I Need a Laptop

[PeteEU]

1. Nothing is made in America. It "might" be assembled in the US, but the components are all from Asia. Dell might still assemble their machines in the US.

2. Any Intel i3 and above will do you just fine. 3 GB ram minimum, but then again you would have to search real hard to find any machine with less than 3 GB ram. Only go for AMD if it is one of their newest chips, and stay away from anything with Celeron or Pentium on the box. They are years out of date processors and unless the laptop is considerably discounted, then it is simply not worth it.

3. Screen size = price more than often. A machine with 15 inch screen is often considerably lower price than the same version with 17 inch screen.

HP, Acer, Asus, Dell, Toshiba all have good machines and within the price range. Lenovo (old IBM Thinkpad) are also very good, but normally higher price. Personal preference is Asus and Acer. Just bought an i3 Asus with 6GB ram for 400 Euros (530 dollars).

Brands to stay away from based on factual and personal experience.. Packard Bell and Apple.

Packard Bell keyboards and trackpads suck 9 out of 10 times.

Apple is just ripping you off. If you want to get ripped off, go find a prostitute and let her rob you after the deed.. more pleasure out of that! Or just throw the money out of the window..

 

[del]

get a del

not a chance, they are temperamental and crap all over the place, my notes are a mess.

i have a mac book, myself

go figure

 

[koshergrl]

I had never heard of Acer before I got mine, but my HP crapped out, I had homework due, and Walmart was open. I went in hoping to pick up an HP but they had discontinued and Acer was the only one in my price range that looked anything like what I wanted. I absolutely had no clue what to expect, they were new to Walmart too so the help didn't even know much about them. I needed it and I didn't have enough money to get a protection plan, I literally had exactly what it took for the computer itself.

And I've never had a problem with it...except for the scary fan incident. I just babied it along for a couple of weeks, opened the back up, and lo and behold the fan started working again and has ever since. I think what it was was a little piece of something that was obstructing the movement of the rotor or the blade..there was something little rattling around, and the rattle is gone.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

You mentioned made in America.....

$599 (this one IS Linux...which sounds fine for you) Zareason out of CA
ZaReason Alto 3880, thin 14" linux laptop

I purchased a desktop from them several years ago...great service, solid systems.

 

[kwc57]

get a del

not a chance, they are temperamental and crap all over the place, my notes are a mess.

i have a mac book, myself

go figure

But you can get as many Del's as you want for free can't you?

 

[kwc57]

I had never heard of Acer before I got mine, but my HP crapped out, I had homework due, and Walmart was open. I went in hoping to pick up an HP but they had discontinued and Acer was the only one in my price range that looked anything like what I wanted. I absolutely had no clue what to expect, they were new to Walmart too so the help didn't even know much about them. I needed it and I didn't have enough money to get a protection plan, I literally had exactly what it took for the computer itself.

And I've never had a problem with it...except for the scary fan incident. I just babied it along for a couple of weeks, opened the back up, and lo and behold the fan started working again and has ever since. I think what it was was a little piece of something that was obstructing the movement of the rotor or the blade..there was something little rattling around, and the rattle is gone.

Really? My very first PC was an Acer back in 1993. It was a 386 that ran Windows 3.2. They were economy computers and Acer put everything on the motherboard to reduce costs. If your graphics went out, you couldn't go buy a new graphics card because it was integrated into the motherboard. It did a fine job back in the day. There quality has improved over the years.

 

[koshergrl]

Well I'm not exactly a font of computer knowledge, lol. I hadn't heard of Acer and neither had the sales clerk, which doesn't mean anything except neither one of us should be selling computers.

 

[Ringel05]

Everyone has their favorites and the ones they love to hate. One of the things I like to do (though not recently, cash flow issues) is rebuild broken computers, I've had good and bad results from just about every brand out there so it's pretty much a crap shoot. The funny thing is the ones I've had the least problems with are Lenovos and Dells and Dells are the easiest to work on. HPs have given me the most problems and are a pain in the ass to work on.
The biggest issue in laptops will almost always be heat related, the faster the processor, the more heat that's generated and cooling systems haven't kept pace which is why there's such a big market for laptop cooling pads.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Time for me to move into the 21st Century and get a wireless laptop.

I don't need the best nor do I want the worst.

So what's good for around $500?

And what should I avoid?

Picked my wife up an Acer at Christmas. I5 with 4GB, 15 inch TFT display, Bluray and a 450GB drive for $389. Win 7 home.

It's a good machine for the money.

 

[hortysir]

Toshiba, from Office Depot, straight out of the box is awesome.

 

[IndependntLogic]

Time for me to move into the 21st Century and get a wireless laptop.

I don't need the best nor do I want the worst.

So what's good for around $500?

And what should I avoid?

We just got our daughter an HP Pavilion G6 with built in web-cam, MS7 and so on for $309! It was $359 but if you go online to Coupon codes, printable coupons, promo codes and discounts - dealspl.us and you can get a $50 off anything over $300 at Staples.

The computer is NICE!

 

[koshergrl]

Oooh..I think that's what I had.

Yes, it is.

 

[Trajan]

Everyone has their favorites and the ones they love to hate. One of the things I like to do (though not recently, cash flow issues) is rebuild broken computers, I've had good and bad results from just about every brand out there so it's pretty much a crap shoot. The funny thing is the ones I've had the least problems with are Lenovos and Dells and Dells are the easiest to work on. HPs have given me the most problems and are a pain in the ass to work on.
The biggest issue in laptops will almost always be heat related, the faster the processor, the more heat that's generated and cooling systems haven't kept pace which is why there's such a big market for laptop cooling pads.

I built my gaming PC.....runs like a champ....the best of everything 5 years ago and still runs everything there is....

 

[Trajan]

You mentioned made in America.....

$599 (this one IS Linux...which sounds fine for you) Zareason out of CA
ZaReason Alto 3880, thin 14" linux laptop

I purchased a desktop from them several years ago...great service, solid systems.

well my man we have had this discussion on other appliances.....comps now are so relatively cheap, if you do spend 500 and it gives you 2, 3 years, well, its not earth shattering but I think 500 is the floor.

 

[Ringel05]

Everyone has their favorites and the ones they love to hate. One of the things I like to do (though not recently, cash flow issues) is rebuild broken computers, I've had good and bad results from just about every brand out there so it's pretty much a crap shoot. The funny thing is the ones I've had the least problems with are Lenovos and Dells and Dells are the easiest to work on. HPs have given me the most problems and are a pain in the ass to work on.
The biggest issue in laptops will almost always be heat related, the faster the processor, the more heat that's generated and cooling systems haven't kept pace which is why there's such a big market for laptop cooling pads.

I built my gaming PC.....runs like a champ....the best of everything 5 years ago and still runs everything there is....

Yup, ASUS M4A78 Pro board, AMD Phenom ii x2 processor (Black Edition), 8GBs of DDR3 RAM and a 1 GB NVidia graphics card. Plays even the new stuff without a hiccup and is seriously fast.

 

[del]

not a chance, they are temperamental and crap all over the place, my notes are a mess.

i have a mac book, myself

go figure

But you can get as many Del's as you want for free can't you?

yeah, but the operating costs are killer

food, clothes, tuition

 

[uscitizen]

Just avoid all computers made in China.

 

[midcan5]

The best prices and value I have seen recently are the HP portables. For around 500 you can even get 6GB of memory. Google HP Pavilion g6z series and HP Pavilion dv6z Quad Edition series. I believe the second has the numeric keyboard if needed. 15.6 screens.

Laptops & Netbook PCs | HP® Official Store

I've used IBM, Dell, Toshiba, and HP through the years and all are pretty reliable. Mostly Dell at home.

 

[Uncensored2008]

i have a mac book, myself

go figure

Overpriced, underpowered, incompatable and pretentious. It fits you perfectly.

 

[Uncensored2008]

I built my gaming PC.....runs like a champ....the best of everything 5 years ago and still runs everything there is....

Hard to build a laptop.