Laptop brands???

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gurlgeek

4 posts

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#6424 24-Jan-2006 22:57

I'm looking to buy a laptop at the moment and i know wot i want but am getting confused by the different brands such as acer, dell, compaq, hp blah blah does this even matter???? i hav a friend in the industry who i normally go to for advice but hav had a falling out with and so i need some help. he owns an acer which is mainly the brand i look at and he informed me benq are a great brand also. dell seem to be great value for money and apple is a little too expensive for me! any advice would be greatly appreciated :)

tonyhughes

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#27063 25-Jan-2006 08:13

Look for the specs you need and go with just about anything you have heard of.

I hate my Acer (bad keyboard layout). Wouldnt hesitate to buy one of the Warehouse Dells - $999 and you get a bag and printer and stuff - good deal.

Whatever you buy, get them to crank one up in store, and type and play and open applications (check that it feels 'fast', if you think it feels slow, it probably lacks enough RAM).

Whatever you buy, i thoroughly reccomend going to DSE and asking them to add RAM to make it up to at least 512MB (by adding 256MB) or up to 768MB (by adding 512). This is the most cost effective thing to make any new laptop really shine - the current factory standard for low end laptops of 256MB is a joke...

alasta

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#27066 25-Jan-2006 08:18

Disenchanted: Whatever you buy, i thoroughly reccomend going to DSE and asking them to add RAM to make it up to at least 512MB (by adding 256MB) or up to 768MB (by adding 512). This is the most cost effective thing to make any new laptop really shine - the current factory standard for low end laptops of 256MB is a joke...

How much would it cost to upgrade the RAM on a cheap machine to take it up to 512Mb? Apple notebooks all come with 512Mb as standard now, so that may go some way towards bridging the price gap between an iBook and a cheap PC notebook.

freitasm

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Geekzone

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#27068 25-Jan-2006 08:44

I am currently working with Dell on a discount code for laptops and Pocket PCs. But it may not be here until a couple of weeks from now...

Jama

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#27077 25-Jan-2006 09:26

I have an:

IBM Thinkpad T30 - don't like it can be flaky
Toshiba Tecra S1 - on the third motherboard (will never buy antother one)
HP/Compaq nx5000 - great laptop never had a problem
Acer 3000 - basic but seems to reliable

Aloha

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#27088 25-Jan-2006 10:56

Go for the Dell if you cant afford Apple. It's a good choice, with good support.

I is a kollege stoodent. Bee nice.

s.joseph

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#27090 25-Jan-2006 11:00

Im on a toshiba mx series at the moment never given me anyproblems best performance ive ever gotten out of a laptop but has a noisy fan. I had an hp which was a peice of sh** (came with a dead hd) But my brother has a compaq which was also very good but compaq and hp are the same so i dont no how that works.

tonyhughes

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#27096 25-Jan-2006 11:49

How much would it cost to upgrade the RAM on a cheap machine to take it up to 512Mb? Apple notebooks all come with 512Mb as standard now, so that may go some way towards bridging the price gap between an iBook and a cheap PC notebook.

$70 to go from 256 to 512
$120 to go from 256 to 768

the more ram the better (you can NEVER have enough...)

Those prices are from DSE. They also installed my last laptop ram for free...

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the_nurd

22 posts

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#27104 25-Jan-2006 12:26

one thing to watch is a lot of laptops have a slow processor so they can boast a long battery life, for example a a warehouse dell runs at 1.7 ghz compared to the 2.8 pentium 4 in my compaq laptop, which slows down the processor when on batteries to save power, and gives me 2 to 2.5 hours of battery life.
also you want to get a fairly decent machine that can take a few knocks if you are going to be using it on the move a lot.

gurlgeek

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#27207 25-Jan-2006 22:36

Thanx for the advice guys! I think i'll go for a dell now aye haha

the_nurd

22 posts

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#27214 26-Jan-2006 08:28

just make sure you check the specs properly, and I would recommend getting a laptop with a decent warrany

Aloha

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#27224 26-Jan-2006 09:14

And try to use Dell's upgrade feature when you buy it from them. Just couple of dollars more and you get Xp Pro, more memory, etc

I is a kollege stoodent. Bee nice.