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Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 12:57 pm
by unfaithfulsfan
I Know, aren't we all? Seriously though, I'm going to have to have my leg re-broken despite the fact it never really healed in the first place, new plates to replace the broken ones and a bone graft from my femur to round off the deal. :shock: So I'm going to be laid up for another 6 months just when I was really getting used to walking without crutches. :evil:

I looked at USANotebook .com and they had some fairly good older laptops but I was hoping to find something a little newer. My budget is around $300 but for a super deal I could go as high as $500 with shipping.

Thanks folks!
Jack

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 1:17 pm
by Apoptosis
With Intel Arrandale based notebooks coming out in time for CES you might be able to pick up some great deals on Penryn based notebooks here next month.

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 1:34 pm
by unfaithfulsfan
Do you think there'll be one in my price range? Also I've wondered if a NetBook would serve my needs as well. Really what I need it for is surfing, writing and watching my burned DVD movies. The NetBooks I've looked at haven't had an optical drive that was mentioned so I'm a little confused there.

I was looking at this one but am unfamiliar with the CPU http://www.usanotebook.com/2647-AAS5534 ... 4-5950.php. I haven't been able in about 20 minutes of looking to find a review of this processor. Can you shed some light on whether it's enough for what I'm going to be doing?

Thanks for the help
Jack

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 4:42 pm
by Apoptosis
I like netbooks for plane travel and road trips, but that is it personally. Any longer use than that and the 1024x600 screen resolution drives me insane.

Are you comfortable with that screen resolution? (of course some netbooks have larger resolutions than this, but for the most part they are 1024x600 still).

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 7:58 pm
by shamrok3
Most of the current netbooks actually have 1280x800. Also I would seriouslyrecommend NOT getting an Acer. They have a reputation for exploding. Not dramatically of course. We have an old Acer and it's fried 3 Hard Drives. Count 'em, 3! Also one of my friends has one which also is basically broken. I also recently saw a guy with an Acer laptop, probably less than 6 months old (the laptop, not the guy) and the keyboard was already losing keys. In terms of getting a good deal under $500, I would recommend first looking at eBay and secondly at: http://www.gateway.com/I got my laptop from Gateway and it has been excellent. I have heard that they are a sub-company of Dell, which has great Customer Service/Support. Although I did get a somewhat more expensive laptop, you can probably get one for a fair price. Also check for 'refurbished' laptops on eBay as they are a great deal and still 'as-new'. I hope this helps!

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2009 11:44 am
by unfaithfulsfan
Thanks and LOL about the 6 month old guy (not)! I'll give Gateway a shot. I'm like you I can't remember who bought them but I was thinking HP. You're probably right in saying Dell, however.

After sleeping on it I definitely want a real laptop. I'd have to buy a USB optical drive which is an additional $40-$60 and for that much money I might as well look for a full sized laptop, especially for watching movies.

I looked on eBay and just kept seeing screen after screen of the same Dell Inspiron 610 with different times. I'll check them out again when I've got more patience.

I've got another few days before I have to make a decision. I do want to get it here before my surgery which is on Jan 12.

Thanks again, guys
Jack

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2009 12:05 pm
by Darkstar
Dell has some good deals, i have bought several of the Lenovo C2D laptops (SL500) which are pretty decent, not as sleek looking as some. You might want to look around for HP/compaq deals also.

the $499.oo ThinkPad is listed on this page ;

http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/PM/Solu ... Deals.aspx

:drinkers:

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2009 6:16 pm
by unfaithfulsfan
Hmmmm, I thought I had posted a reply but it ain't here. :-k I'll go through it again.

I found a Toshiba Satellite at Best Buy for $399 that on the surface seems to fit my needs just need some input on the CPU and an answer to probably a stupid question but will W7 work OK with my LinkSys WRT54G router or does it matter?

Here's a link to the laptop:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+S ... Id=9553896 Yikes! What a URL!! :shock:

Trying again!
Jack

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2009 7:08 pm
by shamrok3
Ok. Here is a link to the processor on the AMD site http://products.amd.com/en-us/NotebookC ... 7=&f8=&f9= It's a 2GHz dual core. Athlon's are similar to C2D's on performance, but 2GHz is pretty slow. In terms of W7 compatibility, if it's supported by Vista/XP it should work with W7. It has pretty much the same compatibility as Vista. I would like to say, however that 7 has appalling boot times, I would say about 2x the boot time of Vista. Apart from this, it seems like an excellent laptop especially with the ATi 4100 Graphics. Toshiba isn't a very prestigious brand, but if you are looking at a budget laptop, you aren't going to get a prestigious brand.

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2009 9:11 pm
by unfaithfulsfan
Thanks Shamrok3. :supz: I knew for my first laptop and for my budget constraints I wasn't going to get a screamer for $400. I've looked around and I'm just leery of anything off eBay or even anything refurbished. If something goes wrong with it, I'm going to be pretty much flat of my back for at least 3 months and totally unable to strip it down and fix it.

I'm surprised to hear that 7 takes so long to boot. Vista Ultimate on my desktop goes from power on to desktop in about 40 seconds. I've yet to even see much of Windows 7 so I don't have any idea about it. What I did see looked an awful lot like Vista. I had a beta copy that breaking my leg the first time prevented my ever installing it. My wife's uncle absolutely loves W7 and he hated Vista.

I'm 85% sure I'm going to go with the Toshiba. I've just got to sleep on it tonight and see how I feel in the morning. If it will play movies in .AVI format anywhere near smoothly, I'll definitely get it.

Thanks again to everyone for the help! If any of y'all think of anything else on this thread before 1 pm New Year's Eve EST, don't hesitate to let me know!
Jack

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2009 9:36 pm
by unfaithfulsfan
OK, sorry, just happened to stumble across this one that has me pondering even though I said I didn't want a refurb.......http://www.officemax.com/technology/com ... rod2770029

Any suggestions?

Thanks
Jack

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2009 9:53 pm
by shamrok3
The HP is alright, and if you are concerned about prestige or looks, then you should buy the HP, the Toshiba is worse in every respect except for graphics. If I were you, I would probably get the HP as you already have a pretty good desktop for gaming.

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 12:28 am
by hnzw_rui
unfaithfulsfan wrote:OK, sorry, just happened to stumble across this one that has me pondering even though I said I didn't want a refurb.......http://www.officemax.com/technology/com ... rod2770029
That's actually pretty bad specs for the price ($749.49). Back when I was checking out laptops a month ago, a brand new notebook with similar specs to that one (but usually with T6600/T6670 + Win7x64 HP) only cost $500~600.

By the way, I've tried clean installs of both Vista and 7 Home Premium on the same system and boot time seems about the same. Actually, I think Windows 7 boots a wee bit faster and is generally more responsive than Vista. It also seems more able to deal with crud than Vista.

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 1:46 am
by shamrok3
Really? My friends with W7 take about three times as long to boot up as me (Slower computer, but you can't deny the facts!) And they have faster CPU's. Slower HDD's of course... But maybe it's just all the crap they're running (msconfig FTW!)

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 3:01 am
by hnzw_rui
shamrok3 wrote:Really? My friends with W7 take about three times as long to boot up as me (Slower computer, but you can't deny the facts!) And they have faster CPU's. Slower HDD's of course... But maybe it's just all the crap they're running (msconfig FTW!)
Just timed boot-up time for the following:
Intel D945GCLF2
Intel Atom 330 1.60GHz
Intel GMA950
Kingston 2GB DDR2 800 CL6
Seagate Momentus 5400.3 250GB
Windows 7x64 Ultimate RC
additional start-up programs aside from default: AnyDVD HD, Virtual CloneDrive, Dropbox, TortoiseHG, iTunes Helper, Google Updater

Right now, the system dual-boots Windows XP and Windows 7 so I timed it from the OS selection screen, boot-up took 51.2 seconds. Comparatively long, but note the extremely underpowered hardware. I'm not even going to attempt timing boot-up on my supposedly faster 2-year old Vista laptop (Intel Pentium Dual-Core T2300 1.73GHz). That one seemed to take forever. I can usually finish fixing up drinks and a sandwich, and when I come back, it's still not fully booted up.

Just a thought, did your friends do an upgrade or clean install? Also, any possible driver issues? Anti-virus software? Malware?

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 3:25 am
by shamrok3
It was an upgrade from Vista, and I'm not sure about any additional boot-up clutter, although I think the man in question has MSN, Xfire and Steam on boot.

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 3:40 am
by hnzw_rui
shamrok3 wrote:It was an upgrade from Vista.
That may be part of the problem. Some leftover crud from Vista probably got carried over. Personally, I always do clean installs when changing OSes. At least that way, the system runs pretty fast until it eventually gets filled with a bunch of crap. :P

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 9:46 am
by Darkstar

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 12:34 pm
by unfaithfulsfan
HAPPY NEW YEAR from Buffalo, Everybody!
Thanks, DarkStar, but that one's out of my price range. I'm not particularly concerned about prestige other than reliability. I finally settled on this one for $449 http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/9 ... 5992-15-6/ It is essentially the same as the BestBuy model but with a somewhat better Caspian CPU (Turion II 2.2 GHz v Athlon II 2.0). It has the same graphics card, RAM and I think HDD (320 GB). Will probably upgrade RAM at some point. I've looked at so many now I'm not sure whether OS is 32 or 64 bit. This one doesn't say.

<VENTING SECTION> Ignore if desired.
Had a run-in with my wife's uncle over the purchase, strangely enough. Why I felt the need to justify his comments with a response I don't know because, while we're not well off by any stretch of the imagination, it's still my money and my decision. His idea was to rearrange the living room (where my hospital bed is) and move my desktop up there and just use the wireless keyboard and mouse. :shock: Because "while they're neat to have, what are you going to do with it after you're not confined to the bed? You built a nice quad core desktop."

I had already thought of that before I finally decided to get the laptop. There's just no way to make it work. The living room's too small and there's too much crap up there--entertainment center, etc.. Plus the only conceivable way to set it up would have my monitor at the foot of the bed. Now I have 20/20 vision but I can't see the cursor 6 feet from where the computer is currently. Besides, we have been talking about getting a laptop for a couple of years now so we can both work or whatever and be in the same room with each other.

Not to mention the fact it would have been hella-nice to have had at my mother's house when I visited for two weeks at Thanksgiving. The Buffalo Bills chose to have a friggin' meltdown and fire the head coach the day I flew to Mississippi where I had no computer. Even with 4 channels of ESPN PLUS the NFL network I still couldn't find out a damn thing. Plus Mom would have liked to have seen all our pictures from the past couple of years.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter--it's my money and my decision. But it still pissed me off. I asked for his advice on the purchase because he knows a hell of a lot about hardware. Before he retired, he worked for Unisys and was responsible for setting up the networks for the PGA tour. He's always tinkering around now building different boxes and such. He's not an overclocker but he does know a lot. I ask for advice and I get a lecture. Why the hell is this bothering me so much?

OK, I'm officially done. Thanks everybody for your help, advice and suggestions. Hope the new year is healthy and prosperous for all of you (and me :mrgreen: )

Jack

Re: Looking for a decent yet cheap laptop

Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2010 7:12 pm
by shamrok3
Really? I had always thought that the Athlon was a stronger CPU than the Turion...