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I have a good friend looking for a good but not too expensive laptop for general use (word processing, internet, music downloading) I don't own and never have owned a laptop so I don't have much advice to give her. Anyone have some guidance on this that I can relay to her?

My dad has bought HP laptops for the last five years and they have served him and my sister well. My sister's laptop even broke before Christmas and, as it was under warranty, she sent it away and had it back good as new in less than two weeks.

Since your friend presumably won't be doing any processor-intensive stuff, she could probably get away with a very competant budget laptop for around 800 bucks after rebates, of which there are usually a plethora. You should make sure it has at least 256 megs of RAM, of course. You're pretty much guaranteed to have built-in ethernet and wireless, but if she's on dial-up, you're probably gonna have to check to see if a modem's built in.

Stuff like screen sizes is a matter of taste. A 15.1" is the standard for laptops, I believe. Also, you're not going to get a floppy drive, so you may have budget in extra money for an external one. And all the hard drives are 5400 RPM, IIRC. Other than that, judge them as you would a desktop.

If she's willing to buy a Mac, the iBook is a nice little laptop.

IBM makes the best PC laptops but they're also expensive unless you know someone who's an IBM employee or stockholder. Students can get a moderate discount as well.

Dell is cheap but I'm not a fan of them. They are not very well made, IMHO.

HP/Compaq's consumer line is poorly made but their business laptops are quite good.

Sonys are pieces of crap.

Correction to all the above

Sony's Can be(And normaly are) pieces of Crap, there are a line or two that are good.

HP is nice, except you almost want to format the thing after you get it from them thanks to all the useless junk on them

Dell makes nice laptops and they are constructed well... depending on the model
The king of Preformance laptops( ) is of course Alienware, and its the one part of their business were they are not overprices rebranded pretty boxes

We use Dell laptops when we travel and I worked exclusively with Dell laptopsn during the trial last year for months and I was quite happy with the experience. But that was on the business side and I've heard some fair to crappy stories from Dell Laptop users. I own a Dell Desktop and am very happy with it so go figure.

She really's just going to use it when she spends a few months over in Argentina to surf the web, download music on her Ipod and do some emailing and chatting so it doesn't have to be a bleeding edge thing. She's looking for something very econonmical but not a piece of crap.

We tried Sony Viao laptops about 2 years ago and they were a fucking horror show. We cycled them out in less than a year and went right back to Dells.

Yes get yourself a business account with Dell and get a Corperate Model(Business means minus all the crap they normal toss on there because its getting formated anyway by the IT guys)

Stravo wrote:I have a good friend looking for a good but not too expensive laptop for general use (word processing, internet, music downloading) I don't own and never have owned a laptop so I don't have much advice to give her. Anyone have some guidance on this that I can relay to her?

I'd recommend an iBook G4, $999. If she has some extra money get the 14-inch model.
For your purposes (aka anything but high end gaming) it would work great and save you money on Antivirus software and firewalls.

Avoid Dell's "home" line laptops at all costs. Even Macs get more value per $$$ (and people call them overpriced, rofl).

It's been a while since I checked their site but last I remember, Sager and Prostar both had very good prices.

Mr Bean wrote:Yes get yourself a business account with Dell and get a Corperate Model(Business means minus all the crap they normal toss on there because its getting formated anyway by the IT guys)

Dell's business line is better than their consumer line and has better support but build quality still isn't as good as others.

Sony's Can be(And normaly are) pieces of Crap, there are a line or two that are good.

Sony can make good laptops but their support is abysmal, so I'd stay away from them. If only their support was better ...

Oh, yes, Toshiba makes generally good laptops as well.

Sony's Can be(And normaly are) pieces of Crap, there are a line or two that are good.

TAKE THAT BACK!
Erm. . . I am a very proud and happy owner of a Vaio. It works perfectly well, comes with lots of free (not all trial or useless) software (if you are bored and like to play around with pointless programs:oops:). The internal wireless card, I have found, is more receptive than almost all wireless cards that come with notebooks. If you get an Xbrite screen with Vaio, it's painfully bright, clear and pretty I also think they were the first non apple company to start offering DVD RW combo drives with their comps. Not to mention everyone I know that has one, loves it.

phongn wrote:Sony can make good laptops but their support is abysmal, so I'd stay away from them. If only their support was better ...
Oh yes, Toshiba makes generally good laptops as well.

I had to get my notebook serviced over winter break (specifically right after Christmas till right after New Year). They said that it might take longer than planned because it was the holidays. Every thing was shipped on time, there were no hassles. But then. . . The service center was in San Diego within 2 hours of here. . .

I don't recommend it for your friend because they are on the pricey side, but they are well worth the money if you are willing to spend it.

Toshibas are dependable. Up till last year, I worked with a 5 or 6 year old one with relatively little problems. I didn't like the screen, and then, the mouse was a nub. . .

http://www.averatec.com

relativly inexpensive, most systems as sub $1000, and the one or two I've played with I fell inlove with. The screens are incredibly sharp and they are more responsive than most Laptops and Desktop's I've seen, not to mention small and light (around 4.5 lbs and most less than a inch thick) They do come with DVD +/- CDRW drives as well.

I'm thinking of getting one of them when I get my laptop in a couple months after income tax)