Laptop recomendations

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2004-11-18 08:00pm

I'm the current victim of a Dell Inspriron 2600. It's about two years old, and a pile of shit. I'm considering getting a new one, and recomendations would be welcome.

I don't have any specific specs in mind, save that I'd like it to be powerful enough that it won't be hopelessly obsolete for a few years. I'm not opposed to a Mac if I can be convinced its worth the extra money and the other bother that comes with a Mac. I'm more interested in reliability than power, and I'm willing to pay extra for, say, a case that won't crack or a keyboard that won't crap out at random times. It doesn't need to wow anybody--I won't be playing games on it and I don't use any high-end programs. If it can run WordPerfect, AIM, iTunes, and Mozilla, it can already do 90% of what I'll need it to do. Wireless networking, on the other hand, would be sweet.

Also, I'm not buying another Dell. Ever.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-11-19 10:45am

If you can afford them, the IBM ThinkPads are always excellently made. Check to see if you can swing a school discount (I'm not sure if you're still in university). If you have a friend who works for IBM they can (legally) give you access to their employee discount and if you are a stockholder or hold a Discover card you can also get a discount.

Dell's D600 and 600M are actually reasonably well-built but I can't blame you if you'll never trust their products again.

HP/Compaq's business line are fairly well-made (those models start with an "n" -- like nc6000 or whatnot) but their consumer line's quality varies.

If you stick with a PC, get a laptop with the Pentium M. Run far away from anything with a Pentium 4 or Celeron in it.

As for IBM, they have several lines:
X-series: Very light, no internal optical drive, with clip-on batteries get very long runtime. You also pay for that miniaturization.
R-series: At once their low-end and mobile workstation lines. A bit on the heavy side.
T-series: Their best line, medium-weight, reinforced case, lots of options.
G-series: Desktop replacement, don't get this.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-11-19 11:01am

Averatec presently has some nice systems for under $1500. about $1300 will get you an 80 gig hd, dvd/cdrw combo drive, an 802.11g wireless radio, and 512 megs of ram. Very thin and light to boot. Overall a nice little system, imo.

LapsedPacifist · Post by **LapsedPacifist** » 2004-11-19 11:25am

IBM. I've never seen a laptop so willing to work well so damn long.

LP

Ory'hara · Post by **Ory'hara** » 2004-11-19 03:44pm

Avoid Sonys like the plague. I still can't get over the fact that I had to send my laptop back for service 3 times, for the same problem

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2004-11-19 04:37pm

LapsedPacifist wrote:IBM. I've never seen a laptop so willing to work well so damn long.

LP

I'll third the IBM recommendation. Sure you pay a premium for IBM laptops, but you definitely get every penny out of that investment.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-11-19 05:11pm

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:
LapsedPacifist wrote:IBM. I've never seen a laptop so willing to work well so damn long.

LP
I'll third the IBM recommendation. Sure you pay a premium for IBM laptops, but you definitely get every penny out of that investment.

you can get a number of IBM laptops for under $2000. From everything i've seen that's about average for high quality notebook systems out there.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-11-19 05:15pm

Oh, if you decide to look at IBM, give them a call. It might be cheaper to get a preconfigured system off them (they have far too many configurations with confusing pricing) and their sales team knows what they're doing.

Try and get a machine with a base three-year warranty; accidential-damage protection is then a "mere" $130 premium over there.

EDIT: This appears to be their educational discount site ... some of the R-series deals are insane