Any laptop recommendations

[GTM]

Looking for a laptop with all the necessary stuff and warranty.
Prefer something light easy to carry around.

Anyone have any suggestions or know of any deals now?

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Dell always has a deal going, check fatwallet.com's hot deals forums (search for laptop, notebook, etc) for current deals.

A good way to go if you have one nearby is to go into costco or sams club. They usually carry a half dozen in the store and another dozen on their web sites. You can touch and poke them in person. Best warranty around...if you have a problem with it or just decide you dont like something about it they'll give you a full refund within 6 months. You'll also probably save a few bucks vs buying it from a 3rd rate online store somewhere. Worth the $30-40 membership fee, which is also fully refundable for 364 days from point of purchase if not satisfied.

I saw a pair of averatec's over at sams the other day that were 3.5 and 4.5 lbs, former was a celeron-m 1.1ghz with a 10" screen, 60gb disk, $999, latter has a sempron 3000, 12" screen, 80 gb disk, $799. Never owned one. Cut-Throat tried one and didnt like it because they dont give you recovery disks; the recovery s/w is on a maintenance partition on the hard drive. But costco gave him all his money back and he exchanged it for IIRC a sony he liked a lot.

 

[Cut-Throat]

Yup! - Costco got the best return policy.

I ended up with a little sony 10.6 inch screen that I love. Makes all the other laptops look Huge! - If you don't mind the small screen, they are really cool. A little bit on the pricy side, since all the real deals price wise are the 14 and 15 inch screens.

 

[yelnad]

I prefer my 12" iBook, but I'm weird like that. Before this I had a VAIO. It was great, until my husband spilled an entire glass of water on it. Makes a nice doorstop now.

 

[HFWR]

At a mere 12kg...

 

[MJ]

Before notebooks, there was the lite Compaq Portable, I am guessing about 12 lbs. I took it with me on vacation for about 4 years. It was a great for weight exercising while I waited for the flight.

 

[Sheryl]

I have had my Sony Vaio for about two years and I love it. I bought it at Circuit City - it wasn't cheap but I've never regretted it. It is extremely small and lightweight. I notice the new models don't seem to be quite as small. Mine is only the width of a keyboard....

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Before notebooks, there was the lite Compaq Portable, I am guessing about 12 lbs. I took it with me on vacation for about 4 years. It was a great for weight exercising while I waited for the flight.

You mean one of these? I had one too. 28lbs. I actually took it with me on several business trips

 

[yakers]

I have a Powerbook with a 15" screen which I really like. My wife wants a smaller laptop, maybe 12". But the larger screen is really nice when watching DVDs while on travel. Oh, I meant, while doing letters and spreadsheets while on travel.

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

You mean one of these?  I had one too.  28lbs.  I actually took it with me on several business trips

Wasn't that known as a "luggable"?

Interesting web page with the history:

http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/compaq/

I especially liked this sentence:
"Bob Cringely's "Accidental Empires" tells a story of how the president of Compaq sold the idea of the Portable while it was balanced on the toilet in his hotel room bathroom, because that was the only room that had an AC outlet....."

Here's the wikipedia page on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_portable

 

[MJ]

You mean one of these? I had one too. 28lbs. I actually took it with me on several business trips

No. I was looking for an image of it but couldn't find one. It was closer to the dimensions of a laptop but was about 5+ inches thick. We got it in the early 90's.
I used to commute with it daily besides taking on vacation with me.

 

[Sisyphus]

I wouldn't hesitate to go with a Dell.

ALWAYS Google for discount codes before ordering. Another tip... call them and talk to them about what you want. I have done that on two computers and they came down in price in both cases without losing any features.

Good luck.

 

[wabmester]

You mean one of these?  I had one too.  28lbs.  I actually took it with me on several business trips

Do you pine for those days of the luggable?   Dell hears you.

new 18lb portable

 

[LOL!]

I've travelled to conferences where everyone was typing away on Dell Latitude D600s and to other conferences where everyone was typing away on Apple G4 15" powerbooks. I have one of each. The D600 is slightly lighter in weight. Both have DVD burners, wireless, enough of everything else.

I use the D600 almost exclusively. Enough said.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Do you pine for those days of the luggable?

I only pine for the fjords.

 

[MJ]

I finally found the little sucker.
It was a mere 14 lbs.
It brings back some old memories.

Name: Compaq SLT/286 Laptop
Year Introduced:1990
Description: 14lbs. 1.44 floppy drive, 286 processor

 

[Martha]

I am reviving this discussion on laptops to try to get a bit more information. I had all sorts of problems with my year old work HP on vacation. It is out of warranty. Because of the cost to repair, our computer person at work wants to get me a new computer. She said she planned to replace with another HP with a three year warranty. I told her I wasn't thrilled with the HP and it never seemed as capable as advertised. For example, it is slow when using digital dictation.

So, any recommendations I could pass along to her? She is willing to consider other options. I need a durable and speedy machine. Lightweight would be nice, but not a necessity. Storage isn't a big deal; most of the time I am on my firm's network. Cost should be no more than $1500-$1700.

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

I am reviving this discussion on laptops to try to get a bit more information.  I had all sorts of problems with my year old work HP on vacation.  It is out of warranty.  Because of the cost to repair, our computer person at work wants to get me a new computer.  She said she planned to replace with another HP with a three year warranty.  I told her I wasn't thrilled with the HP and it never seemed as capable as advertised.  For example, it is slow when using digital dictation.

So, any recommendations I could pass along to her?  She is willing to consider other options.  I need a durable and speedy machine. Lightweight would be nice, but not a necessity.  Storage isn't a big deal; most of the time I am on my firm's network.  Cost should be no more than $1500-$1700. 

For that price range, the best machines I've seen are Lenovo Thinkpads (formerly IBM). They work well, the keyboards are great, and the screens are bright. Dell's are just okay.

By the way, by digital dictation, are you referring to literal transcription software (i.e., you speak, the computer transcribes?) or are you simply recording your dictation digitally and transmitting it to your secretary for transcription?

 

[Martha]

By the way, by digital dictation, are you referring to literal transcription software (i.e., you speak, the computer transcribes?) or are you simply recording your dictation digitally and transmitting it to your secretary for transcription?

I speak, the computer transcribes. It takes a while for the software to learn your speech, but it doesn't work half bad.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

In that price range, high end dells are good, the sony's are good, my experience with thinkpads prior to the lenovo purchase was that they were top notch. Still have a four year old one that works fine. Since the lenovo purchase I noticed the prices dropped a good bit. Whether thats manufacturing efficiency or cheaper parts I cant say. Jay, is your experience with the lenovo built stinkpads recent, as in since the buyout?

One of the guys that used to work for me was responsible for PC based telephony and he had an awful time with notebook microphones...mostly very cheap and thrown in just to say they have the feature. You might consider a decent quaklity external microphone plugged through a creative labs audigy pcmcia card. Garbage in, garbage out.

 

[HFWR]

I vote nay on HP/Compaq...

I'd recommend a headset with earphones/mic for the dictation app.

Have never used dictation app, but used to have fun with the text sythesizer reading porn...

 

[BigMoneyJim]

Another vote against HP. Today just had my 3rd laptop hard drive crash in a month. (My users have about 15 laptops.) I liked these nc6000's for a while, but they're croaking on me way too soon and too often. This one is 2-3 years old, but the others were less than a year old.

 

[KB]

When I worked for IBM, I had a Thinkpad T30. The hard drive went out after 2 years of working on it 5 days a week.
Other than that, I had no problems with it.

My personal laptop, HP with widescreen had the power supply die within 10 months. Fortunately replaced by warantee. With the widescreen, it's a bit heavier than the smaller laptops. I had a LOT of IE problems, but it's not HP related I have some Yahoo software loaded that interferes with IE at times.

I should have bought my IBM laptop when I left, I really liked it. Maybe someday I'll get an updated version, only they're more expensive than the other brands. I'll go back to a smaller screen next time, more portable. I haul my laptop all over the house. Love that wireless connection.

 

[riskadverse]

I worked next to the desktop group for about 10 years.  My unofficial poll rated the Toshiba laptops as best, followed by IBM.  All the rest, HP, Compaq, Dell, Gateway, and various one of a kinds were cursed continuously.  Of course that was a couple of years ago. If you look closely at most of the laptops, they are made by various little known Korean companies and those companies change even across the models of one brand name.   

 

[Martha]

I'll have her look at all your suggestions. I do like the look of the Sony. The Thinkpads-do they have a touch pad or that funny little eraser head? I want a touchpad.

BTW, I do use a quality headset plugged into the computer if I do digital dictation. The problem is that the machine is a bit slow so the words take too long to hit the screen. Makes it very confusing to use the software. It works fine on a desktop machine.