Laptop recommendations - LOGAN?

[jeff56]

My wife went back to school last month to get her Masters, and I'd like to get her a laptop to make things a little easier for her. I've been looking at Dells and their prices seem to be as good as what I've heard of their quality.

I don't need anything excessive. It will be used for writing papers, etc and maybe a little bit of e-mail and internet at home on our wireless setup. We won't be using it for any games and the most multi-media use I could forsee would be to maybe watch a DVD on vacation or something, and that's a stretch.

I'd like to stay under $700 and want to order something in the next day or two. The cheaper the better, but I believe in paying for what you get, and though our needs are low, I don't want to buy yesterday's technology.

Any ideas?? I was looking at Dell's Inspiron series. Maybe the base or midgrade model, which can be had for right under $700.

Any input? Keep it simple because that's what my needs are.

[SVTJoseCuervo]

dell should do ;)

[Silver_2000]

Logan is out of town

He would likely tell you if he were online to check the Dell Outlet for deals

[jeff56]

Hmmm...Dell Outlet? Let me find this thing.....:D

[Silver_2000]

http://www.dell.com/content/default.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dfh&cs=22

[Tex Arcana]

Watch out for Dell's Inflammo-Batteries, beyond that they're not bad.

For the money you're wanting to spend, you might want to shop around locally, sometimes Best Buy will have a good sale where you can get something decent for that kind of money. Also, hitting Costco or Sam's can get you a good laptop for a great price.

[Silver_2000]

the biggest thing these days is the service

for a laptop for school I would be sure to spend the $200 extra or so to get the damage warranty

Get it from the manufacturer NOT The store or a 3rd party

[my2002lightning]

I've had numerous corporate issue Dell laptops that have been functioned fine while being run through the rigors of air-travel from San Francisco to Miami and many miles of land-travel in between. They're tough.:tu:

Yes, they're service seems to have issues with all the outsourced help-desk jobs to India, etc. Better brush-up on your Hindi - Bakwaz nahee choop prohoo, mofo! knana

I can also personally vouch for Samsung cell phones. :cool: Washing machines and lawn-mowers don't seem to phase them much. :D

Ronald

[jeff56]

Credit card is feeling abused and I have one Dell laptop enroute. Thanks fellas....

[L8 APEX]

They show a 15" Inspirion B130 for low 600's I wonder if it is worth a hoot.. Relative just bought a Toshiba from Circuit City for $709. DVD burner, 512 ram 60g HD etc. Good enough to toot around on the internet. I would like a ToughBook for work due to shop/use conditions;) .

[Moonshine]

Demo Toughbooks that have been factory refurbished can be obtained through Panasonic, although I understand they go pretty quick. Been very happy with my Toughbook so far.

[StormShadow]

I have a panasonic toughbook with touchscreen. Best laptop I've ever had. Dell would be 2nd place. I use the Dell out in the field and it slid off the roof of a house one day and still worked. The compaq I had never really worked good.

[Tex Arcana]

I have a panasonic toughbook with touchscreen. Best laptop I've ever had. Dell would be 2nd place. I use the Dell out in the field and it slid off the roof of a house one day and still worked. The compaq I had never really worked good.

I saw toughbooks being used in the field when I was doing FEMA inspections, I didn't like the screen at all--then again, the dummies were running them at Windows default resolution. :hammer:

The computer I had, however, was a Fujitsu Stylistic tablet, and THAT was a killer machine, and fairly tough with the padded cover on it. LONG battery life, excellent screen size and resolution, and excellent handwriting-recognition software. Built-in bluetooth and wireless, IRDA port for infrared keyboards and printer adapters.

If I had to buy a compute with that type of functionality, the Fujitsu would get my vote. :tu:

[mk5.0]

Dell is garbage


http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wo/0.RSLID?mco=A4791B5D&nclm=MacBook

[Silver_2000]

Dell is garbage


http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wo/0.RSLID?mco=A4791B5D&nclm=MacBook
Number one PC retailer sells garbage....
Oh wait its from an Apple fan...

PS cheapest Apple is $1200 which is I bet almost 200% of his budget

[Silver_2000]

Demo Toughbooks that have been factory refurbished can be obtained through Panasonic, although I understand they go pretty quick. Been very happy with my Toughbook so far.

heres one for $120

http://www.bobjohnson.com/_store/Display_Products.asp?prodID=CF%2D50EAKUUDM&SC=CF-50EAKUUDM

[mk5.0]

Number one PC retailer sells garbage....
Oh wait its from an Apple fan...

PS cheapest Apple is $1200 which is I bet almost 200% of his budget


They sell the hell out of Kia's too. Does that mean they are good too ?

Ps you can get a Mac for $900

You get what you pay for !

[Silver_2000]

They sell the hell out of Kia's too. Does that mean they are good too ?

Ps you can get a Mac for $900

You get what you pay for !
When KIA becomes #1 or even #10 ranked on sales then your argument is a good one

Apple has been overpriced since day one.
If one company made all the hardware and the OS and most of the software then the windows to apple compare is valid

[jeff56]

Ugh....I'd rather you not have posted that one for 120 clams as that would have probably been all I ever needed to get for my wife.

Here's what I got:


Inspiron 1300/B130 Notebook: Intel Pentium M Processor 735A (1.70GHz/2MB Cache/400MHz FSB) Genuine Windows XP Home 1 $589.00
Inspiron 1300/B130 Notebook: Intel Pentium M Processor 735A (1.70GHz/2MB Cache/400MHz FSB)
Certified Refurbished
Shipping Material
AOL 9.0 ISP Software
Windows Media Player
Service Software
60W AC Adapter
AOL 9.0 ISP Software
1 GB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz (2 DIMMs)
DVD Software
Shipping Material
Service Software
Dell Direct Download
AOL ISP Software
Photo Album 6.0 Starter
AOL 8.0 ISP Software
AOL Software Documentation
AOL ISP Software
Operating System CD
Support Software
Microsoft Works 8.5
ISP Software
Image Restore Software
Net Zero ISP
Wild Tangent Gaming Client
Symantec PC Backup-90 Day
Processor Label
ONLINE TRAINING
15.4 inch WXGA Notebook Screen
ISP Search Assist
Music Match 10.1 Software
Internal 56K Modem
Trend Micro PC-cillin with AntiVirus and Spyware removal 24-months
Genuine Windows XP Home
8X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
80 GB EIDE Hard Drive (5400 RPM)
Integrated Intel Media Accelerator 900 Graphics
DVD Software
Inspiron B130
Keyboard On Notebook
4 Cell Primary Battery
Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Reader
2200 Wireless Card


Insp B130/1300 STD: 90 Days Ltd Warranty, 90 Days Mail-In Service, and 90 Days HW Warr Spt $0.00 1 $0.00
Subtotal: $589.00
Shipping and Handling: $19.99

Sales Tax: $50.24
Total: $659.23

Being prone to overkill, I probably spent more than I should have. I'm a sucker for the "if I'm spending this much, I might as well spend xx more" line of thought though. Oh well, that seem's like a killer deal to me and better than I would have found elsewhere. Thanks for the Dell Outlit tip, Doug.
I had to go by Staples today and was looking at some of there units. Almost wonder if I should have gotten a smaller screen and thereby a smaller overall package.

Next question: Palm Treo 650 or the Cingular 8125 Pocket PC (I think it's called the HTC Wizard outside of Cingular). I'll start a new thread for that though.

[Silver_2000]

Spend some of the treo money to get a better warranty from dell

[jeff56]

Spend some of the treo money to get a better warranty from dell

:o I knew I might get a smack for not having upgraded the warranty. Seriously, what kind of problems could I have? I've always had good luck with computers so far (knocking on my wood desK) Hard drive, bad power supply I guess?

Upgrade to 1 year was 89 and 2 years was 169. Worth it, you think? I know the answer, just curious as to comments.

[dboat]

IMHO, not a bad deal at all.. but get rid of all that AOL virus before you load anything else on to the computer..
Dana

[Silver_2000]

:o I knew I might get a smack for not having upgraded the warranty. Seriously, what kind of problems could I have? I've always had good luck with computers so far (knocking on my wood desK) Hard drive, bad power supply I guess?

Upgrade to 1 year was 89 and 2 years was 169. Worth it, you think? I know the answer, just curious as to comments.

You can barely buy a power supply for that laptop for $189
It depends if you are a betting man and how long you expect/demand troublefree service from it.

Laptops are just about the ONLY thing that I would buy a warranty for

[Tex Arcana]

Number one PC retailer sells garbage....
Oh wait its from an Apple fan...

PS cheapest Apple is $1200 which is I bet almost 200% of his budget

You have to admit, that "#1 retailer" *does* intentionally bundle spyware with their product, along with :throw: batteries, not to mention that giant virus they like to include.. :d

[Tex Arcana]

They sell the hell out of Kia's too. Does that mean they are good too ?

Ps you can get a Mac for $900

You get what you pay for !

:tu:

[Tex Arcana]

When KIA becomes #1 or even #10 ranked on sales then your argument is a good one

Apple has been overpriced since day one.
If one company made all the hardware and the OS and most of the software then the windows to apple compare is valid
I'm with you there... Apple made a huge mistake back in the early 90's when they pulled back their licensing for building Mac clones. Had they allowed it to happen, I daresay that things would be reversed, and we would be talking about Windows as the "red-headed stepchild" of the OS wars.

On second thought: Windows would actually be a BETTER OS, because they would've had to work harder at making it better than Mac, and would not have gone down the path they went.

[Tex Arcana]

:o I knew I might get a smack for not having upgraded the warranty. Seriously, what kind of problems could I have? I've always had good luck with computers so far (knocking on my wood desK) Hard drive, bad power supply I guess?

Upgrade to 1 year was 89 and 2 years was 169. Worth it, you think? I know the answer, just curious as to comments.

For a laptop?? YES.

One wrong smack, and the LCD could go bye-bye, and THAT will set you back a bunch of bones for a replacement.

[Tex Arcana]

IMHO, not a bad deal at all.. but get rid of all that AOL virus before you load anything else on to the computer..
Dana

AOHell, automatic updates, remote desktop, MSN, and any of the other garbage they get paid to bundle--wait, you can't remove Windows without installing something else, tho I hear you can get OSX for a little bit of nothin'. :d

Seriously, strip out all the garbage, and about 80% of the visual BS, and the machine will run cleanly and smoothly. Make a visit to http://www.tweakhound.com/ for a nice guide on optimizing Windows. It'll take some time, but in the end you'll be happier for it. And while you're at it, check out his articles on creating a system disk of your setup after you've tweaked it, you might find that better than using the ones Dell supply to you. :tu:

edit: http://www.dead-eye.net/WinXP%20Services.htm is a repost of Black Viper's XP Services breakdown, which Tweakhound uses in his guide.

[jeff56]

Thanks for all the good info, everyone. Sounds like that warranty could be the ticket. I'll have to look into upgrading it. I'm sure they still have an option after the fact.