Need a good laptop that is inexpensive.

[gasmandave]

I need an opinion on a purchase of a laptop for my daughter for some college courses she will be taking over the next 2 years. Office Depot or maybe it was Staples has a Compaq laptop for around $400. Walmart has one also but it is a "ACER" which I've never heard of. I don't know the spec's on the Compaq but a guy I know says that most Compaq's are junk. The ACER @ Wally world has a Intel Celeron Processor, 512-MB DDR@ Systme memory, 80_GB hard drive, reads DVD's and writes CD's, a "Windows Vista Home Basic" (?) and a 2 years service plan. I was hoping someone might be able to give me some good info on them or an alternative choice. GubNi? Anyone?

[Gubni]

Acer has been around as long as Compaq. They are good units. There's nothing wrong with the Compaq either. My only thought is if the price is too good to be true then it probably is. Be leary of rebates. You should expect to pay $600 to $800 for a decent new laptop. Also don't buy an extended warranty. Often your claim will fall in the loopholes and be denied or will take an act of congress to get it taken care of.

[TiredIronGRB]

I've had good service out of my Toshibas and Dells. I do video production and Streaming Media for a living and use 4 dells and 3 Toshibas daily.

[Jeep07]

Toshiba and Dell are all we use. However I've considered the Sony Viao's several times. If you check Office Depot in Kport last week they had several models on a discount table that had 2gb of ram etc etc and ranged from $349 - $649.

I make my living on a laptop and both Dell and Toshiba have lasted around 4 years for me before the screen gets to loose or breaks off completely. However I do open/close the thing atleast 2-3 times a day minimum between the office, customer sites and home.

[gasmandave]

I'll check and see what Office Depot and Staples mightr have on their discount tables, Up till now my daughter has been the only one looking. Last night she asked me to check around.

Thanks for all the info so far.

[Gubni]

I'm not a big fan of Dell. I have one here the is under warranty. The customer got the run around from the support people in India and brought it to us to fix. It was a bad motherboard, so they asked us to get Dell to warranty it. Dell tried to fix it twice and the third time they agreed to replace the whole laptop. It's been a month since the customer brought it in and we still don't have a replacement.

I can't say the other companies are better, but I doubt they are worse.

[gasmandave]

A friend of mine had a simular problem, they gave him a little bit of a runaround but ended up just sending him a new laptop and took his old one back.

[SamuraiGuyTN]

man Im interested in what people have to say too. I am in the market for one as well and would like to know what people have and the goods and bads along with them.

[Gubni]

If you want a decent laptop get a ACER, HP, or Compaq. If you want a good laptop get a SONY, IBM, or Toshiba. There are others out there that I've left off, but my favorite is Toshiba.

BTW- I'm going most on repairs since I fix them.

[duke_lover_13]

I have this Mac... Yeah a little expensive.... But this thing is AMAZING... You can do ANYTHING on it!! http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/6834001/wo/KJ4orezIOZ4i3YQ4BkYxiSYnMXt/3.?p=0

[TiredIronGRB]

You can't play Battlefield 2142 on it :wink:

[1-tonmudder]

I am in the market for one also,and since next Fri is tax free day I'll probably get one then.I am wanting to get a router also so I can use it in other rooms.What brand(s) are you guy's using??

[Bluegill]

I love my Linksys wireless router. Bought it at Wally world, around $80 IIRC. It has 4 LAN ports and a large number of wireless connections. My desktop is cat 5 plugged in port 1, the Vonage modem is port 2, and the laptop is on wireless-g. Tuned the router's setup program a bit, now my desktop surfs & downloads faster than ever. :smokin:

[NC_James]

My linksys is being a pain and hardly ever works for me :x

I have a Gateway and a Dell both are good units except the dell is a pain in the but and has a few germlins. But the service that I got with the Dell is not that bad.

Both have Vista and all the goodies.

[Gordon]

We use a Linksys, hardwired, to run 2 HP CPU's, and get our service from Comcast. Love it. Our laptop is a Dell, but we've got XP on it.

[Bluegill]

Guess I should've mentioned my devices. My desktop is an Athlon frankenstein that I built, running 2000 pro. The laptop is a Toshiba Satellite running XP pro, but it crashes occasionally from page faults. I strongly suspect a bad DDR chip in the laptop, just haven't got around to addressing that yet.

Honestly, I prefer 2000 over XP, just wish 2000 had all the compatibility emulators that XP does.

[BillM]

Linksys all the way for the router. I have dealt with all of them and you get far less problems with the Linksys than others.

[1-tonmudder]

Besides the router what else will I need??

[Gordon]

Shouldn't need anything else other than wiring. Ours is hooked up by running the line from the Comcast modem into the router, then one router port to Bev's CPU and one to mine. We also can hook the laptop into a third router port, too. Our offices are adjacent rooms, so I just ran the wire from the router through a hole in the wall (I did at least use cover plates :twisted: ).

I have never gotten into the wireless thing. Maybe because hardwire works just fine for me, plus, I really don't want people nearby hijacking my Comcast. Someone else may have better instructions for wireless.

One other thing we have run into - if there is a power outage and we lose the net, we power off both the Comcast modem and the router - then power up the modem first, and after it does the self check, then plug up the router.

[BillM]

You shouldn't need anything else really Steve.

Gordon, if you want to use the wireless we can setup the Encryption so that no one else can connect. If your neighbors are not right on top of you, then you don't have to worry about it.

[1-tonmudder]

Cingular wants $60 a motnh for coverage while I'm on the road.Is that about normal,or is there a cheaper and or better way to get coverage??

My cell and cable are already over $200 a month.

[Bluegill]

By coverage do you mean for the laptop? Nah. Just pull into a parking lot of somewhere that has WiFi - like hotels, truck stops, even some McDonald's. ;) When you boot up the laptop, the wireless connection wizard will find a network to use. It helps to get a handheld WiFi signal meter and use it before turning the laptop on, it will tell you where the signal is strongest. Bought mine at Wally world too, for $20.

http://i.walmart.com/i/p/00/88/13/17/00/0088131700537_215X215.jpg

[1-tonmudder]

the wireless connection wizard

Will that be installed in the laptop or is that something I will have to get.

Sorry for all the dumb questions,but I want to get all the stuff at one time so I don't have to pay tax on it.

[Bluegill]

Yep, by Microsoft - it's part of XP (or Vista, whichever you get). Our Toshiba is set to search for available networks every time it boots up.