So my laptop has been pronounced dead. As you know (from the other thread) it was having some severe issues regarding locking up. Just the other day we put a new processor in it. However this did not fix the issue. So as school is coming around again, I am looking for a new laptop. My previous one was a Toshiba M35 and it worked quite well for what i needed it for. it was a 1.5ghz centrino, w/ 512 ram, nvidia goforce5200. Anyway does anyone have any recommendations for a laptop in the $600 price range? Thinner = better, and it better be dual core.
Stinkpads FTW!!!! I've got a couple you can have.....might even work as well as the one you have now :biggrin:
One of my colleagues here tells me that Office Max or Office Depot (I can never tell them apart) is banging out some Toshiba laptop for $450 after a $150 MIR. It'd probably be worth putting the $150 back into it to bump it up to 2GB RAM though since it comes with Vista pre-installed. Due to the fragile nature of notebooks, I think it pays to stick with those brands that have good support, i.e. HP, Toshiba, IBM (oops, Lenovo) and Dell. I haven't had to deal with Lenovo yet, so I don't know how good they truly are these days. Stuart.
Thanks for the heads up stooo. I will have to check into that. I agree that a good customer care program is nice. I will be getting an extended warranty on my new laptop. I have had some issues with other ones so I think its worth it. ( dead modem, funky wifi card, broken screen, bad mobo, ect...)
Dell Vostro 1500 $600 Core 2 Duo T5470 1.6GHz CPU, 15.4" WXGA LCD, 1GB DDR2, 120GB HDD, 8x DVD+-RW 10/100 + 56k + 802.11g, GeForce 8400M 128MB, 56WHr 6-Cell Battery, 1-Yr Warranty http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=bqdwk3d&cs=04&dgvcode=ss&c=US&l=EN&m_8=80S I picked one up with XP. It's nice. It's fast. It's big! But it's for home use. They do have a 1400 which would probably be better suited for you. But it's $650 because it has a better battery and more RAM but not as good of a vid card. Core 2 Duo T5470 1.6GHz CPU, 14.1" WXGA LCD, 2GB DDR2, 120GB HDD, 8x DVD+-RW 10/100 + 56k + 802.11g, Intel GMA 950 Video, 85WHr 9-Cell Battery, 1-Yr Warranty http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=bqdwj3d&cs=04&dgvcode=ss&c=US&l=EN&m_8=80S You can configure for no bloat ware since this is a business division. Also, no Indian support, they speak english.
yep...Dell. I have an XPS M1710. Its a high-end laptop, but Dell has always been helpful when ordering. I wouldn't know about their support...I've never had to use it!! i think that's a good thing. It also helps that I'm a total computer geek, with credentials!
I have an alienware laptop, sentia m3200 right in your price range sitting here ready to go. PM me and I can get it to you whenever you want and give you details. a year and a half ago i bought it for $1300, now selling for less than half price.
Dizmal: thanks for the links I will look into those options. Do you know if the 1400 is much smaller than the 1500? i dont need a desktop replacement (as my desktop is still in tip top shape). I need thin and portable for school stuff. I am leaning toward dell/toshiba just cause of good reports. For the same reasons I am steering clear of HP/compaq. Alienware is nice stuff but I am not so sure if thats what I want. I want something fairly cheap (not cutting edge) for now then latter when i have more money (a few years away) I can get a FalconNW.
search any of these sites in the "hot deals" sections. you are bound to find some thing. fatwallet.com slickdeals.net spoofee.com anandtech.com Here is one http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=0&t=586671&highlight=lap
This one is looking pretty good so far. it needs another 1gb ram atleast though. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...ategoryId=pcmcat106500050009&id=1179877029693
Well, the 1500 is much larger than my HP with 15" due to the 1500/1400 being widescreen. I would say the 1400 is the size of a regular laptop. Nothing small, but middle of the line. For $600 I don't think you'll find much that is very slim, especially with the HP you want. I think the Tosh you linked will be pretty large. It has the same size screen as mine does. It has a weaker processor and it's $100 more.
AMD processor....no way would I waste the $$ pm me if your interested in prices on a thinkpad, brand out of the box new of course
Well i picked up the toshiba today. so far i think it is a good lappy. it isnt huge but slightly larger then i was expecting. The weirdest thing is getting used to vista. it took me about 30 minutes to get it to connect to the wireless router at home. it is wierd not being able to double click or right click and get some decently powerful menu options. it seems like i need to go round about to get where i used to be able to get with one or two clicks. it took me awhile to figure out where they moved add/remove programs to. I need to stick another 1gb of ram in here, but after that i think that this lappy will work out pretty dang well for what i have planned. one other little oddity is that the mouse buttons on the touch pad are slightly rounded with the contour of the laptop. its kinda wierd.
does anyone know how to to turn off all of the notifications in vista? i am getting really tired of this thing asking me if i am sure if i wanna do something. Its also kinda special that it asks me to make sure i wanna copy and paste something, or download a file. there has got to be a way to turn that off.
Easiest way to fix it is to find that laptop's driver's directory on the system image disk, then format the HD and load XP. Though, I'm not sure that the re-image disk comes with drivers that are compatible with XP.
^ haha basically wipe it and put XP on it. that would most definitely fix all of the issues I am having with vista. I found some info on this online. I have now reduced the frequency of these messages popping up, however they are not totally gone. I just installed a system monitor, and I am surprised how much ram vista actually takes up. right now it is using about 600mb of ram to run vista, firefox, and winamp. thats kinda scary. I will have to get another gb of ram in here sooner then i was planning. it is running pretty smoothly now, it isnt lightning fast between screen changes, and loading multiple items but that should change when it has some more ram.
hmm... I was going to tell you that trhough Dell, you get a student discount thingy but you found a laptop already. I might pick up a dell soon because this semester might be my last
A lot of people are "downgrading" to XP after experiencing Vista, especially on laptops. I have 5 coworkers who bought powerful laptops (Lenovos, Sonys, and Dells) that had various flavors of Vista on them and after a couple months they loaded XP on them. I can see using Vista on a Desktop where it's easier to add resources and can generally be a faster machine (due to heat dissipation advantages) but I always slim down my OS on a laptop. But if you have a power-hungry video card in it that can deal with Vista and you don't plan on running it off battery much (laptop is now just a portable desktop system) then you're probably OK with a bit more memory. I just like being able to get 6 hours of runtime off my standard battery
I haven't worked much with Vista, but have read somewhere that it is possible to turn off the security prompt "Are you sure you want to do this" Congrats on the new laptop hope you like it
I was unware of this, do you know where i might be able to find out the details about this? definately finding that one out. took a look last night and there are 2 512mb stick in here so its gonna take a little extra to upgrade it. stupid OEM configurations. I know what you mean. I was looking at some dual core laptops with XP and i bet those would rip compared to vista, so far vista isnt so bad. I figured that xp will only be around so long before it is eventually phased out (microsoft is already trying to do it) and since I dont wanna be super outdated in about 2yrs i am going with vista. can probably always change back to xp. they are still bothering me after i tried changing the setting int eh security area. Thanks thanks for the link i am looking at it right now.
Yeah, it sucks they give you 2 512mb instead of 1gb stick. Dell is the same way. Had to buy the full 2gb of ram and be stuck with 2 512mb sticks.
yeah, its pretty lame. i just missed a deal. last week there was a thing that if you bought a 1gb of crucial dd2 pc5300 you saved $20 and got free shipping. basically 1gb of ram for $25. good deal, wish i knew about it earlier.
Haha, when I got 1GB stock on my Vaio it was a single 1GB stick. Checked out which chips it used with CPU-Z and got a second 1GB stick from NewEgg. And I'm only running XP Pro Even if you have to replace your memory at least you know you're getting matched memory, and that certainly is not a bad thing.
