Laptop recommendations (non Apple)

[Punjistick]

I respect that Apple is a great platform for some but it's not what I'm looking for. Please keep Apple suggestions out of this thread.

I need a laptop for school. The only requirement I am given is it must have 1GB of RAM or more. Seems pretty low. I was thinking something with 3-4GB and Intel duel-core. It will be used for Java programming for the time being and other IS courses to follow. Portability might be a concern since I will be commuting to school.

I can get a discount on Dell through school but I'm not sure what manufactures are making the best products right now. It seems like there are some new guys in the game.

[R1]

how about a Mac?

[ThisBitch]

I bought a Toshiba Satellite. It was cheap and didn't have many bells and whistles, but I've yet to have a problem with it in the 2 years that I've owned it. If you're commuting to and from school, get the extended warranty. The best deal on those is through Walmart/Costco/Sams Club.

[Kurlon]

We've got a bunch of HP/Compaq 6700 series units kicking around here, cheap and functional. I've been told the 6730 specifically should be avoided like the plague however.

[SSearchVT]

I use a Dell for personal (Inspiron 9300) and a Sony for work (Vaio Z540). The Dell works great day to day because of the big screen (no extra monitor needed) the Sony outperforms the Dell, but needs a docking station (odd feeling keyboard, small screen, etc). Walk through the aisles at the box stores and see what you like the look and feel of, and what you won't mind carrying around.

[ssg]

In my order of preference:

IBM/Lenovo - the T series is the best laptop platform I've ever used.
Toshiba - They seem to get finicky as they age, but you get a decent lifespan with them.
HP - Their compaq series of notebooks is not bad, 6910p or whatever the equivalent is nowadays is what I currently use for work. After replacing the originally faulty HDD 9 months after I took ownership of it, it's worked just ducky.

Commentary:

Dell - Never had a good experience with a Dell laptop. Anyone that's told me they love theirs has never left their house with it. I've had no less than 3 for business and they all have mysterious issues that haunt them or died an equally mysterious death.
Acer - their Netbooks seem to do pretty well but haven't had much experience with rest of their stuff.


I've used laptops/notebooks as my principal computing source (home and work) since ~2001 and the above is my real-world personal experience with them. When it came time for me to buy a laptop with my own money (hate using work machines when not working cause it's too easy to get preoccupied with work) I bought a Mac, but if I wanted to stay with Windows I'd have gotten a similarly priced Lenovo.

[Sportygurl131]

HP Pavilion dv7t series is what i have... cheap and is awesome.. its awesome with graphics, designing and media stuff

[TheIglu]

Lenovo T61 or R400

I run a network with 450 high school kids, ever single one of them has a laptop, mostly the ones we sell them.

We also repair them in house. We know exactly the strengths and weaknesses of most any laptop out there right now.

The Lenovo's tend to hold up best over the Lattitudes. Comcraps/HP's still use a horrible power connector that snaps off in the motherboard, have been using that for at least 10 years for some ungodly reason (sell more laptops?).

[ssg]

I've travelled quite a bit with multiple Dell Latitude machines and never had a problem. The new E series are pretty awesome. Dell's consumer lines (low-end Studio line that's available in retail stores, Inspirons, etc) have a tendency to be garbage.

The top end inspiron (2004? I-1390 or something) I had liked to restart itself, after dell "repaired" a failed mobo chipset.

The (2006) M65 I had likes to just randomly take an hour to boot up, wiped the drive, replaced the drive, no matter...its almost like the controller takes a nap or something. Out of warranty dell says a new mobo will fix it...yeah, thanks...of course it will.

The Latitude I had and still have is our department floater and gets a fair amount of abuse...in it's defense, it's only issue is (with a brand new battery) will tell you the battery is dead and it starts flashing the icon to replace immediately. Then the orange led lights up and the machine hibernates. You can disable it all and the machine will run for the normal battery lifespan...but it will arbitrarily still shut itself off when plugged in sometimes, like it thinks it's really dead. Sometimes it works fine . We complained to Dell and got batteries for free, yay. I've just never followed up on this...got an HP instead and its just worked.

(just figured I'd offer my experience rather than say no Dell sucks )

No experience with their newer machines...maybe they've changed - but I always say that and it never ceases to prove me wrong

[The Snowman]

Poor Alex is in MacOS denial.

You can always run Winslows inside.

Although for PCs, I always had good luck with Dell Inspirons until I "saw the light".

[Wishbone]

Poor Alex is in MacOS denial.

You can always run Winslows inside.

Although for PCs, I always had good luck with Dell Inspirons until I "saw the light".

I was afraid for years to make the switch. Toughest part is having a stack of programs that are useless. But I have made the leap and wont turn back.

I think the best part is Apple just came out with a new OS. I heard the news and was all pissy cause I thought I would have to pay a few hundos to upgrade. Not the case. $29 bucks (well 34 after tax and shipping) and I have snow leopard on the way



OK Mac stroking over.

I found that my Tossiba was a great little budget laptop. Short money and it worked great for about 1 1/2 years. Then it started crashing a lot. Running slow and being a pain in the ass. Plus the battery never lasted more than an hour.

HP's are (or were) notorious for the mother board shiting out. My chick lost here top of the line HP in about a year. Plus I think the segmented hard drive back up system is a pain in the ass.

The Dell I just got from TheIglu for a garage beater looks like it has been threw a war and still works well for an old out dated pc. Probably not the original battery but it hold a dam good charge. But I sure as hell don't miss running crap cleaner and defraging the dam thing daily to keep it health.

[butcher bergs]

it's only issue is (with a brand new battery) will tell you the battery is dead and it starts flashing the icon to replace immediately. Then the orange led lights up and the machine hibernates. You can disable it all and the machine will run for the normal battery lifespan...

How to disable? I don't think I'm looking the right place.

[Wishbone]

Control panel-power settings

Gives you the option to change what the pc does on battery and plugged in. Change the settings all the way up.

[redwinger]

wife has a HP, works nice...that being said, it still sucks compared to my mac

["Dangerous" Dan K]

Depending on budget and what you need for storage I'd look at machines with a SSD. I carry a netbook with a SSD with me daily. It's been dropped more times than I could ever count, it's been in my bag when I landed on it in multiple crashes, it's been frozen, it's been hot... SSD doesn't care. I'd have gone through quite a few traditional, moving-parts HD's with this kind of abuse.

As for make, I tend to shy away from the big names. Partially due to bad experiences in the past, partially due to being spoiled by building my own PC's since the pre-pentium days, I like to know exactly what's in my machine. I don't want dell or comcrap proprietary anything in my machines. Everyone is making them with SSDs now though, so you could get one of those in whatever make you like. The drives are smaller, but big enough for me. I use aa flash drive to hold large media and move things back and forth from my desktop to the netbook.

I only bring it up because you have durability/commute concerns. If you need 160G of storage, forget it. If you'll have a desktop as well it may do the trick for you.

All this mac fappfing, jesus. Am I the only one reading this that likes a nice simple Linux platform?

[dontpanic]

Real data, anyone?

[Stiggy]

Asus EEE would be great. I got one from Ebay last december. Changed to a 320gb hdd and 2gb of ram. It has all but replaced my desktop. EBAY $374 with free shipping.
Specs:
10.1" WSVGA (1024x600) LED Backlight Display
Microsoft Windows XP Home Preloaded
Intel Atom N280 (1.66GHz) Processor
160GB Hard Drive + 10GB of Eee Storage
1GB DDR2 Memory,
High-Speed Wireless 802.11n
Bluetooth V2.1
6-Cell (63W/h) Battery Up to 10.5 Hours of Battery Life
Built in 1.3 megapixel Webcam

["Dangerous" Dan K]

The netbook I mentioned is an Asus EEE, but I thought they are a bit small for regular use. I love mine though.

[schleppy]

I've had great luck with Acer laptops at home/work. From their bare bones cheapies all the way to the top, they've treated me well. Toshiba's are also a good buy imho.

I would avoid Dell. I haven't heard much good about any of the Dell laptops friends/family own.

[Jim]

I've been told the 6730 specifically should be avoided like the plague however.

funny, we run nothing but 6730b notebooks at work

[Punjistick]

Sure Apples are nice but I don't have $1,700 to spend on one and then have to buy all new software on top. Netbooks are nice and portable but I'm not sure if the computing power is there and I don't feel like carrying around an external CD-ROM drive. I probably would have gone with a Lenovo but I needed it by Friday and 16-day build time isn't going to cut it.

I ended up getting a Toshiba Satellite A505-S6970 from Micro Center. http://laptops.toshiba.com/laptops/s...500/A505-S6970
$900 after tax, not the most portable, but should be plenty powerful for what I need. I liked typing on the keyboard and I liked how it has a dedicated number pad. 16" screen is nice and large to place documents side by side. I wasn't going to get a laptop--as I have a desktop that runs perfectly fine--until the syllabus for the course was uploaded today. It stated that each student must have their own laptop with certain software installed.

Anyways, thanks for all the suggestions. I haven't opened it yet so unless anyone sees any glaring issues with the one I got I'll probably stick with it.

[ssg]

I can't speak to the price as I know nothing, but the machine seems alright as long as you can upgrade the ram later...the big screen is only 1366x768 though is the only thing I don't like. If they are going to make a big screen - make it with little pixels damn you!

Nothing glaring from me though, how much do you lose if you return it unopened vs opened?

[Punjistick]

It's expandable to 8GB. I made sure to look at the bottom and see how easy it was to upgrade components. 15% open box fee.

[GNTurbo6]

Whatever HP is on sale at the local Best Buy. Seriously.

[Jim]

Whatever business HP is on sale at CDW, newegg, or PC Connection. Seriously. Retail stores such as Best Buy blow

fixed