Recommended budget laptop

[HAL9000]

I'm looking at buying a laptop computer for my daughter. She's just surfing the net and doing e-mail and playing the cheezy little online games, so no hardcore graphics are required. What IS required is that it's not a tiny netbook.. my wife has one and my daughter hates it.

As for budget, obviously I want to have a low of a price as possible... I'll start by saying under $500CDN ($490ish USD, not much of a difference anymore LOL), but if it means moving up to something that is going to be more reliable, I'm flexible on the pricing. Any brands to stay away from would be nice too.

[David M]

I just posted these links in another thread. I hope they help Dave.

Best & Worst Laptop Brands 2010

Best & Worst Laptop Brands 2010: Scores By Brand

The rankings are a little wacked but the info I think is good. The weighting for the rankings should have been weighted heavily for Customer Satisfaction. If you look at those numbers, it's more congruent with what we say around here.

[HAL9000]

LOL, but take those customer satisfaction ratings with a grain of salt... 5 is the highest? That still sounds like some pretty dissatisfied people.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Stay away from HP.

That budget seems very low even for a very basic model, Dave. Then again, my first laptop was ~530 dollars at Sears. And it didn't come with Firefox .

[12twelve12]

We bought our teen daughters each an ASUS X83v from Best Buy last year and we were so impressed with it that my wife just bought a ASUS UL80v. Now the X83v is no longer available and the UL80v is over your budget but I would definitely look at ASUS. I think they also have a very high rating in the reliability department.

[Hufigyed]

Take a look ate SquareTrade's reliability report. It's from late last year. http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/S...ility_1109.pdf

They are a company that offers extended warranty and they looked at 30,000 laptops and net books with a minimum of 1000 from each brand included in the report. And as always, Asus is top and HP is last.

As for personal experience, I had a Toshiba that was on 24/7 and was my main machine for those three years and absolutely everything still works on it today, never had one problem. I always hear people say (on these forums as well) that they are just like the rest or just average but from my experience and the 10 or so that my family and friends have, they are much better than average. SquareTrade's report also backs this up. From personal experience and that of family and friends, I would never get a HP.

Now I have an Asus which has been great. Can't go wrong with Asus I think but they are a little pricier.

[HAL9000]

Well, like I said, not glued to that budget... that's just an ideal.

[Hi Ho]

I have had a Toshiba laptop for about three years and I am very happy with it. I paid less than $500 for it. My only complaint is that the battery life isn't that great. It has an AMD Turion X2 chip in it which seems to run hotter and drain the battery faster than the Intel counterparts available at the time.

One thing I have noticed about Toshiba is that they didn't drop support after 6 months. The laptop came with Vista but I have run Windows 7 on it since beta and Toshiba released compatible x64 drivers and even a few BIOS updates, one of which significantly decreased boot time. Another nice touch was the Vista CD key wasn't some proprietary thing. I was able to reinstall Vista using a clean OEM disc I already owned and the key worked fine. Can't do that with a lot of manufacturers.

[HAL9000]

Ya, I know Toshiba dropped in quality a bit, but I bought one last year that I'm really liking and we do have a service center in town with a guaranteed 48 business hour return... I may go that route, but I'll be looking at about $700ish.... for which I can also get a lower model ASUS, but no in town support.

[12twelve12]

Another thing I like about ASUS is a lot of their models have standard 2 year warranty while most others offer just a 1 year. Also the first year includes a "Accidental Damage Warranty" on many models. So if it's dropped, water spilled on....covered.

ASUS Accidental Damage Warranty

[HAL9000]

ya, that's one of the only reasons I'm looking at them.

[Hufigyed]

I have seen that they actually pay the shipping both ways. But that may be only on higher end models. Something to keep an eye out for.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Some Asus laptops have fans louder than an aeroplane. You might want to see it running before purchasing it.

Dave, I'd advise you to take a look at laptops with a 13" screen. The 15-inchers tend to be quite heavy and a mite unwieldy. If she goes on her trip, she might want to take the computer with her and totting around a 2.5-kg laptop (plus the weight of the AC-adapter and case) is a pain.

[HAL9000]

She doesn't like the smaller laptops.

[12twelve12]

Originally Posted by Hufigyed I have seen that they actually pay the shipping both ways. But that may be only on higher end models. Something to keep an eye out for.

Correct. Our kids laptops and my wife's (all asus) have free shipping both ways with the warranty.

[DaleG41125]

I am also looking to get a laptop for my daughter. She'll be starting classes in January-wants to be a Forensic Profiler. I bought an Acer Aspire 5535-5542 last yr, the screen went dead after about 2 months but was still under warranty. I had to pay for 1 way shipping to get it repaired but since then it has worked great. Although I still can't get the crystal eye webcam to work. But for $490 I'm not complaining, I run it almost all the time at home without the battery in and haven't had a problem.
When I use the battery I generally get about 2 hours with a balanced configuration, 3-4 on low power and 1 on high power.
Oh yeah, it has a 15.6" screen and weighs about 3lbs w/battery.

As a mid-range, mid-priced laptop, I think Acer is worth a look.

[12twelve12]

Originally Posted by DaleG41125 I am also looking to get a laptop for my daughter. She'll be starting classes in January-wants to be a Forensic Profiler. I bought an Acer Aspire 5535-5542 last yr, the screen went dead after about 2 months but was still under warranty. I had to pay for 1 way shipping to get it repaired but since then it has worked great. Although I still can't get the crystal eye webcam to work. But for $490 I'm not complaining, I run it almost all the time at home without the battery in and haven't had a problem. When I use the battery I generally get about 2 hours with a balanced configuration, 3-4 on low power and 1 on high power. Oh yeah, it has a 15.6" screen and weighs about 3lbs w/battery. As a mid-range, mid-priced laptop, I think Acer is worth a look.

To each their own I guess....my experience with Acer has helped me develop the opinion that they are unreliable & cheaply built junk.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Asus pretty much sux. It's just like Sony and all the others. I've been setting up a new Asus laptop for a customer for two hours now and it comes loaded with bloatware a la HP, Acer and friends. Asus Live Update? Aren't M$ Updates, Acrobat Updates, Java Updates, my grandma's pet doctor updates enough? Asus Webstorage? Wireless console? Jeez.

Good hardware, Asus, but it's going the way of the rest. So sad.

[Hi Ho]

I pretty much expect bloatware on any commercially produced machine. That's why I like to do a clean install. With that said, my Toshiba came with minimal bloatware.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Some are worse than others. Apple has no bloatware, though. Unfortunately, doing a fresh install on every laptop that we sell is just not possible.

We do it with the ones that come for repairs and whose recovery partitions have become inaccessible. Mensch, after installing Windows and the drivers manually they perform like champs. Until you start installing Windows updates, that is.

[12twelve12]

Yep...you are going to find bloatware on just about any laptop you buy at the brick and mortar store so better off looking at quality and reliability. Once you choose a good machine then get rid of the bloat and your set up with a smooth running laptop that should last you a long time.

And as Nuclear Krusader said...ASUS does have good hardware. I rather have to remove bloatware from good hardware then remove it from cheap hardware.

[Hufigyed]

You'll have a hard time finding a laptop without any bloatware. That is the norm nowadays.

My dad's Toshiba came with Vista and they were offering free Windows 7 upgrades because Windows 7 was just released and the disk they sent allowed for a fresh install and it was exactly the same as my OEM disc for my computer. No Bloatware at all. Of course they encourage you to get it in the documentation.

[Nuclear Krusader]

We should charge for the decrappifying.

[Iamjosh]

Originally Posted by Nuclear Krusader We should charge for the decrappifying.

more people should write/email to the manufacturers about the bloatware and maybe they would consider some change.

I surmise that loading that bloatware comes with an added revenue for OEM.

How much of that gets passed to the consumer in terms of a lower price is another issue. And, recovery partitions should (I repeat SHOULD NOT) not have that crap included.

[quartet-man]

IamJosh (well, I'm not ), nailed it. OEMs I am sure gets money from that the same way these free programs get revenue from Yahoo for the toolbar,and all the other addons you see that they get you to load by default if you don't uncheck. I too wonder if it gets us lower prices on the computers (with them benefiting by being more competitive or getting them to a price point that causes more people to buy) or if they simply pocket it.

I guess IF it gets us a lower price, we can deal with decrapifying it. In some ways, maybe it should be optional at least on the custom ones you order direct. At least it isn't as bad as it was on my Win98SE where you really couldn't decrapify without messing it up. (At least that was what I had been told by different people online at the time.) Even some of the shortcuts could come back as I recall.

[HAL9000]

I'm not worried about pulling the crap off the machine... to me, it's no big deal. Clean it up, then take an image.

[Hufigyed]

Originally Posted by HAL9000 I'm not worried about pulling the crap off the machine... to me, it's no big deal. Clean it up, then take an image.

That's what I do. Decrapify, set up windows with the setting I like, install some of the stuff I know I'll always want and copy an image.

[Nuclear Krusader]

They won't stop loading crap. People want cheap laptops, they're happy to oblige... by loading tons of crap on them. Can't have everything, say they.

So far, the cleanest laptops I've seen, are Apple's with no bloatware at all (and they come with recovery DVDs free of charge, so no need to image anything), and then LG, with only the MS Office 60-day trial and the stupid LG auto-updater. (Now, this was a discontinued model that I got to work on, maybe LG is crappifying its laptops now too.) Worse are Sony's, HP's and Dell's.

[JJD2207]

I will tell you, I do I.T support at the University of Arizona and I have seen more HP's and Acers with hardware problems in my Office than I could ever count. And I'm not talking 5-10 year old computers, they're usually only 1-2 years old, and ALWAYS just outside warranty. Go for a Lenovo, Dell, or Asus if you're looking in the 500 price range. The best thing to keep in mind is that laptops get dropped, spilled on, or even stolen quite frequently, and on top of that become obsolete within a few years. So it is a good thing that you're looking at the $500 and below price range, because you'll never know when you're going to have to replace it. Also, if a 3-4 year warranty is available, I would recommend you go that route. Good luck!

[Nuclear Krusader]

If companies like HP could offer 90-day warranty, they'd do it without a second thought; that's how much they trust their own hardware. Dell and its no-replacements-no-matter-what-we'll-fix-it-instead is just as bad. Apple could offer 3 years warranty, but they prefer to suck your money with their very expensive Apple Care. You'll be lucky to find a company that gives you 3 years of warranty as in the good old days. Dunno how many Asus gives; one?