Laptop Computers

Paul Rohrs_2

and have narrowed the field down to a few.

Dell Inspiron, HP Pavillion, and a Toshiba are topping the list right now.

Looking for 40Gig, CD-RDVD, 15" widescreen, USB, Firewire ports, and upgrade to a healthy Microsoft Software Package on the XP Home operating system. I am impressed with the Pentium 4 chip but the Centrino technologies out their now, I don't know if I can justify the extra $$$.

Memory and Speed top the list of importance for me, graphics and then yes...price.

Anyone have Centrino in their laptop and think they wouldn't go back? (I am looking to stay under $1200.00)

Thanks for any input.

Regards,

PR

Firedragon_4

We have a new Toshiba Satellite

17" doing seminars right now and just semi-retired a Compaq Armada. An HP Pavilion and an old Inteva are still doing work as units on the office network.

I can't tell you much about Centrino, we've stuck with the Pentiums and never looked back.

I can't stand MS/XP Home, bite the bullet and get Pro, FACT!

Constantin

I'd also consider IBM

They may have been sold to an el-cheapo company a short while back, but they still seem to produce well-performing, tough notebooks.

I'd stay away from Dell for the same reason. For me, Dell is the Home Despot/ Wall Mart of the computer industry. You get what you pay for.

The IBM online configurator is pretty nifty and it will allow you to see right away if they can compete with the rest.

I still prefer my Powerbook, but understand full well how many of you couldn't be using one due to LoopCAD, Wrightsoft, or some other specialized software package that only comes on Windoze PCs.

jerry scharf_2

laptop religion

First, you have to decide which messiah you follow, Bill or Steve. It's sounding like Steve is out of the question.

Then you have to decide whether you seek freedom or power. For the travel type that hate weight, I do like the centrino units. For the "desktop replacement" big boys, I like the athlon and P4 mobile chips. I am really fan of the AMD chips, but the differences don't really matter that much.

I just got a centrino based system, which claims to be able to go coast to coast in an airplane on 1 battery. Given that all battery people lie, it will probably be more like 3 hours. That's still a whole lot better than the other power hogs. Mine comes in at 6 lbs, which is a couple pounds lighter than the big boys.

Get a faster disk drive! The standard disk drive for a laptop is 4000 RPM. There are 5400 RMP disks out there, and they make a big differece in how the system performs. It will be a much bigger difference than an extra 10% of cpu speed.

My eyes are tired, and I like the ability to use my laptop without reading glasses. This leaves the 15" XGA+ screenas the best choice. The bigger ones go to higher resolution so on both sides of the hump the print gets smaller and smaller.

You should get at least 512MB RAM. Given your budget, I think that is all you can afford. Laptop RAM still has a price premium over desk units.

DVD-RWs are nice, but cost ebough more to put them out of your budget. At least get a CD-RW for backups, and most people want a DVD as well.

Wireless is cool, but you have to understand how to secure your system before this is safe.

Not sure how easy it will be to hit the price target if you factor the MS Office cost. If that's not part of the $1200, then there are a whole bunch of systems out there.

I loved my old IBM of 6 years ago, but don't think they are built as well any more. Dells are nice in that you get just what you want, but usually at a slight price premium over standard systems. HP is like a Chevy. I've had Toshibas and they are heavy but very reliable.

I am a special needs child (I run Linux as well as Windoze) but I have tried to keep that out of my advice.

If you wish to consider converting, everyone I know who has a modern Mac simply loves it. Not as stable as Linux (which I usually reboot 2-3 times a year for upgrades) but significantly more so than Windoze. There is a price premium, but not that bad. Many of my old time computer friends use Macs now, so it's a much stronger system with OSX.

I hope I didn't offend anyone with my attempt at making this humorous. I also hope that helps a bit.

jerry

Boiler Guy

Fire Dragon

What is it about XP Home that bites you. Curious novice about to take the plunge.

Firedragon_4

After trying both

none of us (4) in our little shop and circle feels it has the guts and tenacity of Pro. More features when doing graphics and the like for our tastes. True, we do a ton of graphics buidling books and seminars, but surfed the net lately???

BillW@honeywell

Dell Latitude D600

Is what I have, never has given me any problems. Don't even think about going wireless util you've got as air-tight security, firewall,anti-spyware & antivirus as you can find.

Paul Rohrs_2

One more question.....

How many of you current laptop owners bought your computer locally as opposed to an on-line source?

Did that cause any issues as it pertains to warranty work or service? In keeping with our industry, I am willing to pay more for quality service if need be.

Consumer Reports Mar 05' just came out with a laptop rating. Truly hard to tell if CR is tainted because of the $$$$$ that flow.

Thanks for all of the input.

Regards,

PR

Floyd_7

Got a Compaq Presario 2100...

somewhere in that 1200 range....
AMD chip...runs 3 hrs on a battery long enough so that I can run it from Pitt. to Orlando and have power to spare....
other than a virus, no complainta and that wasn't the 'puters problem. Don't even fire up the desktop anymore... the laptop is faster and easier. Lost the ethernet port a few weeks ago but worked around that with a cardbus port...
I bought mine locally, I wanted to be able to look someone in the eye and tell them what was wrong with it if I did have problems......

Floyd

Mike Reavis_2

Maybe you could contact that couple who writes in CONTRACTOR

I think they are referred to as the "Feldmans" They might even make a column out of it.

Mike

ScottMP

Paul

I have Dell latitude D600 and have had good luck.

I use to buy all my computers from a local small company that made them themselves. I now have all Dells stuff and its all been "fairly" good. I say fairly because I did have a system crash and it was taken care of within two days. I just DID NOT like the yahoo they sent out.

Scott

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jerry scharf_2

I buy online

Paul,

I don't meet many salespeople who have much of a clue. Lots of them have opinoins and recommendations, but how much expertise is behind that? Just see how many of them push the processor speed and don't tell you to get a faster laptop disk.

If they are not providing me a service, I don't bother using them. It's not like you can test drive them.

jerry

Dan_8

Laptop questions...

Paul, when I help people with this decision I always ask them these questions:

How important is portability? There is a wide range of size and weight choices out there with corresponding compromises in screen size, battery life and speed. If you're going to tote this thing from job to job all the time then you'll want a smaller lighter one.

Do you use any funky applications? Mostly that would be things like big cad packages (Solidworks or Pro Engineer) or other stuff that might have a weird requirement for hardware. That kind of thing will very quickly narrow your choices. If you're just an MS-Office kind of guy then you can get just about anything.

Do you need any special ports? You mentioned USB and Firewire in your original post I think but a lot of people are surpised when they see that most new laptops don't have parallel and often no serial ports.

Other stuff that I'm thinking:

Just about anything that you buy will probably feel quite fast so I wouldn't get too caught up in the speed of the processor.

As others have said get at least 512MB of ram, you won't regret that, windows likes memory.

Definitely get XP Pro if for no other reason than the better granularity to the security (it has a 'power user' group, home does not). There are also other features that make it well worth the $60-80 upgrade price in my opinion.

Do not run your day to day account as an 'administrator'. This is the default setup and it's the number one reason (well maybe number two behind sloppy programming at MS) for the prevalence of the spyware and malware that get into so many machines.

Get a good warranty. Dell (and others) offer 'no questions asked' warranties where they'll meet you the next day with a whole new computer as long as you have at least a pile of parts to give them. For most things I think the extended warranties are a crock, not with laptops though. They're a pain to fix and a huge pain to find parts for.

Don't get suckered into a super hi resolution screen if you don't need it. Most of the machines out there can be had with screen resolutions that you'd need to wear two pairs of reading glasses to see. I can't tell you how many folks I've worked with that bought the high res machines and then kick the resolution down so that "the letters get bigger".

If you do a lot of work at a desk consider a docking station or port replicator. They're not all that expensive (usually between $100-200) and having the connections that you'll want at your desk all easy to leave behind makes the portability so much more convenient.

Also, keep an eye on http://slickdeals.net and http://www.gotapex.com. Both of those sites often have links to coupons and deals and I've picked off several near-steals for my clients over the years.

Hope that helped and wasn't too much of a re-hash of what others said above.

Dan

Jeff Lawrence_24

I'm with Bill

I'm typing this on a Dell Latitude D600. It really beats the garbage out the Toshiba I had before.

I got all the bells and whistles on this Dell also. DVD burner, XP Pro, Microsoft Office for business, and the full Adobe package. With the Adobe package, I can create my own .pdf's. I even got the wireless card built-in. (I have sat in people's driveways and surfed the net on their wireless internet connection.)

I also got the full warranty. If I drop it, I get next business day service and full tech support for 4 years. This did add a few bucks to the price, but this notebook is my business.

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