I need to buy a new lap top. Any suggestions?

Question

What is the most reliable brand? Just need basic Office features and Wi-fi for a decent price. I have had a Dell before and was pretty happy.

Wow. Thanks everyone for the great response. It has really helped.

Answer 1

The first think I would figure out is how much you want to spend.

Then make a list of all the features you want ... size, battery life, display size, weight, etc. Next figure out all the applications you want to run, although from your comment it sounds like just browsing the web and word processing and e-mail. If that is the case than can you do these type applications on a $350 Pentium 3 laptop, so any new laptop would work fine for your needs from a hardware perspective.

These are the basic category of laptops: Ultraportable, Thin-and-light, Mainstream, Desktop replacement/gaming laptops and Budget laptops. Select the type that will best suit your needs. IBM (Lenovo), Dell who you are familiar with, Toshiba, Acer and HP make millions of laptop each year and are all very reputable suppliers. So, pick a couple models from 2-3 of these manufactures within you price range and that have your desired feature set and compare them.

Remember if you keep the laptop 3 years and spend $700 then the real cost is $250 per year. Not expensive for a tool you use all the time.

Answer 2

Yes i do have a suggestion. It is also a Dell because Dell's are very nice lol. Do yourself a favor while this deal lasts! It comes with FREE 2GB of RAM and FREE 160GB Hard Drive! That is awesome! AMD Turion Processors are the BEST! ATI Radeon Xpress 1270 is an awesome graphic card! Stay with the Home Basic since you just need it for basic use. You can change the Wi-Fi around if you dont like what it comes with. You can get microsoft office and stuff. It is the best deal i have seen!

Here is the site: http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&oc=DNCWLA1&s=dhs&sm=2

I would do it if i had the money :( lol

Answer 3

My wife has an HP DV8000 laptop, the display is beautiful and the standard battery life is pretty good as well (around 4 hours on a charge with standard usage). We really can't complain.

One thing I will mention is there was a keyboard issue with these at one point, but updating the firmware to the latest stuff resolved the problem, so HP seems to have fixed it.

I wouldn't recommend this laptop for someone who is carrying it around all over the place for long distances, but from classroom to classroom or on an airplane or something it should be fine. It's not the smallest laptop in the world but it's great for watching DVDs and stuff.

Answer 4

I would normally say get a Dell but when I was looking for a gaming laptop last year the Dell laptop battery's at the time were catching on fire lol. So I got a Alienware but there to pricey if your only gonna use it for the office

Answer 5

I have a Dell XPS and it is great although it is a "gaming computer". I am starting school in the fall so I will be switching to something smaller and more portable than this huge notebook so I would also recommend a Macbook Pro

Answer 6

I dont think brand is real important, but you should get at least 1GB(1024) of ram especially if you get one with vista on it. I would look in the 500-600 dollar range--if you spend too much it will be obsolete in 2 years anyway. Look on the internet first to see what you can get for what price. Pricewatch.com has a lot to look at to get an idea of prices.

Answer 7

I would highly recommend a Toshiba Satellite M65-S9092.

Answer 8

i admire my Sony Vaio E sequence, custom outfitted with an AMD Radeon 7650 and an i5, yet once you have slightly greater (that one grow to be $800) The Toshiba Qosmio line is finished of powerhouses.

Answer 9

Get an Apple.
http://www.apple.com/getamac/

Answer 10

Try Apple...I plan on getting one of their digital notebooks pretty soon (really good reviews).