Ok fellas... Here's the deal... My girlfriend (as some of u know...) is a Independent Beauty Consultant for MARY KAY... Her entire production and business logistics thrive on field appts./work and scheduling... About a month ago here DELL computer took a shit on her after taking it to Best Buy and having it repaired... Her brother-in-law diag. the problem as a manufacture problem with the specific model she has and the issue WILL occur again if repaired... Apparently, it is a cheaper model that was specifically drawn toward students and she needs something a lil more on the business aspect as well as personal usage. Does anyone have any recommendations for a good buy affordable laptop to buy? I am a lil strapped for $$$ and don't have tons to spend on something like this but I want to see what I can be able to do for her...Especially, with Xmas being around the corber and this gift she will NOT be expecting... In the market for new or used 15-17in laptop... as long as used looks NEW... Thanks alot for the help in advance as always...

Note: Model number and spec would be GREATLY appreciated... and any review comments on why the specific model u suggest...Thanks!

 

Dell are junk.
The low end Dells are basically rebranded Asus models.

HP has some good models,.. beware of the lower end models.
Toshiba Satelite models are very good.
Sony Vaio's are hit or miss.
Acer is junk,
Almost any of the netbooks are junk,.. most only have 3 - 4 cell batteries.
Alienware used to be good but Dell bought them out and are now slowly turning into junk.


Expect to pay $800+ for a good laptop.
Dont need a high end CPU unless your doing gaming with it.
The Celeron chips are fine,.. AMD mobile are fine and even the high end Atom chips are fine. Will want 2 - 4gb ram minimum.
The high end models will have the better batteries and better hard drives. Stay away from ram drives. They are notorious for losing data. Get one with a real mechanical hard drive.

Hurst

 

I was just looking into HP or TOSHIBA... ^^^ any MODEL recommendations Hurst??? (some how I knew U WOULD be the one to chime in with ur ALL OUT knowledge...)

Yeah... she does no gaming... Just regular everyday stuff maybe included but not limited to: Picture sharing and maybe the capabilities to watch movie or something... But basically just alot of online scheduling and appts and personal browsing...Just would like something with enough memory capabilities with her usage with no drag or freezing... If need be also, I can purchase her a ext. hard drive to help out with saving free memory...

 

i just bought a hp g70 460us i like it...i had a toshiba satelite for about 4 years...this is way way way faster as you can imagine....i paid $550 about 3 months ago...17 in screen dvd burner built in wireless...pretty happy...it was the best deal i could find when i bought it...but 3 months isnt much to go on as far as reliability. good luck

 

^ Thanks man! ........... Someone here advised NO HPs since they are specifically very picky for adding or accessorizing with outside companies products... Meaning: IF ITS NOT HP...IT WON'T WORK! Is this true?

 

I bought an HP dv6000 about a year and a half ago, and havn't had any issues since. I used to run some games on it, Call of Duty mostly, and it handled that just fine. Now it's used as my personal computer and also my recording software (ProTools HD) is loaded onto it, and it runs smooth as silk.

Have you considered a Macbook Pro? A friend of mine just picked one up - they're sick!

 

There is not even a hint of truth to that.

HPs are good laptops. There is nothing wrong with Dell's business class stuff, I dunno about their cheapo lines. And Toshiba is the fucking bomb.

 

I have a Dell Inspiron 1525 and it's been a great macheen for me. I use it for multiple businesses & run many programs on it daily. It's served me perfectly.

 

Thats the thing,.. to get a good Dell she will need a business model and they start at $1200+ but are not much better then the $600 - $800 models from some of the other companies.

I'm more of a desk top guy. I am A++ certified. If I look at what specific hardware is inside of a laptop then I can feel safe and give my personal advice. But I am not that up to date on the laptops. I know a little more then the average person,.. but for someone that deals with them on a day to day basis,.. perhaps even a well informed salesman,.. they will know more then I do about the specific models.

HP/Compaq, Dell and especially IBM used to be notorious for using propitiatory API signatures inside the bios that would only allow certain hardware to be used as upgrade/replacement parts. For example,.. the early IBM's would only work with a Connors hard drive,.. then later only a Maxtor. They had contracts with hynix to imbed their memory so only IBM rebranded hynix modules would work. Dell was doing this up until recently,.. and I think they still are. Acer bought out Gateway,.. and for anyone that has ever owned a Gateway anything will know they were made with the cheapest of everything. Dell will use the slowest 667mhz DDR2 chips on boards design for 800mhz DDR2.

You can have a slower computer perform better and function more robustly and respond faster then a much more expensive system just by having faster (Not always more) memory and a fast hard drive. The hard drive is the slowest part of any computer. Bottling necking a fast computer with a 5400 RPM SATA1 hdd to a system vs a 7200 RPM SATA 300mb/s drive is like night and day when it come to boot up, shut down, recovering from sleep mode, accessing the memory swap on the hdd,.. all of it effects over all system performance. A laptop when used for what she needs it for doe not need a high end CPU. A simple 1.8ghz Core 2 Duo or even a slower Celeron can appear as fast as a 3ghz quad core desk top system when combine with the right parts. Games, video rendering, or anything else that requires heavy CPU and memory loads will be slower. But for day to day net use you would not notice a difference.

Hurst

 

BIOS can be flashed if the need be. I'm a network engineer, or a field engineer, depending on who you ask (my company or the client). My client exclusively uses HP laptops and desktops and with the exception of a video card that was so obsolete it was no longer supported and have no current drivers, in 14 months I have never had any compatability issues with them.

I put my HP laptop through hell and back. I mean it gets RAGGED on. I shut it down with the power button all the time, I stick it in a laptop case still running and just forget about it, I stress its processor and RAM with the applications I run and the things I do, I'm constantly plugging it and unplugging it from power, docking stations, network cables, etc. And its still trucking. And its battery life is fucking amazing, over 4 hours while using the thing!


Even so, I still say Toshiba laptops are top notch. Just make sure whatever you get, that it feels sturdy. Make sure it feels overly sturdy. Because a few years down the road, shit happens and it WILL break on you.