Need Laptop Help
<div class="IPBDescription">Cousin buying a Laptop</div> Alright, my cousin is looking at buying a laptop. As far as needs go, she wants to have it mainly for basic uses, music, movies, internet, word processor. The main thing she wants is a large hard drive, and preferably a large screen size and reliable battery. A desktop is out of the question as she travels quite a bit.
Here price range is below 1000. I need the low down on the good, the bad and the ugly.
Here price range is below 1000. I need the low down on the good, the bad and the ugly.
Comments
I love my laptop. 2.8ghz Celeron (hey, its for work not play), 256mb ram, 40GB hdd. It runs great. Sure you can't play 3D games (its got like a generic intel 3d display, probably a geforce 1 equivilant if i'm lucky), but its terrific for work.
The 2D output is amazing. Very fast refresh rate on the 15" monitor. DVDs and AVI/MPG/DiVx/etc are all crystal clear. Only down side is 1024x768 is the max res, but I doubt your sister will mind. Hell it doesn't even bug me that much.
SNES and other emu's work great too. :P
It also runs Linux terrifically! Fedora Core 2 has built in drivers for everything on the laptop w/ no configuring anything required.
Best of all, it was only $700 after all the rebates. I got it from Best Buy. It goes on sale every 3 weeks or so, so just be diligent and check it out. Its the Toshiba A45-S121. I recommend it for a great work/general use laptop.
One more thing, if you're gonna get a laptop I suggest investing in a 802.11 wireless card. Its great to be roaming around the house w/o losing your internet connection. Even cooler if you're in a cafe or somewhere and there's a hotspot for you to use.
I have recently aquired a new laptop from them (This is my first day of owning it in fact - expect a massive review in a day or three) and this thing kicks @$$! A similar laptop elsewhere would have cost me 3000-3500$ or more. I paid <i>2280.11</i>$ (!!!) - and that includes tax and shipping. Give them a shot. Their service is fast, the people knowledgeable, and their price is unbeatable.
They have all kinds of laptops from very basic to cutting edge, so I'm very confident you can find one suited to your needs.
[EDIT] Bingo! Check the <a href='http://pctorque.com/2720.php' target='_blank'>2720 Series</a>. A bigger HD (60GB) and an OS (WinXP Home) is all it needs. With that, a 2-year warranty, and an estimated 20$ shipping + tax, it will be ~1045$.
Beyond that, any laptop you buy today can run Word and FireFox (*cough*). It's not worth buying a massively expensive one. Get a cheap laptop and a sweet desktop instead.
Just upgrade the hard drive and buy either an extended life battery or just a spare (so you can swap). In the case of mine at least, you pop out the CD drive, pop in the new battery, and then you can stick the old CD-rom where the old battery was (so you don't have to plug in or lose your work).
Only other real consideration is screen size. I made the mistake of getting a super-high res LCD that is a fairly decent size, but the native resolution is so high that all my text is tiny. 1024x768 or so is a good native, but 1400x1050 is insane.
Agreed. When I got my laptop (a little over 2 years ago), I wasn't much into PC gaming (Doom 2 was probably the last game I had really played). Then I went off to college and was introduced to CS, and later NS (which plays at about 20 fps on my laptop). So, I had to get a new computer this summer, and it had to be a desktop.
I guess no one else knows how to read... <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I beg to differ. My 2280$ laptop runs Far Cry at 1280x1024x32 with all settings on High very nicely - the game both runs and looks great! Plus it handles anything over a year old at 1600x1200 with high/max settings, no problem. Expect more details in the big review I have planned in a day or two.
I guess no one else knows how to read... ;) <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I do, which is why I suggested the $700 laptop. heh.
It comes with a P4 3.06, 15 inch screen, and free 802.11 card standard at $1034. It is also name brad and you can customize it to make it fit your needs.