Bronco
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- Joined
- Feb 25, 2000
- Messages
- 7,580
I'm trying to assist an older family member make her first ever computer purchase. The house is not huge, high speed wireless access is available and she'd like to be able to use her setup in different areas of the house, so a laptop/notebook is the obvious solution as far as that goes. Uses will be nothing exotic; web surfing, emailing, maybe some multimedia applications (storing songs, viewing DVDs, etc.) and some occasional word processing are likely the order of the day. There's no advantage to this machine being ultra light weight or having super long run times on the batteries. It would be nice, however, to do whatever we can from a hardware perspective to try and minimize the frustrations that will likely be encountered by an older person learning to use their first ever Windows based computer. She would also like to be able to plug in a standard keyboard to use. Could that be a problem? Price target would be somewhere between $750 and $900. I had considered recommending an iBook as they would be perfect from a user experience/lack of frustration standpoint, but you need about $1200 for a halfway decent machine and that's before spending the extra $200 or so for the necessary Apple Care.
Anyway, I was considering recommending a purchase from Costco as their prices are generally competitive, they offer free tech support and they extend the manufacturer's warranty to two years. A couple caught my eye and was wondering if anyone felt strongly about endorsing one over the other:
Toshiba A135-S4467:
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11192959&whse=BC&topnav=&browse=
SONY VGN-N230E/B:
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11207454&whse=BC&topnav=&browse=
Thanks in advance for any feedback.
Anyway, I was considering recommending a purchase from Costco as their prices are generally competitive, they offer free tech support and they extend the manufacturer's warranty to two years. A couple caught my eye and was wondering if anyone felt strongly about endorsing one over the other:
Toshiba A135-S4467:
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11192959&whse=BC&topnav=&browse=
SONY VGN-N230E/B:
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11207454&whse=BC&topnav=&browse=
Thanks in advance for any feedback.