[DanG]

My friend needs to buy a new laptop for law school and asked me for some advice. He was recommended the HP DV6436nr for $800 at BestBuy (15.4", Turion 1.8GHz, 160GB SATA, 2GB RAM, Vista Home Prem.) which actually looked pretty decent except for the AMD processor which also has only 1GB L2 cache. I recommended he get a system with an Intel processor, like a Dell Vostro 1500 which seems pretty good, but the HPs look like they actually provide a lot more bang for the buck. The newer 6500Ts look pretty damn good like this one at around $1050. But spending less would be really good.

He would use it for common applications like Word, Excel, Powerpoint, internet, music, and watching DVDs. He doesn't play games. He wants to spend under $1000 and he wants it to last (i.e., be usable) for 3-4 years.

So the specific questions I have are these:
1. Is it that important that the processor be made by Intel? Or is AMD really not so bad? What are the implications of choosing AMD instead of Intel or vice versa?

2. If he's not going to be playing games but will be watching movies, does he need a dedicated graphics card? Or are integrated graphics okay?

3. Any brands to look at for value? I already told him to avoid Acer, but we didn't look at the IBMs or Compaqs -- should we have?

4. I was surprised to find that the cost of RAM on these machines is astronomical -- I just upgraded my own laptop's ram with a 1GB stick that cost me ~$40 from Crucial but for the HP it costs much more. Is it as easy to upgrade RAM on these newer machines as it was for mine (Inspiron 9300) and is it worth buying less RAM and upgrading on your own?

5. Any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[GAD]

All laptops suck. Find the one that sucks the least for your needs. Truly, I hate them. I own probably four, and have used many many more. I hate them all.

OK I'm done. Sorry for the intrusion.

GAD

 

[srozzman]

this might help you out... http://www.notebookreviews.com

 

[Gautama]

Where have you been? AMD has been kicking Intels ass for the past 3 years if not more, Intel has just won the upper hand with the Core 2 Duo architecture.

The notebook he was recommended is good.

If he is planning on watching HD movies I would get a dedicated gpu, elsewise integrated is fine.

 

[Shizelbs]

I have an HP. Its fine. HP has good driver support online and as a company good customer service in general.

 

[vagarach]

1) AMD is good, but Intel is better when in comes to the mobile computing experience, with many more throttling steps available, better battery life, and of course, the core(tm) architecture, which really is better than AMD's current offerings.

2) Integrated will be just fine, the intel x3000 series (as in that hp notebook) even has h.264 decoding in hardware (which will be nice for viewing HD content). Dedicated graphics hardware is totally unnecessary for the tasks to be done.

3) Definitely look at brands which pay attention to chassis build quality, such as the Lenovo (no longer IBM) thinkpads. The Dell Vostro and Latitude business machines also have much sturdier casing than their regular consumer notebooks.

In my experience of compaq notebooks (one the same model as sold by HP as a business machine, and the other a 'low price' basic model) they have had very, very solid keyboards, and pretty good build quality.

4) Yeah, ram is always overpriced, but if you decide to buy some 3rd party stuff for more reasonable prices, be sure you won't have to get rid of the installed modules (i.e. throwing away 2x 512MB modules when upgrading from 1GB to 2GB) and factor in that loss if you have no other laptop to donate them to

.

Right now you may also want to look around the office supply shops in your area, I know my local Staples is heavily discounting their laptops to get rid of them and make space for the new stuff for the school year. This way you can buy into a higher price range for the same money. Also consider the apple macbooks, they're small, sturdy, and lighter than that 6lb hp (not fun to carry around all the time).

hope that helps!

 

[no1likesme]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanG /img/forum/go_quote.gif 3. Any brands to look at for value? I already told him to avoid Acer, but we didn't look at the IBMs or Compaqs -- should we have?

Why avoid Acer? I have had my acer for over a year now and I love it. I would look at brands like Sager, Asus, Acer, etc... Newegg usually has pretty good deals on preconfigured notebooks.

 

[vagarach]

Oh, I just remembered, and I have some positive feedback for Acer: A very new desktop (intel C2D, 2GB ram, vista, etc) bought in may all of a sudden stopped powering on. So I called them (acer canada), and they had an express courier pick it up the very same day and had it couriered back to my front door in just two days working perfectly, with both the power supply and motherboard being replaced (which isn't a 5 minute job), and it didn't cost a cent. You can't get better customer service than that.

 

[no1likesme]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vagarach /img/forum/go_quote.gif Oh, I just remembered, and I have some positive feedback for Acer: A very new desktop (intel C2D, 2GB ram, vista, etc) bought in may all of a sudden stopped powering on. So I called them (acer canada), and they had an express courier pick it up the very same day and had it couriered back to my front door in just two days working perfectly, with both the power supply and motherboard being replaced (which isn't a 5 minute job), and it didn't cost a cent. You can't get better customer service than that.

WOW. I didn't realize their service was that good (i haven't really had a chance to use their tech support, which I guess is pretty good.) Did you buy the extended warranty plan?

 

[vagarach]

Quote:

Originally Posted by no1likesme /img/forum/go_quote.gif WOW. I didn't realize their service was that good (i haven't really had a chance to use their tech support, which I guess is pretty good.) Did you buy the extended warranty plan?

No, I didn't!

 

[no1likesme]

That is good to hear.

 

[DanG]

Thanks for all the help! Thanks to your advice, I recommended a Lenovo T61 since it turned out he would be able to buy one with an employee discount (15% off). He got one configured with a 14.1" screen, 2.0GHz Intel C2D processor, Vista Home Premium, 1GB RAM (1 DIMM - another gig will run about $50), 100GB 7200RPM HDD, Intel X3100 graphics processor, and the CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive. He ended up taking out the webcam option (which, for $30, I thought is a must have...) and adding some expensive warranty options, but I think he'll be happy with it. I just wish I could get one for myself too!

 

[Konig]

Does anyone know if toshiba and fujitsu are still made in japan?
And does today's laptops come with wireless N built in?
Is there any reason why i should wait a while before getting a new laptop in august?

 

[BetaLyr]

^ I think Toshiba is still made in Japan. Not sure about Fujitsu. You could probably check onliine.
And the standard laptop probably doesn't come with wireless N, because most people with wi-fi don't use it yet.. And the wireless N routers are pretty expensive (compared to wireless A/B/G)..
You could always wait for Black Friday to get a laptop

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanG /img/forum/go_quote.gif Thanks for all the help! Thanks to your advice, I recommended a Lenovo T61 since it turned out he would be able to buy one with an employee discount (15% off). He got one configured with a 14.1" screen, 2.0GHz Intel C2D processor, Vista Home Premium, 1GB RAM (1 DIMM - another gig will run about $50), 100GB 7200RPM HDD, Intel X3100 graphics processor, and the CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive. He ended up taking out the webcam option (which, for $30, I thought is a must have...) and adding some expensive warranty options, but I think he'll be happy with it. I just wish I could get one for myself too!

Did he add the gig of RAM? Vista runs pretty slow with just 1GB..

 

[d.phens]

Don't use Vista!
Get Win 2000 or XP instead, I bet you already have one.

It's a nonsense, just the same basic "new technology" as NT is.
The only improvement over XP in the design is - more .NET code which is pretty slow and yet again (as M$ always does this) MORE CPU AND RAM USAGE!
The core remains (almost) the same.

.NET sucks for OS code - it's just another solution to aid the programmers (thus decreasing development costs) by adding another layer of computing.

Moreover Vista eats all of your remaining computer resources with its crappy Las Vegasish user interface. Bling Bling.
I bet you need no show...

If so forget about Vista. Maybe 5 years later it will be the oldest supported MS operating system but by the time computers will certainly be a lot faster

So you DON'T NEED Vista NOW.