Looking for Laptop

C

Compequip

New Member
Hey guys, another looking for a laptop. This is going to be for my daughter, she's 14 and going into high school. She's definately not into computers, but needs one for the school she's going into. I'm thinking of the following specs.

Brand Don't care
O.S. Win 7
Monitor ?
RAM min 3GB
HD min 320
CPU I'm thinking i3, i5 or i7 I'm not against amd at all
GPU integrated would be ok I'm thinking, but nvidia or ATI would be a +
Needs to be wireless, I think all are now.....
Looking for light she's small.

As for a budget, of course cheap as possible. Would like to keep it under $600.00 seeing this is her first laptop, and we'll see how it goes. I will spend more money if necessary. I do have M.S. office 2010 for 3 users I can add for her. I bought this from Newegg. I'm not in a hurry, she does start school Aug. 31 st, but was hoping to wait until the crazy black friday deals. Here is one laptop I'm currently looking at; http://www.microcenter.com/single_p...edium=email&utm_campaign=E0886+eNews+20100810

It has better specs. than this one at newegg for less money. Just wish it had a better GPU; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834114937

ohhhh and I saw this, I know it's not as good, but check out the price.....http://www.walmart.com/ip/Acer-AS57...=16237462763526461696&wmlspartner=lw9MynSeamY
 
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Yeah walmart does maintenance every night I think. I went out looking at laptops yesterday and didn't like the HP G6 series. I did however like the D7 series. And the 17.3 screens looked really nice the 15.6 was OK also. Anywho if anyone sees a great deal out there for a high school laptop let me know. I'm keeping my eye's out for a GREAT deal.... Thanks in advance for all your help...
 
1shado1 said:
No help in picking a specific laptop, but help in picking a brand:
Avoid HP/Compaq, Gateway, and Acer. They have had the worst record
for reliability for the last 2+ years. Asus, Toshiba, and Sony Vaio
have been the best. See below:
http://lifehacker.com/5524704/laptop+reliability-study-highlights-
Click to expand...

Yeah I've seen that graph before, but look at what is says "Projected failure after 3 years".... I personally have a 5 year old fujitsu that is still working great, battery now sucks on it, but hey after 5 years. I use it for demos. I've also had lots of experience with dell laptops as the company I rep. for gives them to their employee's. 100's of them, most have no issues, the main problems are dropped/damaged or stolen. Some have viruses from the internet, but as for normal failures very low. I think when it comes to laptops, alot of failure have to do with abuse (mainly drops and spills).
 
Compequip said:
Yeah I've seen that graph before, but look at what is says "Projected failure after 3 years".... I personally have a 5 year old fujitsu that is still working great, battery now sucks on it, but hey after 5 years. I use it for demos. I've also had lots of experience with dell laptops as the company I rep. for gives them to their employee's. 100's of them, most have no issues, the main problems are dropped/damaged or stolen. Some have viruses from the internet, but as for normal failures very low. I think when it comes to laptops, alot of failure have to do with abuse (mainly drops and spills).
Click to expand...

Yes, it says projected failure after 3 years for one set of bars. But for the other set, it is ACTUAL 2 year figures.

You have a Fujitsu that is five years old and still works. Nowhere in the study does it say that every laptop fails, so not sure what your point is. Not to mention the fact that a study of 30,000 laptops is a better representative sample than a person's experience with one laptop. Even the brands rated worst are still going to have laptops working after 5 years. And yes, a certain percentage of failures were due to abuse (they figured about 20%), but the percentage of abuse accross all brands would most likely be fairly consistent. And that may also show that certain brands stand up to abuse better than others. I also won't argue that a couple models of Dells can't be reliable. Every company makes better and worse models. The study encompassed all models that needed work for all brands.

The study obviously doesn't take laptops older than 2 years into consideration, nor can it take into consideration new laptops for obvious reasons. New laptops by different brands may be found to be more or less reliable than ones released by each brand 2 years ago. So brand reliabilty stats by brand may be significantly different in the future.

But lacking anything better to go by, if reliability is a prime concern, I still think it a safer bet to go by the figures presented.

Also, I realize that in the percentages of failure between brands, there isn't an insanely large difference.

I'm also not suggesting that possible reliability should be the first concern of everyone buying a laptop. For some it is, and for some it isn't.

FWIW, here are a couple of subjective (unlike the Squaretrade objective study) studies:
http://www.laptopmag.com/mobile-life/scores-by-brand-best-brands.aspx

http://smidgenpc.com/2010/04/23/the-best-laptop-brands-a-comprehensive-review/
 
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For school I recommend a used Mac esspecialy when there not as experienced. You can get a used mac for arround 500-600 off craigslist (I would recommend no more then 3 yrs old) and probably 13 inch. They run software alot smoother + I prefer iLIfe to powerpoint.
 
1shado1 said:
Yes, it says projected failure after 3 years for one set of bars. But for the other set, it is ACTUAL 2 year figures.

You have a Fujitsu that is five years old and still works. Nowhere in the study does it say that every laptop fails, so not sure what your point is. Not to mention the fact that a study of 30,000 laptops is a better representative sample than a person's experience with one laptop. Even the brands rated worst are still going to have laptops working after 5 years. And yes, a certain percentage of failures were due to abuse (they figured about 20%), but the percentage of abuse accross all brands would most likely be fairly consistent. And that may also show that certain brands stand up to abuse better than others. I also won't argue that a couple models of Dells can't be reliable. Every company makes better and worse models. The study encompassed all models that needed work for all brands.

The study obviously doesn't take laptops older than 2 years into consideration, nor can it take into consideration new laptops for obvious reasons. New laptops by different brands may be found to be more or less reliable than ones released by each brand 2 years ago. So brand reliabilty stats by brand may be significantly different in the future.

But lacking anything better to go by, if reliability is a prime concern, I still think it a safer bet to go by the figures presented.

Also, I realize that in the percentages of failure between brands, there isn't an insanely large difference.

I'm also not suggesting that possible reliability should be the first concern of everyone buying a laptop. For some it is, and for some it isn't.

FWIW, here are a couple of subjective (unlike the Squaretrade objective study) studies:
http://www.laptopmag.com/mobile-life/scores-by-brand-best-brands.aspx

http://smidgenpc.com/2010/04/23/the-best-laptop-brands-a-comprehensive-review/
Click to expand...

Yes, I see both graphs and if you notice on the two year its looks to be between 9.5-16%, what I was pointing out is that the 3 year is very inflated. As for the fujitsu, I mentioned this because it's not a popular brand comparded to dell, sony, apple, toshiba, hp, etc. And when you google laptops there are soooo many options and soooo many sites, do you just take one sites info. or do you search multiple sites? As for the link I greatly appreciate the info., it helps me make a more educated buying decision. And this is what I'm looking for. So with that said what do I buy??? hehe j/k I'm going to take my time and find a good deal on a great product.
 
I am not sure if you are interested in Dell or not. I have a daughter that is also starting high school next year and she needed one. I bought her a Dell Inspiron 15R. I got it in White, Intel Core i3, 4GB DDR3 RAM and Windows 7 Home 64bit. The total price was about $650 for everything. It will be perfect for her high school needs.

It also comes with MS office installed...just have to type in your key and that's it.
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx//inspiron-15r?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~oid=us~en~29~inspiron-15r-cto1~~&redirect=1



I also bought my wife a laptop...HP Pavilion dv6. I never thought I would buy an HP computer but the price was right and I am impressed so far. It feels very solid and well built. The Phenom II is very snappy and responsive. Installed all the goodies very quick. Great laptop. Got it for $629.

wq677ua_300.jpg


AMD Phenom II Dual-Core N620 2.80GHz, 4GB DDR3, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250, 15.6" High-Definition HP BrightView LED Display, Brushed Aluminum finish
 
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Bump still looking..... I see some decent laptops for school use right at the 600.00 range. Should I buy one of these or wait until the day after Thanksgiving. School started for my daughter and she is always on my desktop urghhhh hehe..... :D
 
If you have a cash. Buy a MacBook. If not get a HP envy and stick an Apple logo on it. She wont know the difference as HP is a world leader in copying designs. :D
 
iGeekOFComedy said:
If you have a cash. Buy a MacBook. If not get a HP envy and stick an Apple logo on it. She wont know the difference as HP is a world leader in copying designs. :D
Click to expand...

I don't know anything about a mac so I'm not sure. I've never seen, nor even turned a mac on.. Is it like a pc and what makes a mac better. And can I transfer files between mac and pc?
 
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