Help selecting a lap-top

GaryQWA · Mar 19, 2006

I bought this in Dec. and a factory refurbished 1.73 version for the wife for $1100.

They are a combination lap top and tablet PC and for traveling, I don't think that style can be beat. Or that the ACER can be beat dollar for dollar. I see the price has come down $100 since I bought mine. I bought it from the same place as the link. I found my wife's on an auction site; ubid.com. They have an internal wi-fi antenna and all the features/options most anyone could want. And they are fast fast fast.

Gary Slusser

cisco · Mar 19, 2006

Side-by-side comparisons most of us (? all of us) don't have. Check pcmag.com and pcworld.com for their recommendations. Dell, HP, Toshiba and Lenovo (formerly IBM) are all fine. Me, I like keyboard feel, and basic compatiblity - so chose IBM, the corporate "road warrior" set-up. For my son, a senior in computer information systems at Clemson, it's a Dell portable. Anyhow, the IBM portable franchise was purchased by Lenovo, which seems to be having a rather good "St Patrick's Day" sale until 3/20 ---- somewhat amusing, given it's a Chinese firm, having purchased the portable computer franchise from a US-based firm (ALL major components of computers, portable or not, are non-US), and nowhere is Irish in the equation, at least not obviously.
Interesting indeed - there was a popular (at least from the "hits" and comments on Tractorbynet) posting about some gentleman using his Chinese tractor to clear a portion of his property to start a food plot for out-of-work colleagues. That post followed, within a few days, a lay-off of workers notice in the Wall Street Journal re. a John Deere facility in Georgia.
But - I digress - sorry - so, check out the ratings, figure out the features important to your wife (if it's the newly released dual processor stuff, fine; if it's a 128 MB graphics card, fine also; if its a double sided DVD burner, no problem --- you can equip and buy anything you want, within reason) --- I suggest attention to customer satisfaction and repair frequency, which you can obtain from the previously mentioned web sites.

beagdog · Mar 19, 2006

As someone else said, watch the Dell specials. I picked up a sweet little Dell Inspiron 600m with XP Home, a gig of memory, internal wireless card, 80 gig drive, a year warranty, a back up OS disk and a DVD burner for $520 including sales tax a couple weeks ago.

Also check here on a regular basis to find some decent deals. Its where the Dell I bought showed up.

Happy shopping.

IslandTractor · Mar 20, 2006

I've owned IBM, Toshiba, Dell, Gateway and Sony laptops over the past 10-12 years. I prefer the IBM (Lenovo) over the others for reliablity, excellent keyboard and professional support. I also like the fact that the IBMs are not preloaded with a bunch of screwball software I would never use. I would not hesitate to own another Dell or Toshiba but would not get another Gateway or Sony based on my experiences.

Laptops are pretty much commodity items these days so if you stick with the bigger brands you're reasonably safe. That said, if you hang out in airports as much as I do /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif (and see everyone with a computer taking it out for screening) you'd be impressed that IBM and Dell seem to own the business market between them. That says a lot about reliability and support.

guyrj33 · Mar 20, 2006

IBM; T series if you are going to travel with it. Other series are ok too, but a pound can make a big difference if you're doing a lot of travel with a lap top.

Guy
IBM T42

Jagmandave · Mar 20, 2006

3 years ago we bought a Compaq (HP) and while it's not as fast as I'd like it to be, it's been bulletproof, it was about $650 new, with the DVD burner etc

thcri · Mar 22, 2006

Mike here is a photo of an article of some kind that I got off another site.

I have a Dell that is three years old and was having trouble with it. I have been very happy with Dell but I personally think the company is going through many changes that I don't like. Turns out my laptop was something simle so I am keeping it. I don't know where the article came from so you can take it for what it is worth.

murph