Suggestions on laptop purchase

C

CrazyMike

New Member
Hey,

So I am trying to help out a buddy pick out a laptop. He told me is budget is around $500. I'm trying to get him his "best bang for the buck". So I'm searching around trying to find laptops and compare.

Requirements:

Price: $400-$600 (keeping it as close as $500 as possible)
Brand: Try and keep it within good quality well known brands
Screen size: 15" or 15.6"
Quality: Has to be new, no refurbished ones.
Components: Max out the component area (ie. HDMI output, Bluetooth, High performance parts, ect.)
Store: I am trying to keep it local or well known websites (ie, Newegg.ca, Tiger Direct, ect)

Here are a few that I have found:

Acer Aspire 15.6" - Future Shop
Toshiba 15.6" - Future Shop
Samsung 15.6" - Future Shop
Acer 15.6" Furture Shop
Acer 15.6" - Newegg.ca

(I tried uploading a table i created to show what you mean, but will have to take a screen shot instead, file too big I guess)




I'm still in the search, but would appreciate some help.

Thanks
 
I personally would take either the toshiba or the samsung over the acer offerings if you want quality. Don't get me wrong, an acer will work, but they are far from a quality built unit.
 
CrazyMike said:
Acer not very good quality? How so? Any other suggestions?
Click to expand...

okay, from my experience they are just low quality. Completely plastic (which in itself is not bad, but there is little to no reinforcement in their designs which makes it far too easy to bend/break the chassis). The Displays are very low quality (generally no colour calibration options on the desktop LCDs and on the laptop units they are just placed right against the thin plastic they are seated in, which makes it very easy to bust the LCD). The keyboards have a lot of flex in them, which is just opinion on if that is bad or not, but it gets annoying after a hour or so typing on it. also the ones I have had have not lasted long before hardware failures took them down. The 5552 stopped recognizing the HDD (tested against 4 known good drives pulled from other working laptops), and i don't remember the model of teh other ones, but I had to pull the 17 inch one apart and reseat the LCD cable to make it work again, and my favourite onewas a 15.3" one, but the Nvidia (GT540m) GPU stopped being recognized within 3 months of purchase.
 
wolfeking said:
okay, from my experience they are just low quality. Completely plastic (which in itself is not bad, but there is little to no reinforcement in their designs which makes it far too easy to bend/break the chassis). The Displays are very low quality (generally no colour calibration options on the desktop LCDs and on the laptop units they are just placed right against the thin plastic they are seated in, which makes it very easy to bust the LCD). The keyboards have a lot of flex in them, which is just opinion on if that is bad or not, but it gets annoying after a hour or so typing on it. also the ones I have had have not lasted long before hardware failures took them down. The 5552 stopped recognizing the HDD (tested against 4 known good drives pulled from other working laptops), and i don't remember the model of teh other ones, but I had to pull the 17 inch one apart and reseat the LCD cable to make it work again, and my favourite onewas a 15.3" one, but the Nvidia (GT540m) GPU stopped being recognized within 3 months of purchase.
Click to expand...

Oh Damn!! Have you noticed any change in quality over the years? Such as recently gone bad or old and new are like that?

The major point you pin pointed was the LCD, the rest of the issues (flex and what not) isn't that big of a deal to me anyway.
 
I can't really comment past about 2-3 years ago, as that is the oldest one I have used. However I had a core 2 duo gateway that was pretty decent. Still had a lot of flex, and a low resolution LCD, but otherwise no complaints from me. Gateway is own by Acer (maybe its the other way around. I know one of them owns the other).
 
cwizardtx said:
The Lenovo Ideapad G580 series have Core i3 and start around $499. Check your Canadian sources for that, there's a couple variants.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your suggestion:

There are a few things i don't like about that laptop (or at least i can find better):

-The i3 is a dual core. A Quad Core is much better for multitasking.
-There is only 4GB of RAM - which isn't that bad, but can be cumbersome if multiple tasks are done at once.
-I don't mind the Intel HD 4000 graphics, but as benchmarks compare, they aren't the greatest.
-The Biggest hard drive i can find in that model is 500GB

Not to mention, in my area (or online close by) there are only a select few places to get such model.
 
Only 2 things there that I disagree with. A dual core intel is fine for multitasking, and even gaming. I ran a G530 and a i3-380m for a bit and both will do anything you throw at them.

4GB is fine, but 8GB is better. All depends on what programs you are using.
 
wolfeking said:
Only 2 things there that I disagree with. A dual core intel is fine for multitasking, and even gaming. I ran a G530 and a i3-380m for a bit and both will do anything you throw at them.

4GB is fine, but 8GB is better. All depends on what programs you are using.
Click to expand...

Oh i totally agree. Dual core is fine for gaming, but dual core can be torn down when doing heavy multitasking. A buddy of mine has a HP with a i3 (can't really remember the model) and for myself, i easily get that processor running at 100% by doing some simple tasks. Now i know what you are thinking, it all depends on the situation at hand. But the way i see it, for the same price you can have a quad core that works well with multitasking tasks.

Again, you are right. 4GB is fine. But the more RAM worthy tasks a person does, 4GB goes away quickly. Such as a virus scan. 4GB can move quickly away when a virus scan is happening and you want/need to use the computer at that point and time. (bad example, but sure you get the point).

Both, you are right, are acceptable. But for the best bang for your dollar, why wouldn't you go for a quad core with more RAM?
 
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