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Help Buying a Laptop
Sin Twin 1
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I want to buy a laptop but not sure what the biggest bang for my buck is. This is my first laptop and I am going on a trip for two months so it will be used for pictures, videos, and itunes mostly. Since I have an ipod touch i thought I would go with an apple but they are much more expensive then say a DELL Inspirion laptop (which are on sale right now) I was hoping to get some informative opinions from anyone that has knowledge or experience with an easy and fun to use laptop. Please help, I am clueless...
Sin Twin 1 on
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It's an acer laptop, with the following features
- 17 inch screen with 1600 by 900 resolution
- 320 gb hard drive
- 4 gigs ram
- windows 7 home premium
- intel gma 4500 processor (supports DX10)
- Pentium Dual Core T4300 (currently ranked about 76th out of something like 260 active processors)
It's already cheap at ~550, and Staples has it this week for $479 after INSTANT rebates.
I found it by accident, and looked up the reviews because I'm getting one after the holidays. Overall it's averaged about a 4 to 4.3 out of five on most sites. The only complaints are that the touchpad can be a little buggy, but it does have multitouch, and that the battery life isn't awesome, but its a 17 inch.
Pros, aside from the above description, are that it doesn't burn your legs off if you sit with it for hours (plugged in, of course)
Just my .02
Also, it will do everything you're going to want it to do, including run a lot of newer games, even if they are at basic to low settings
I sell these things to people often enough to know what you need to know. WARRANTY! Whatever it is you end up deciding on - GET A WARRANTY. The main difference between a laptop and a desktop is that all the shit is right there in one piece. So if you drop it, spill something on it, or sit on it, Dell will have your ass covered. Get as much coverage as you can afford and you'll be golden.
Some random tips -
Bring your power cord everywhere and never lose it. Even without a battery, as long as you have that cord, you can use your laptop. It is like having one for your cell phone, chances are, you wont find another one like it.
Only rest it on hard, flat surfaces. Not on your lap/blanket/bed/couch. Tables and counters only. Laptops usually have vents on the bottom that cools the machine.
Don't spill anything on it. I know you think you can sip a little coffee while you check your email, but the motherboard is right under that keyboard. So liquid = Deadsy.
I have to disagree with the warranty bit. I worked retail for a long time, and it's mostly a pure profit gimmick. Most places charge around half the price of the laptop for the full damage care (if you include screen protection, otherwise you're wasting your time with it anyway) and it only covers two to three years. By then you'll either be thinking of upgrading or won't care.
Also, most of the warranties are actually third party companies, so you get no help from the original manufacturer or retailer (unless you buy directly from Dell or something) and you end up getting jerked around for a long time before you ever see a profit.
Finally, if you do get the warranty, and pay half the price of the laptop, and they can't fix it. They either send you a refurb and probably lose your files, or refund you a PRO RATED amount nowhere near what you paid for the machine and the warranty put together, or even close for that matter.
This is my direct experience from working at two big box retailers, and purchasing from Dell for business services.
Thanks for the heads up but this was already sold out by the time I got to Staples today. The employee said they'd received 17 of them and they were all gone. I guess this was a pretty good deal. I also checked Staples online but it is OOS there too.
I found this Acer laptop on Newegg for $429 which might be of interest to the OP. Anyone have a opinion about it? It has a AMD dual core when I would have preferred the Intel Core 2 Duo but I guess that wouldn't kill the deal. It also has a ATI Radeon HD 3200 rather then a integrated graphics card which might be what you're looking for.
I have this, and I'd recommend it, it's been able to take anything that isn't high end gaming like a champ, the screen is nice and big, but kind of low quality, but it's hard to tell unless you're really looking for it
Also, for portability purposes, I wouldn't recommend getting anything with a screen bigger than about 15". I've got a 15.4" screen and it's just small enough to be reasonably portable. Anything bigger would just be an arse to carry around.