Please help me buy a laptop

cockroachfarm

cockroachfarm

Joined
Jan 6, 2001
Messages
4,399
I never thought I'd ask a question like that (like my daughter, I _NEVER_ need help spending money) but this is a slightly different situation. A client/friend has given me $1,100. to buy him a laptop...by this weekend (so, Dell is out although I hear they have great battery life! ;) )

He runs two giant public/trade shows and wants to work on memos and small spreadsheets when he's away from home. Has to be a laptop, not a PDA, etc. (he's not very computer oriented anyway) Size and weight are not important. No gaming, no music, no PhotoChopping'. If those were important, I'd have a fair idea of what to choose.

So - what's the most bang for the buck I can buy him when all he wants to do is basic word processing and spreadsheets? Any personal recommendations?
 
PC, I'm assuming, not mac?

In general, I suggest Dell, they're not the best at anything, but they are/were fairly good at everything.
 
do you have a costco nearby?

they had a large selection of dell/toshiba/hp laptops at my local store in your price range. my wife's hp was of poor quality. still like dell despite the negative press.

while they might be just above your pricerange...the tablet laptops with the little pen are really neat and it is a useful gadget
 
Everytime I've spent big bucks on a lap top it disappointed me. The last straw for my wife and I was this Sony Vaio we currently own. Its a real nice paperweight and thats it. A waste of $3100 basically. It lasted about a year and almost to the day that the warranty expired it started shutting itself off for no reason. Got steadily worse after time and eventually reached the point its at now where it comes on and boots up and can be relied upon for about the time it takes to uninstall a program and then kicks off.

I only buy reconditioned ones now for a few hundred bucks. The way I see it none of the ones I've bought new have lasted more than a couple of years. So far the Toshiba lasted the longest at 4 followed by the Compaq followed by the most expensive one to date the Sony at about 1.5 years worth of use. If I can get 12 months or more out of a $199 to $350 one its money well spent in my opinion.

STR

http://www.usanotebook.com/index.ph...ed+notebooks&gclid=CJeg4pTZ5IYCFTXOJAodQDPDBg
 
Yes, PC. Sorry.

For my own use, I have owned laptops from IBM, NEC, Hewlett-Packard (tech-support and after-sale service was a nightmare with HP!) in the past and currently own a small Dell and two Toshibas. Have been very satisfied with the Toshibas so that's what I'll probably get him. He doesn't really care what it is - he's 72, suspicious of most gadgets and the type of guy who won't use email "out of principle". And he firmly believes Bill gates is working hard to take over the world....sorry, OT. ;)
 
fujitsus are generally pretty good
i've owned 2, and my sister has 1
no problems at all except for a thin blue line going down the lcd which the warranty covered
the first one i had survived a plunge down the stairs ^ ^

i would check for a service centre near you too
whichever brand you're getting
so it wouldn't be too inconvenient to get it fixed if something goes wrong
 
cockroachfarm said:
So - what's the most bang for the buck I can buy him when all he wants to do is basic word processing and spreadsheets? Any personal recommendations?
Click to expand...

I work at a large hospital (network admin) and we buy a lot of computers.

For the money you have to spend, get him a $600 to $700 Toshiba and spend the rest on a 3 year replacement warranty (one that'll cover breakage, including the LCD screen). Just be sure to use the warranty before the 3 years is up! :cool:

The best laptops around today seem to be IBM (but you'd have to go about $1600+ for a T43 model).

Whatever you get, stay away from Compaq, HP, and Acer. :thumbdn:
AND BUY THAT EXTENDED WARRANTY!

PS: Install Open Office on it for him .. full compatibility with MS Office and it's FREE!
Word processing and spreadsheets ..
 
lamarrk said:
...For the money you have to spend, get him a $600 to $700 Toshiba and spend the rest on a 3 year replacement warranty (one that'll cover breakage, including the LCD screen).....
Click to expand...

That's pretty much what I have decided to do. (Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ. ;) )

Plus: the budget isn't set in stone; in reality I can spend pretty much what I think I need. I have personally spent millions of this guy's money over the past 24 years so blowing an extra $200 for a RAM boost won't be that big a deal. :D He just wants something basic that will do the job; bells and whistles or warp-speed video gaming don't mean a thing to him.
 
I've got a standard business model HP nx6110 its cheap enough I can just replace it if it breaks, battery life is good performance is good, even the sound is good!. For £400 I'm very pleased

If you just want the machine for general use then go for a business model, the manufacturers shift large volumes of them so theyre good value and usually well build as they get a lot of abuse from business users
 
Thanks all. I think I have decided to buy him the Toshiba Satellite Pro A110-GM8. When he gets tired of it, he can give it to me. :)
 
I will never bye another dell after finding out you have to pay for customer support ... My computer was like 2 months old still under warranty and I call to ask where i can get a driver for the video card in the dell .. they told me I had to call another # where I would be charged ,,, screw that !
 
basically what lammark said except that I don't buy warrenties but thats a personal preference, for the general user I recomend them.

STR - serious man, I can most likely very easily fix that sony for you. I hate to see good hardware just lay waste. shoot me an email at alatteri @ rseven . com if you are at all interested. I'm a system integrator and manage the troubleshooting and building of all the custom workstations, laptops, and servers for our clients. It sounds like it could very well just be a heating issue as I've seen with MANY sony laptops. They are a bitch to take apart and to get to the fan you generally have to pul lthe keyboard off but have you tried using a compressed air can and blowing out the air vents.
 
Sony- ::shakes head
In 3 different models, I've had heat issues, dead HDs, dead floppies, dead CD drives, random deaths of modems, etc
The screens weren't that nice either (better resolution than HP's etc, but DIM)
 
I recommend Dell, they are reliable and decently priced. They are well priced if you get them on sale. If you are willing to spend a little more I would recommend looking at IBMs. They are pricey but very high quality.
 
I'm not a huge toshiba fan, but the specs aren't bad. The only thing that I'd have done differently is gone with a wsxga screen instead of wxga. The extra real-estate is nice when working on large spreadsheets...
 
sony is more for looks than anything else
i've already stopped buying their products after the last camera i bought
 
Kennieyk said:
I will never bye another dell after finding out you have to pay for customer support ... My computer was like 2 months old still under warranty and I call to ask where i can get a driver for the video card in the dell .. they told me I had to call another # where I would be charged ,,, screw that !
Click to expand...

support.dell.com should have all the drivers you need, for free

for $1100 you could get a MacBook and run Windows ;)

i've yet to use a better built laptop than an Apple, i ended up preferring them over my PC laptops by far (Dell and Sony)

for PCs though, i have had little complaint with Dell, their driver support is top notch. HP/Compaq, IBM and Sony were all pretty disappointing
 
Apple, i-book. The only way to go. Windows needs help, and I have had only good things to say about my I-book. Its 'last years model' which saved me a bundle. Brand new computer with all the bells and whistles and hasnt had a hiccup yet!!!!
 
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