I have the t60 and t60p and they are not nearly as nice as the t43 my wife has. The build quality is not as nice as the old ones. That said, the keyboard is still nicer than anything else on the market.
First things first: GET AN EXTENDED WARRANTY of at least three years. You're asking for trouble if you take the standard 90-day that I see alot. If you are going for price, internet and office, get a Dell. What Lil said about Dells heating up and exploding is absolute bullsh!t. I'm Dell certified, which means that I work on them, and I have never seen one blow up or overheat. Dell's laptops used to be of marginal quality, but they have really come up in quality in the past year. All of that said, you can get something that will last with a warranty for far under $1200 with a Dell. In fact, my wife needs something similar for grad school, and I'm getting her a Dell, and I don't get a discount. Fujitusus are very nice and slick as well, but pricer. Toshibas aren't bad. I don't have any experience with HPs, so I can't comment on them. I haven't been impressed with Lenovo since they took over the Thinkpad from IBM. Sony is nice and slick, but you pay for the style. $1200 isn't even close to the gaming machines like Alienware, so I won't get into that. As far as Macbooks go- they are very nice, and if you have the tech know-how to put XP on them, they double as a nice PC. My biggest gripe is that the mousepad only has ONE button. I know that you can do alt+click (or is it shift click) for the right mouse button under Windows XP, but it's a hassle. One note on Vista: I think it's going to fizzle. Not to the degree that the Ps3 is pooping out, but I don't think there will be a wide adoption rate outside of corporate contracts and pre-loaded on computers. I'll put it another way: XP is the Windows 98 of the 00's, and Vista is the Windows ME. I'll wait for the next edition of Windows with NFS.
I just made this same correlation to my brother in law. Right now, with the stability and ease of use from XP, there will be now widespread "need" to upgrade to the system hog of Vista.
My wife has had a Dell laptop for three years, no complaints. She is getting a new Dell shortly. Both of these laptops cost more than $1200, so she may have bought ones of higher quality? At my old jobs, I had a series of Compaq laptops, no complaints.
If I were buying one today, I'd get this: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3425&review=Asus+A8JP A8JS is its identical twin with Nvidia GPU. But it costs a couple hundred bucks more. You can also browse through Notebookreview.com. Chances are, whatever model you're looking at will have been reviewed already.
I got my brand new laptop for the Dell outlet for about $600 and the original price on it was about a grand and I love it so I'd say get a Dell.
My wife has had THREE Dell laptops in THREE years. She leaves it on her desk at all times (i.e. it's never used as a portable), and yet, they STILL keep breaking. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times? Well, time to buy another brand, no matter how cheap the Dells are.
I will get the latest refurb list here at HP for laptops in that price range and include the number to call. At that price range, you might still get the 3 year warranty. I have bought 3 and they have all looked perfect out of the box and have not had to call in to support at all. Keep in mind that when you buy a $600 laptop, that's what you usually get.
There are 2 of these left. RM156UA#ABA HP nc8430 XPP Duo T2400 1.83GHz 100GB 1GB DVDRW 15.4WXGA WLAN 256MB NB PC $1,149 These are brand new. If you send me an email, I will send you the entire list. They are mostly refurbs, but I have already mentioned that refurbs might as well be new, because the warranty on mone were all the same. Sales# 1-888-385-5408
t43 you can throw this thing against a wall, drop it off a balcony I got mine new at the beggining of last year this thing is the bomb. its not a gaming machine by any means, but if a keyboard means anything to you it has the best in the bussiness, not to mention a RED DOT MOUSE with scroll AND the little touch pad crap everyone else uses so they don't touch your bloody dot light, great battery weight and inconspicous CHINESE LAPTOPS FOR LIFE (although I used compaqs alternatively when I didn't have thinkpads till they got bought out by hp)
Buy a MAC.... I am a recent switcher... I only NEED a labtop for internet at Microsoft Office functions.... which by the way are sometimes easier on a MAC. I cannot believe the battery life I get on my Mac... concistently get at least three hours of use on this thing.... its is so easy to use in terms of Wifi... And trust me youll learn to love all of the other things about it. Imovie.... IDVD and much much more... GET A MAC
I've had a Toshiba lap top for almost a year now, and I haven't had a single problem. 650 bucks, 120 gig...512. As far as HP's go.......I always heard that the HP company didn't even use HP computers. Of course, I heard the same thing about Compaq. A joke I'm sure
Most laptops are made in Taiwan and rebranded with the company logo. It makes things faster and more direct....
Just my personal experience: I had a Compaq that broke down after 18 months. I think this was already after Compaq and HP had joined (I forget how bought out who). Against my better judgement I chalked it up to bad luck and got an HP. Fourteen months later it broke down. I went to a message board strictly for my laptop (HP dv1000) and many people had the same problem. In fact it seems to be a known problem by HP themselves which they don't want to spend any more r&d on to resolve in newer models. I always went to HP/Compaq because they have the best bang for the buck. If I only knew what kind of 'bang' I was going to get... But it's just one person's experience and maybe I just have awful luck. In any case, having two $1000 laptops break down in three years is too much for me to try again. Next I'm jumping ship to a Macbook (the OS has a lot to do w/ it), we'll see how that turns out...
dell inspiron, got it for almost 2 months now. its working great and its not a bad looking thing. bulky but thats expected. got the full accident warranty for the first year and hardware warranty for years 2 and 3.
