niceassbass

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I need to get a new laptop for college and the desktop i have no sucks ass cuz it takes like 5 minutes for one document to come up. All i really want is a top quality laptop that is really really fast and wont break down on me after I get it. And laptops that have really clear and crisp screens and alot of RAM and average cost. Any suggestions on laptops that fit the description

tombb25

Sony's are sweet, if you want cheaper though go to www.dealcatcher.com and you can get great coupons on Dell's. :wiggle:

ladlus

I have no experience with Sony laptops but IBM laptops are good. I like 'em even though some don't like that red thing they use in place of a trackpad like normal laptops (forget what it's called). Dell laptops are also good because they're cheap and for typing up papers and whatnot it should work just fine. However, whatever you do avoid Toshiba like the plague! My brother had one that kept crapping out on him and it was sent to their repair center 5 times and it wasn't even one year old. My professor and another friend both had Toshibas and complained about the DVD writer constantly failing as well as other problems.

But I know what some are saying: it could be they just got the bad apples and that's true. So whichever kind of laptop you get, make sure it has a great warranty that comes with it and if you plan on using it for awhile, get the extended warranty since it will pay for itself later when you have future problems.

deltaiotakappa

I can tell you one thing, DON'T go with a Gateway..they suck and are getting to be about as expensive as Dell's. Dell is usually a good bet but lately a lot of their monitors have been crapping out. If you are looking for top of the line go with Alienware (www.alienware.com) but they are going to cost you quite a bit. A good quality laptop for a decent price can be found at http://www.abspc.com. Hope that helps a little.

-Deltaiotakappa, a.k.a. DIK
http://www.deltaiotakappa.net

jnythw

id say dell also. wait for a 750 off 1500 coupon and get one

m88dc

i'd spec it out rather than looking for a brand. Intel centrino and amd sempron are processors designed to optimize battery life and speed for a laptop. IBMs are HIGH quality laptops btw.

titicaca

sony fs series or an asus... check out notebookforums.com. Specs I'd recommend: P-M 1.86 GHz, 533 MHZ FSB, 1 GB RAM, 15.4" WXGA or WSXGA+ display, 80 GB HDD, DVD+/-RW DL. There's prolly something im forgettin

matthewRbarlow

Hi

I agree with titicaca on the specs. I just bought a Sony Vaio FS660 with everything that titicaca mentioned except the Centrino processor is 1.73GHz (which is approximately equivalent to a 2.6 GHz P4 processor). I love the laptop, it has an amazing screen, and everyone always compliments me on its looks. it costs $1800 before the $100 mail rebate and some merchants offer an additional $200 rebate if you but it through their website. Check the laptop out at Sonystyle.com.

If you are going to be lugging the laptop around with you, then weight and battery life will be a key issues. the Sony weighs 6.5lbs and it only gives around 1.5 hours of continuous, far short of Sony's 5 hour claim. And it gets heavy after a while (even though it is very slim). These are the only 2 drawbacks, but all in all, I reckon that it is a good compromise between pure desktop replacements and the ultra portable "mini-laptops". Just wait until you watch a DVD on that amazing 15.4 widescreen with X-brite technology.

karearea

Here's some quick tips for that laptop:
-Steer clear of anything put out by CLEVO, they look nice but their customer support sucks. I've emailed them five times about problems with my own laptop and I get no reply.I then went through my retail outlet who tried to get me to pay double what I'd seen replacement parts on the net for just because they knew I'd find it damn hard to get bits when over warranty period...

-Steer clear of HP, their service and support centres absolutely suck, my best mate has had nothing but trouble trying to get warranty repairs done, and they sent it back the last time saying that they didn't know how to fix it and that the problem must have been caused by him playing with settings inside the laptop case(this guy doesn't know how to even use a screw driver let alone play around with jumpers and stuff).

-Steer well clear of SIS chipsets. Their boards are very average, as are their graphics drivers and cards.

-Compaq and Dell Bios can be a nightmare to change if you're not clued in and need to change or upgrade things.

-Never run your beloved on carpet(the floor) or any material for that matter that can and will get sucked up against the cooling intakes on the base of your laptop. If heat has caused a problem in your laptop, it is not covered in any way by the warranty and you will bear the full cost of repair as it is generally specified in your laptops handbook that you should not cover or hinder airflow from any vent.

-Even though they can run a little hotter than Intel, AMD is my choice for processing power. They have many more processes per second capability than an intel of the same speed. You only need to look at any recent computer mag with PC or Laptop benchmarking the two chips to see that.

-If you intend to run games then try to get a well known and well supported graphics card. ATI and N-Vidia both have laptop specific chipsets that are quite good considering they have to run on shared ram.

-If you intend to use external drives then a fire wire (IEEE 1394) connection is a must as even though USB2.0 Looks faster(480Mbps compared to 400Mbps), it's not. The Fire wire has a greater bandwidth(four data transmission lines compared to two for USB), is less prone to interferance and errors and is smarter in that it actually realises that if it doesn't have more than one device it doesn't have to share it's bandwidth. USB also reserves 10-20% of it's bandwith for the computer to use.

-All in all the best laptop you buy today won't cut the mustard next week with the big boys, so don't bother going all out for a top of the line of anything. The most I'd pay for ANY Laptop is $US 2000, anything over that will generally be on special in a months time for 2/3 the price anyway...

Hope this helps...

tuathal

Fujitsu Siemens have a good rep too.