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| Thread ID: 100194 | 2009-05-29 11:08:00 | Which laptop to buy | Lizard (2409) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 778023 | 2009-05-29 11:08:00 | A friend is in the market to buy a laptop, and has a very limited budget of $1500. She's impatient, and is keen to buy from a retail store in Palmerston North this weekend (cutting out buying online). Her needs are pretty modest - mostly browsing the internet (streaming video, social networking etc), watching DVDs and maybe playing the occasional game (nothing too graphics intensive). Wireless is a must. She may lug it around, but for the most part it will just be moved around her flat for convenience sake. We've trawled the usual suspects, and found these models. I'm interested to know if there are any lemons amongst this bunch, or even if there are a couple of gems. It would also be useful to know if there are any traps with these models. BTW - I've used links from DSE because it's convenient - we won't necessarily purchase from there. Acer Aspire www.dse.co.nz Sony Vaio www.dse.co.nz Toshiba L300D 03U Cheers Lizard |
Lizard (2409) | ||
| 778024 | 2009-05-29 11:19:00 | www.dse.co.nz what about this one, i have the 1209AX but is pretty much the same | GameJunkie (72) | ||
| 778025 | 2009-05-29 11:20:00 | www.dse.co.nz Never Acer! Asus or Toshiba. |
Blam (54) | ||
| 778026 | 2009-05-29 20:43:00 | www.dse.co.nz Never Acer! Asus or Toshiba. http://www.dse.co.nz -> Search XC4975 rather than clicking the link above, original poster. The laptop is now limited to Sylvia Park PowerHouse, Rotorua DSE, Taupo DSE, Gisborne DSE, Levin DSE, Manners Mall DSE, Greymouth DSE, Riccarton DS, unfortunately. Hopefully Lizard lives close to one of the DSE stores. Cheers :) |
Renmoo (66) | ||
| 778027 | 2009-05-29 21:54:00 | Thanks for the feedback everyone. I'm not ignorant about computers, though it has been a while since I delved into the minutiae between different current components. Laptops, however, haven't been my thing, so as a product I know very little about how they perform. On the surface, most of these laptops have very similar specs. Most have dual-core processors, 2GB RAM, and at least 250GB HDD. The graphics systems appear to differ, though so long as they will handle modest games for a couple of years I don't think that's an issue. So it really seems to come down to a couple of things: the "special features" or extras (things like card readers, I/O, screen size, screen type, webcams, speakers, video out, and bundled software), and build quality and reliability. Someone mentioned never Acer, but Asus and Toshiba are okay. Why? What's wrong with Acer? And where do Sony and HP fit into this equation? |
Lizard (2409) | ||
| 778028 | 2009-05-29 22:29:00 | Back in my hay days when there was no ASUS laptops, Acer was v popular among Asian students because they were cheaper. As I understand Acer may not be very reliable and tech's confirmed that, a store near me I am aware they don't stock Acer laptops due to this reason. However, do I did know a person who was using a 4yr old Acer laptop. I have great experience with Toshiba and IBM, I got my 3 laptops used IBM and they were great, one I bought 1yr used at the end of 2000 and I am still using it as a admin PC with a 17" CRT monitor. With my experience with laptops. As a student, one of my regrets was getting a laptop cos I never took it to uni or to the library, only occasionally to plug it into the network and download at over 1,000kb/sec :D With the higher cost and non upgradability of laptops I wished I had a PC back then, then upgrading would of been so much easier, instead due to finance I was using that old laptop until probably 2006 when I used my bro's admin PC (AMD Sempron) and I got my own PC this year 2009. The things for me was portable, larger screens are nice then it becomes too large to carry, the card reader is handy, didn't have to carry a USB one, didn't use the other features. Webcams there are not much models inbuilt and if one gets external they may be better, those that support inbuilt snap-on webcams can be expensive as they are optional units. As a laptop I was ok with a 12" one at a high reso of 1024x768. Surfing the net and writing a document was fine. Didn't needed to use video out and stuff, at the time the only screen was the house's tv which I couldn't just hog, didn't have HD back then but I would of just used the laptop itself or my own big monitor if I had one. Unless you are at home and you wanna show pple your holiday pictures and stuff but that can easily be done with the camera directly to the tv. Software not really. Just windows and the drivers. I have some IBM software etc.. at the end of the day they are maybe just a better user interface than using windows own software like display properties, system properties etc... At the moment because it is a old laptop, I have been running older versions of software and I have uninstalled a lot of the IBM software to speed it up. For the features I think it just depends if you are gonna use them or not. As a side note, I won't mind buying laptops used, esp IBM, and the thing I like is their hybrid drive bays, you can pull the DVD and put in a 2nd HDD or a DVD RW, CDRW etc etc... or just a cover to save weight .. |
Nomad (952) | ||
| 778029 | 2009-05-29 22:31:00 | We got the toshiba L300 in Jan for our daughter...luckily its the core 2 duo (have seen them with celeron) , with web-cam etc....a great price too.. | SolMiester (139) | ||
| 778030 | 2009-05-29 22:32:00 | If I put the clock back and go to uni today. I think a $900-1200 is plenty for a admin laptop. The features don't attract me, I do a bit of photography so in that regard the card reader for me useful. But for me .. it is just another computer to fulfill a task ... | Nomad (952) | ||
| 778031 | 2009-05-29 22:48:00 | Has anyone got any comments to make about the Sony Vaio? | Lizard (2409) | ||
| 778032 | 2009-05-29 23:04:00 | build quality and reliability. What's wrong with Acer? And where do Sony and HP fit into this equation? Its not the label on the outside, its the parts on the inside. Most Laptop companies don't make them. They tender out to parts manufacturers and usually the cheapest wins. ASUS, who not only are a parts manufacturer (motherboards, screens, graphics, sound, lan, optical etc) they are the RollsRoyce of parts manufacturers. Acer use ECS motherboards for starters- the universes worst motherboards. Having had the joy of talking to their support people I can tell you its staffed by undereducated street urchins reading off a help sheet. Thats whn you get past being number 85 in the queue........... Forget HP, same ****, random parts in it, maybe you'll get lucky andmaybe not. Sony is OK, in fact ASUS supply a lot of parts to Sony. You want reliabilty and quality then I'd be sticking with ASUS. |
pctek (84) | ||
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