Best laptops?

Question

I need your opinion on the best laptops out there. I have been researching them for the last 2 months in hopes of buying one soon. We want at least a 17" monitor, at least 1 GB of RAM, and 80 to 100GB of hard drive space. We don't care anything about playing games on the computer or watching DVD on it or videoing anything (as of yet). We mostly want this for pictures, I do have an I-POD so I have downloaded music to my PC, and surfing the web, power point presentations...we would love Office XP Pro or Windows Media Center or perhaps even Vista.
Brands we are looking at:
Toshiba
Lenovo
Sony Vaiou (sp?)
Gateway
We have looked at MAC but kind of pricey.
Any ideas?

Have had bad experience in the past with Dell, HP, and Compaq.
Anyone know anytning about Acer or Averatec?

Answer 1

I have a Sony VAIO and a Toshiba laptops and never had any problems with them. If I had to definately pick one, go with the Sony VAIO!
I would hold off on getting Vista - my experience with getting new operating systems fresh on the market has been a bit if'y.
See if you can get the laptop with XP and a Vista upgrade option. When Microsoft releases Vista SP1 to fix some of the bugs, then upgrade. Microsoft tends to come out with a product that needs to be modified with updates with several updates after it is first released. Usually, by Service Pack 1, they have the major bugs worked out of the operating system.
Good Luck!

Answer 2

I have the HP nx9420. It was by far the best deal for a laptop with a 17" monitor. It has 512mb of RAM, but that is more than enough, I can run 30 windows at once without any system slowdown. I got it at www.newegg.com for about $1300. It also has an awesome graphics card, all kinds of security features, a shock resistant harddrive, XP Professional, a widescreen, 100gb drive, a DVD reader, cd writer, and a Core 2 Duo processor. Newegg doesn't list all the available models anymore, so if you go to HP's website, you can get one with more RAM and a DVD writer and higher resolution.



I wouldn't trade the reliability and problem-free experience I've had with this computer for anything, and I'm now an HP laptop customer for life because my last one was just as reliable.

EDIT: my brother has a couple month old Acer that is always locking up and doing unexpected things. I won't buy an Acer. The price is right, but the build quality is questionable. The case flexes too much, more than a laptop should. It feels shoddy.

Answer 3

LISTEN, EVERYONE NEEDS TO SHUT UP ABOUT DELL...Dells shall lead all into heartbreak and despair along with their god-awful tech support...two of my friends had toshiba laptops, and the fans would never work, causing overheating as well as constant virus problems and other hardware hardships...Lenovo seem to be relatively new, so do some research about them before anything...Sony Viao is a good bet to go with as they are good hardware producers...Gateway, here we go...i hate Gateway, their hardware is useless, i had one for five years, and three times a year i had to get repairs or reboot the entire system...and they are overpriced BY A LOT...Mac is pricey, yes, but for what you're paying for is well worth it...although it comes with iMovie and iDVD, there are programs on there that can help to make your picture storing, such as iPhoto, and especially because you have an iPod, having an apple computer makes life easier for it =)...besides, getting a MacBook Pro has a 17" monitor, at least 1GB of ram and well over 100GB of hardrive space....Safari is an incredible web browser no spam spyware malware worms, etc. Macs are completely safe in everything...ordering iWork 06 comes with pages and keynote in which pages does everything word can and better as well as keynote can do what power point does but better too =)...so land on Mac if you can and if not *sigh* settle for second best such as HP or Sony

Answer 4

Sony Vaio, but why don't you try dell?