gamers. Pretty heavy machines too. Not for the mobile user. Battery life I hear is pretty short on these laptops a well.

Dell Laptops offer some good values, but I have tried to do configurations with high-end componesnts and always end up getting a message that says "some componesnts in the configuration are not compatible." So then why was I given the option??? Dell offers different styles for people more concerned about weight (you usually sacrafice performance). I would also think that the lower the performance specs the more battery life.

Toshiba gives a great value, but they are heavy. This one here isn't even top of the line and it still ways a hefty 12lbs. There are some lower performing models that are lighter. Toshiba also has the best speakers built-in. NO OTHER LAPTOP SOUNDS THIS GOOD I PROMISE YOU! Very very good battery life. I can watch about 2 DVD movies no problem.

Sonys are popular because of their looks, but i am not a big fan of purple. Sony accesories, such as batteries, chargers etc. are the most expensive though. They also don't seem to be much of a value and I tend to think you are mostly paying for their name. I do think that Sony's have the best LCD displays though.

HP/Compaq - not a fan of HP's or Coimpaq, but I have seem some prices which definately rival Dell. Most of the compaq models are light-weight, while HP tends to have higher performing parts inside (depends on the model of course). I compared the displays once, and found that the HP is much crisper and has better color accuracy.

vprmatrix - the absolute worst speakers. Can barely hear the sound, plus they are on the front of the laptop so the sound waves are traveling at your chest, or at your legs (depending on how your sitting at your laptop). However their LCD display rivals Sony, and they even offer a version with widescreen, although I personally would like a full 15" display. The designs (even though coming from porsche) is really ugly IMO. Even though i work for best buy, I am not a big fan of this laptop. But the prices are competitive with Dell, and most likely you could talk a salesperson down if you brought in a Dell price (just don't tell them I told you, that you could).

Try to avoid mail-in rebates. I hate to say it, but they sometimes don't come back. Ones that are usually from the store you're buying from will come back within 2-4 weeks, and are not a problem. Dell and Toshiba are good with their rebates (friend owns a Dell Inspiron and tells me it's the best thing ever ALL the time - it's rather annoying especially when I have a better machine and paid less ). I have lost $60 to sony on a monitor so i won't comment on their rebates.

Get an extended warranty, although as a best buy employee, and do tend to think Service Plans have a bit more to offer at the same (or sometimes lower) price. If the warranty is somehow cheaper than the service plan than the obvious way to go is the extended warranty.

[doubledragon5]

Hi ktkendall wife not feeling to well. Has another surgery in a couple of weeks than about 1 yr of recovery for complete heal.

I didn't thing building your own would be wise. My second Dell has given me no problems, but will built before buying another one form anyone. Build one already for the kids running no problems for last 6 mos or so.

j009h33rM3 Toshiba sounds like a nice one will check them out at Best Buy always there when I'm at the mall.

Just want a reliable one thats it. You gave me the run down on a lot of different one, that will make it a lot easier to decide. Thanks again Happy New Year. Will let you know which one I bought hopefull I will have one in the next 2 wks.

[Mac Medic]

Just set up 2 toshiba's for a customer. $599 after all rebates, Heck of a deal and nice laptops too. I use a dell 4150 but have issues with their service. 3 week turnaround is unacceptable, especially when compaq did the same repair on a different notebook in 3 days.

[doubledragon5]

oem_guy_2002


Where did you go for them. I'm looking at Toshiba right now and have no clue what to buy. Don't need nothing fancy just something for the net, chit chat, and writing that's it.

[corkler]

I've had a Toshiba for 6 months - a good machine!

[wrelax]

hey, i just purchased a satellite s803, its one of toshiba's best. I will tell you how it is when it comes tomorrow!

s503 is pretty descent too for a more reasonable price. whatever you do, don't get a celeron, and always get as much ram as you can.

hope your wife feels better, and happy new year.

[Preston]

Why not a celeron? Does it have to do with the cache? Just curious, I hear don't get celerons alot, and just curious why....

[wrelax]

hey i just copied and pasted this from a website to explain why the celeron is crippled, compared to the newer p4's. I'm pretty sure they have 256KB of L2 cache now but thats still nothing compared to the p4 which has 512KB of L2 cache. Its basically the old williamette core P4, which we all know was horrible compared to the new Northwood core P4's.

Intel is probably saving a few bucks by giving the Celeron only 128KB of L2 cache, but what kind of performance impact could this smaller cache have? In theory, quite a big one. Here's why:
The Pentium 4's high clock speeds are largely courtesy of its deep, 20-stage main pipeline. Deep pipelines can run faster, but they can cause lower clock-for-clock performance, too. Among other things, a deep pipeline inherently carries with it a steep penalty for branch misprediction. Even the Pentium 4's advanced branch prediction unit isn't going to get things right all the time, and performance takes quite a hit when that pipeline isn't being put to effective use.

The key to good performance with a deeply pipelined chip is feeding that pipeline and keeping it busy. Cache is essentially responsible for keeping the pipeline fed. Intel employs 8KB of low-latency L1 cache and an execution trace cache that can hold about 12,000 instructions for just this reason. If a program or its data set is larger than the L1 caches, things spill into the slower L2 cache. If L2 isn't big enough, it's off to main memory, which is much slower than any cache.

[Prew]

Ditto the Toshiba- bought my wife one of the Satellites for $650. 1.8 celeron, 256 ram, modem and ethernet card. Above average video quality (noticeably better than my Winbook). Comes with DVD/CD.

[i3OSS]

Im sorry to hear about your wife, i hope she recovers soon.
usually you might want to check a big pc magazine such as pcworld so you see the top picks, because people on this forum have many opinions and dont have the money to buy all notebooks and test them out. heres the link
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/artic...,107480,00.asp

if you dont want to leave the site ill give you the ratings:
1. IBM Thinkpad T30 Current prices: $1850 to $2366
2. Dell Inspiron 8200 Price when ranked: $2264
3. Gateway 600XL Price when ranked: $2470
4. MicronPC TransPort GX3 Price when ranked: $2200
5. Toshiba Satellite Pro 6100 Current prices: $1799 to $2499

From experience the toshiba lasted me for 4 years, 233mhz, and is still running fine except the screen went completely blue and i squished the screen and it came back lolz.

good luck with the surgery
i3oss

[doubledragon5]

Thanks for all replys and I appreciate your concerns for my wife. I'm hopeful in the next two wks I will have one for her. It looks like from all the response I will probably buy either the Dell or Toshiba. I definitely will research all before I make a finaly decision. Thanks again.

[v1r4L fr3nzy]

I agree with j009h33rM3 and Prew. Toshibas are strong and reliable. The Satellite series is unbeatable.

[Tuf]

The Toshiba's are very common but usually don't offer as much performance with similar harware as IBM or DELL. Parts can be hard for individuals to get. I steer clear of them but they do make some nice looking notebooks.

[Prew]

Something I forgot to mention: Neither the Toshiba Satellite I bought my wife nor my new Winbook J4 came with floppy drives. Something to look for if your wife needs a floppy drive.

IBM and Dell's may have better performance but they are also more expensive. And for sufing the net and writing poetry I doubt if the difference is important.

[wrelax]

Originally posted by Prew Something I forgot to mention: Neither the Toshiba Satellite I bought my wife nor my new Winbook J4 came with floppy drives. Something to look for if your wife needs a floppy drive.

very very true, i almost bought one without a floppy too.

[doubledragon5]

Question about video cards. How do I know what my MB can take 2x 4x 8x AGP. This dell is a 8200 model with a P4 1.9GH

[wrelax]

4x most likely. check the website though.