laptops

[lee92 2]

well, i'm headin' into the city tomorrow to look at future shop and staples for a laptop. hopefully they'll have one with 512MB ram, and at least 40GB memory for a decent price. i'll post later on if i pick anything up

[Edge 0]

is HP not popular or what? I was considering getting one.

[cobrAA 0]

Compaq Hp are the same...and i own a compaq and would say they are the best for the money...DVD-burner,512 ddr...128mg X200 ATI,Sempron 3200+,60 gig, 15'4 inch screen, good looking laptop, at 1100CND...you can,t go wrong!!

At the price Hp is seling there laptop...i would go for the high-end of toshiba(who is knowing for their excellent laptop) or ACER...

[Edge 0]

Yeah i'm either considering an HP or Toshiba...The look of the HP just seems to atract me for some reason.

[Chadd 916]

Compaq Hp are the same...and i own a compaq and would say they are the best for the money...DVD-burner,512 ddr...128mg X200 ATI,Sempron 3200+,60 gig, 15'4 inch screen, good looking laptop, at 1100CND...you can,t go wrong!!

At the price Hp is seling there laptop...i would go for the high-end of toshiba(who is knowing for their excellent laptop) or ACER...

Compaq used to be the worst company in the world for durability and service problems. They have improved slightly but I still wouldn't touch one. I spent close to 10 years doing tech support and network administration and any chance I had to migrate away from Compaq, I took it.

[2048 0]

Chadd, I'll agree with you on Compaq sucking, but from what I've heard some of their new laptops with AMD's turion aren't half bad. That said, I'd never buy one and would always spend the extra money for a Toshiba or IBM.

[Chadd 916]

Chadd, I'll agree with you on Compaq sucking, but from what I've heard some of their new laptops with AMD's turion aren't half bad. That said, I'd never buy one and would always spend the extra money for a Toshiba or IBM.

I've been out of it full-time for a little while now and I don't miss it at all. I readily admit I am not up to date on new laptops and I am just going by past experience.

[sherwood21 0]

Toshiba Portege

We have 3 of them and they are problem free so far

edit: http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/sc/30425845-2-200-0.gif

they weigh next to nothing as well, its crazy how light they are

[Chadd 916]

Toshiba Portege

We have 3 of them and they are problem free so far

I still have an old one of them PII 300MHz. I had to replace the mobo a couple years ago but I got one online for $50 that has worked very well ever since then.

[lee92 2]

well, i came back empty handed in the laptop department, but have two choices so far. at future shop, the sales person recommended either this Compaq R4125 AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz Laptop that has 512MB ram and 100GB memory and he said was probably the best buy for a long term performance laptop because of some 64bit chip in it for the new windows, and this was for $1499.99 cdn. the other option was a Gateway 3550GZ Intel Centrino 735 1.7GHz Laptop with 512MB ram and 60GB memory which he said was fairly fast and effecient for $1299.99.

my first question is, besides the above information in previous posts, does anyone have any information relevant to these two companys, these laptops, or other ones from the same companys?

my second question is that both come with a 1 year warranty, which covers everything that could possibly go wrong, and if some things aren't warrantied or recognized by the manufacturer, the store will, but there's an option of a 3 year warranty for an added $349.99. would this be wise to purchase, or with care, consideration, and looking after my laptop, would the base 1 year warranty be enough?

[kosydar 0]

I'd definitely suggest getting the extra warranty if you can afford it. My sister got a Gateway when she went to college and she has had to send it back multiple times because of various problems. Luckily she had the extended warranty, otherwise she'd have probably just bought a new computer. Its well worth it to get it.

[cobrAA 0]

Abou a doubt COMPAQ R425...this laptop look like a fast-bomb,but consider the quality of the SCREEN(really important)and a DVD-BURNER is a nice additions...and this warrenty seem pretty expensive i pay 200 for 3 year...but it worth because when something goes down everything goes down

[cobrAA 0]

Compaq Hp are the same...and i own a compaq and would say they are the best for the money...DVD-burner,512 ddr...128mg X200 ATI,Sempron 3200+,60 gig, 15'4 inch screen, good looking laptop, at 1100CND...you can,t go wrong!!

At the price Hp is seling there laptop...i would go for the high-end of toshiba(who is knowing for their excellent laptop) or ACER...

Compaq used to be the worst company in the world for durability and service problems. They have improved slightly but I still wouldn't touch one. I spent close to 10 years doing tech support and network administration and any chance I had to migrate away from Compaq, I took it.

Since you did 10 year you might know it...but i have a oncle who do network for pratt and whitney(he's a intense gamer..so he know performance etc...) and told me TOSHIBA was knowinf for making the BEST LAPTOP...

And compaq was shit....bu now they do really well with HP

Let compare to hockey:my pants:The quality of the Nike Quest 1 in the Supreme 8000...or like the mix of ccm-rbk-jofa....low end rbk stuff are shit...but the high end(coming from jofa) are quality

I don't know if you get what i want to mean....

[Cavs019 710]

Gateway's suck!. I was away for a week, left the laptop on, only to find that the fan died and half of my keyboard was melted.

[Sticks of Fury 0]

Check this out on how to "LOCK" your laptop.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8682694/site/newsweek/

[hockechamp14 0]

I have had an HP for 2 years. Amazing. It's a widescreen pavillion, and if you have the money for it, I would defenately buy it. Amazing screen quality, and it does a lot of stuff for you that you don't have to mess around with.

[Edge 0]

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?sk...d=1110263397883

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?sk...d=1115365776471

Are these similar to what you have? I was considering one of these two..on one of them it says it doesn't support memory stick duo...so that would mean I couldn't use it for my PSP correct?

[2048 0]

Edge--I'd shop around and look for something with a Centrino, definitely worth the extra 50-100 more.

[cobrAA 0]

centrino is good for a longer batery...but you lost a lot in power cpu...

[lee92 2]

Edge--I'd shop around and look for something with a Centrino, definitely worth the extra 50-100 more.

from what the guy was telling me at future shop, for power and speed it went celeron, centrino, then athlon, with athlon being the fastest.

[2048 0]

The guy at the store was a fool. A celeron is essentially a crippled centrino. Centrinos that come off the line and don't meet specs are branded as celerons and then have their L2 cache divided by 4 (512kb instead of 2 megs). No where does intel state better performance with a celeron than a centrino. As far ast he AMDs, the turion is a lot like a centrino but with poorer battery life. If you get one, make sure it's one of the models with 1mb of l2 cache instead of 512kb.

edit--misread your post, lee92. Still, cobrAA is wrong.

[Edge 0]

And what about Pentium M? I cant seem to find an HP that is under 1600 that has a centrino.

[trucks 0]

Yes I am looking at a Dell cause I get a payment plan through work and the one im looking at has a Pentium M and the Dell dude said that M is better then Pentium 4. Then I went to Best Buy and the guy there said M is old technology and I should get Centrino which is too expensive and out of my range. So basically Im asking how good is M and will it get the job done?

[bvapor2004 0]

toshibas and gateways are pretty good, also ibuypower.com has some good deals

btw the best computers around are custom computers if you know how to build them and thats your thing

[Lemieux 66]

Edge--I'd shop around and look for something with a Centrino, definitely worth the extra 50-100 more.

I would also recommend the Centrino over the P4 or the Celeron. It is designed specifically for laptops and has a better battery life.

And although Centrino laptops generally have less "oomph" (as CobrAA noted), they produce less heat and are lighter (there's no need for relatively huge cooling fans like laptops equipped with P4s).

I don't know anything about AMD, but I'd take anything that a Future Shop salesperson says with a grain of salt. They just want to make a sell.

In regards to Dell, I've heard from different people that they can sell computers for cheaper prices because their hardware is not very good and that finding replacement parts is a huge pain.

I wouldn't buy a Sony machine because you can get machines that are just as good for lower prices. I'd vouch for a Toshiba if you're willing to go over your budget a bit. Plus, with those Future Shop guys who work on commission, you could try to get them to lower the price or throw in some good software/hardware to make a guaranteed sell. :P