Laptop Advice

[Kheitain]

I was hoping I might be able to get some ideas as to which laptop to purchase for work. I'm not particularily computer savvy so I figured I'd ask the people at SDnet . Boss says to keep it in the $500 - $800 range but get something that will last for a few years. It needs to do a fair amount of multitasking, mostly spreadsheets, data logging, research, basic diagrams, reports, really nothing exciting. I would like a little bit of gaming/media ability as I will have to travel and there is a fair amount of downtime here. I'll also be taking it to Australia again in about a year where I should be relocating permanently which is why we're leaning towards a Sony or something that will have local support wherever I need to go. Work trips could potentially take me to Aus, the US, the Middle East and China.

We're looking at a couple different configurations of the Sony VAIO, a Compaq Presario, and an HP. I stopped paying attention to computer tech a few years ago and I'm no longer sure what all the different types of processors and graphics cars are good for now. I would really appreciate some suggestions for a decent package I can order or go buy at a local electronics chain immediately. I'm currently typing on an old iMac that was dug up in the back office and I have to load everything in basic HTML which makes my research take forever

[Zaune]

Couple of points of clarification. How much data are you expecting to going to be storing on this thing, what specific programs -games included- do you want to run, and is it essential that you have a DVD drive?

[Kheitain]

Boss says he hates netbooks, and wants me to have a CD/DVD drive. We often get DVD brochures for equipment we're testing. Games, maybe starcraft, being able to tinker with my SPORE or WOW toons during excessive downtime would be nice but not strictly necessary. I've been playing KOTOR recently when I didn't have internet on my home PC. I'm really not much of a gamer.

File storage I don't think is heavy, lots of Excell data, PDF's, Word, tiny files so HD space isn't super important. I also carry a couple portable drives with me for other stuff so I can always back more up on them if it becomes necessary. I'm working as a Maintenance/Production Engineer/Plant Manager in a very small company so alot of duties do overlap, it's a step up from being an equipment technician . We're also designing a new facility so I'll need to find a program to help me do that as aparently that's going to be predominantly my issue.

[][avok]

Personally Kheitain I would steer away from Sony. They have a terrible track record when it comes to technical support.

Also keep in mind that you will get what you pay for when it comes to lower end computers from companies like Acer and such.

In my own experience I've been partial to Toshiba products the last couple of years. For about $700 US you can get one heck of a wide screen laptop system with an i5 CPU, 4 gigs of RAM, around 500 Gig's of HDD space and the other bells and whistles. Beats the price of a MAC any day.

[xthetenth]

He has a very good reason for hating netbooks, they're woefully underpowered and their main advantage, a long battery life, is somewhat diminished by them accomplishing the same amount of work, just spread out more.

[phongn]

ThinkPad T-series.