So its that time for me again. I've had a macbook pro for about 4 years and its finally gotten to the point where it has too many problems for me to tolerate. Its still functional but barely. So I've decided to go PC this time around just purely on cost. Macs are still nice but I cant justify the price? So a few questions.. 1. Any general recommendations? I'm looking mainly at price as I've got student loans and other stuff to pay off so I'm not looking for anything to special. The current spec on my laptop is 2 Ghz Core 2 duo with 3 gigs of ram (upgraded that from 1 gig) so ideally I'd like a laptop to hover around those specs at a minimum. 2. Whats a good place to look for good deals on laptops? I know about slickdeals but its hit or miss when it comes to finding deals plus I'm just not impulsive enough sometimes and miss out. Anyway, thanks in advance.
Just curious - what's wrong with your current laptop? Core 2 duo is still pretty new as far as laptop standards go and 3gigs of ram so do you more than enough justice unless you have 64bit to register more ram. Anyways, here are two cents on the matter. I have always bought Dell simply because you can get massive discounts through educational programs/small business etc. You have to wait for those stackable deals though. But honestly, once I buy my laptop, I almost always swap out for higher quality parts for the RAM and HDD. In essence, get the best processor, video card, and screen you want. As to your second question, I normally just search fatwallet and type in "Dell". Also, there are always going to be people that say one particular brand of laptop is terrible b/c they've had bad experiences with it...do yourself a favor and buy your laptop a fan (unless it's a new version Sony which run real cool), clean it, maintain it, and it'll last you a long time no matter the brand (unless the parts were defective to begin with).
I bought the cheapest laptop I could find the other day, it was an Acer for $370. It does what it's supposed to. It's actually the quietest and least heat producing laptop I've ever had, at least compared to compaqs, hps, and toshibas I've had in the past.
My extended warranty is up and there are several issues. One of my fans is dead so if I do anything but use my laptop on a desk it'll overheat and go nuts. Even on a desk it gets pretty hot. Apple has notoriously awful fans (I replaced it twice while under warranty) My cd rom drive stopped working, my wireless stops working sometimes because of said heat issue. My hard drive has a few issues (nothing serious but if i reformat I know it'll be a headache) My sound card is kind of shaky. Usually it works but when I'm talking on skype sometimes it'll completely crap out and my mic will go haywire (and no I dont use the terrible built in mic) Like I said, its functional but I'm tired of the headaches. (really its the overheating that annoys me, but the other stuff sucks too) I usually add RAM but stuff like swapping in video cards isnt a big deal to me, as long as I can stream some tv shows I'll be ok. I dont really play any processor intensive video games. But I'll look into the dell stuff. Problem is I have to buy a laptop sooner rather than later and I have to travel a lot so I want to actually have a solid laptop.
What is your price range? Some newer high end laptops these days have USB 3.0 slots (tho it is quite rare at this point, I personally would recommend a laptop which has it as it would not get outdated for a few years), Blu-Ray readers/writers, those new Intel i processors which are supposed to be really good. You should consider taking a closer look into the Asus N61JQ (16") or Asus N71JQ (17"). It has USB 3.0 ports, the Intel i7 processor, options to add Blu-Ray RW drive and stuff. And you can get a good configuration for around $1500. In terms of bang for the buck, you can't get better than that. http://1toppc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=N61JQ-A1&Category_Code=
If you're not in a rush, check slickdeals for i7 15-16" laptop that go on sale for $900. HP's go on sale often and I've seen a Sony model go on sale once.
ok OP you should read this post. first of all who ever mentioned Dell see above, has no idea what he's talking about. DO NOT buy laptops with the words "Dell", "Gateway", "Acer", "IBM", they do not make high quality laptops. What you have to do is make a list of the things you NEED and the things you WANT in a chronological order. What is most important? Some laptops have build in video cards, are you going to watch movies, play games, use photoshop? You'll need at least 256MB for basic functionality. Note that for Starcraft 2 to run smoothly, I would recommend paying the money and get at least 1 G of ram for video. How about RAM? This is not that important, I can't justify anyone buying a laptop that goes above 2G of RAM, I can elaborate but I'm not going to. HDMI, you mentioned about video streaming, is this a must? USB slots, some come with 2 some come with 4 Processor: at this day and age, this becomes less important, anything above a 1.2 or a 1.6 should be ok CD ROM: are you an anti-pirate supporter? If CD rom's are not a requirement you can save a few hundred by buying a netbook Screen size: are you using this to take notes, or replacing your desktop? this can range from 10.1 to 17''. Battery: again, some have the newer batteries that can go for about 6 hrs Weight: again, are you using this laptop for portability or to use it at home sitting on a table? Price: if you're really no frills I would actually try craigslist or Kijiji, if you know what you're doing, you can contact the sellers and try it out. Redflagdeals is also good, as is Amazon. But I would say Craigslist as #1 if you negotiate with the seller and have some time to sift through their ads. Facebook is also good, I believe they have a marketplace. I would NOT buy a laptop from a retailer, if you want to save money, buy directly from the buyer, if you want to guarantee quality buy online from the vendor. HD: again, you have to decide, range from 100G to 300G around Finally, if you want some recommendations, I would recommend MSI, ASUS, VAIO, are good names. If you're buying a netbook I recommend above a 10.1 monitor for usability.
just to give you something as a comparison I saw an online offer from futureshop.ca of a MSI netbook, 12.1 screen size, HDMI, integrated video, USBs, memory card, $399.
ASUS U30JC 13 inch screen Aluminum plating (not unibody like MacBooks, but it is still a step above the plastic laptops) Core i3 4 GB RAM Discrete Graphics 9 hours of battery life http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-U30JC-A1-13-3-Inch-Laptop-Silver/dp/B0036ZEANO I plan on buying this laptop this summer.
I worked at Fry's for a while, and the best recommendation I can make is to steer clear of HP/Compaq and Gateway/Acer, at least as far as non-netbook laptops go. Those brands were by far the most problematic and complained about laptops based on my experience. From what I've seen, your best bets as far as reliability goes will be Asus, Fujitsu, and to a lesser extent Sony and (contrary to my previous conceptions) Toshiba. I don't know much about Dells these days, so I'd listen for other opinions on their machines. And always, the biggest rule of thumb: you usually get what you pay for. So depending on what your price range is, you can definitely get a reliable machine with high-end dual-core processor (and you'll probably want an Intel in a laptop) or maybe even an i7, 4-6GB of DDR3 memory, a pretty good video card, and a good-sized HDD (definitely get a 7200RPM drive here, good performance upgrade a lot of folks don't think about) for under $1,000. Depending on things you may want to add or things you're willing to cut out to save a little cash, and on the brand you go with, what you wind up paying may be more or less than that, of course. I wouldn't recommend going much under about $750 though. Good luck in your search! P.S. In regards to the guy recommending MSI, there is one thing I'd watch out for. I don't know if they've figured it out yet, but I saw a couple of different MSI's that were running a 32-bit version of Windows 7 with 4GB of memory along with as much as 256MB dedicated video memory. Unfortunately, a 32-bit OS is incapable of recognizing that much RAM, and a considerable chunk of it (about 1.25GB) is going to be completely useless. So keep an eye on that, just in case.
DO NOT BUY HP!!!! That is my only advice. Go for a Thinkpad (lenovo) or an Asus. Possibly a Toshiba. Those three have the lowest breakdown rate out of all laptops. I have an i7 with 4GB RAM. Thing is legit. Sadly it's an HP and has already had numerous problems. I purchased the three year warranty though, so it's okay. When it's not f'd up, thing is a beast.
As for price I'm trying to stay under $600. Otherwise I'd just buy another mac. Thanks for the suggestions thus far, trying to do some more reading.
btw very interesting, did not know that. Also after reading this and doing some reading, I'm thinking lenovo or a toshiba. Had a toshiba before this macbook with very little complaints so I'll look into those. Just got to pray for the right deal.
Can't you just get a 64 bit version of Windows 7 to utilize all that RAM? I don't see that as much of an obstacle, if the laptop is priced right. Getting a free 64-bit Windows 7 is pretty easy (for me anyways).
I bought an HP Elitebook after waiting for about 1-2 years researching and waiting. lol. It's an i7 620m with 4 GB of RAM. Be careful buying i7 quad core cpus. If you need portability, those things' battery life is horrid. Most of them will die before you can even finish a movie on it if they're not plugged in. Core 2 Duos are still good CPU's and you can often find them a lot cheaper or in deals. As for what to buy. Everybody'll tell you not to buy everything. The fact is, if you buy "consumer grade" laptops, you'll likely be facing issues. These are the cheaper sub-$1000 laptops. HP is not bad. Dell is not bad. Lenovo is not bad. They all will produce duds just like your Apple apparently was a dud. Sometimes it's just the luck of the draw. I've owned an ancient Toshiba Tecra and a Dell Inspiron 6000 from 5 years ago that I just replaced with the HP. None of these have given me problems. The biggest issue I had with the Dell in 5 years is that one pixel went out in the left corner. First thing you need to do is figure out what you'll be using it for. Then consider screen size. How big a screen do you need. Do you need it to be portable a lot? If so, a lot of those full-loaded ones weigh as much as a sack of bricks. Lastly, be careful on a lot of these laptops. There are currently shortages in the industry that have jacked up i5 and i7 cpu prices in some cases. Manufacturers are trying to cut back on prices by including lame 1024x768 screens in some cases on 15" laptops, for example. If you can check out the screen in person, do that first. If not, go here : http://www.notebookreview.com and go to their forums and read about the model you'd like. Research those forums enough and you'll see enough complaints about every manufacturer. Dell has throttling issues with their XPS line that steered me away from them. Thinkpads can be overpriced, banking on their legendary name from when they were owned by IBM and not Lenovo. The best Lenovos are their workstation lines - these are true Thinkpads. Ok, I lied... that wasn't "lastly"... this is : look for coupons and go to bing.com and see if you can get discounts. I got $200 off my laptop by going through Bing.com and buying it through TigerDirect. Wait... no... THIS is "lastly". Beware of those online configurators... the more you remove and add using those things, the more you're likely to be getting screwed. They won't be giving you all the money that thing you removed cost and will be charging you too much for whatever you replaced it with. Double whammy. This isn't always the case, but it's just something to think about. I could go on and on... I'm just happy I got mine and amd done looking for deals. :grin:
