Laptop advice - so hard to choose among so many frickin brands, specs.

Basar

So my parents have asked me to suggest a laptop for them. Normally I never help family or friends with electronics purchases as it usually leads to more pain than its worth when something goes wrong with the said electronic. On the other hand, its my parents this time and I don't want them to spend an insane amount of money on worthless stuff.

So I looked around on Newegg and saw a few laptops fitting the bill. I am not sure of the reliability however. How is Toshiba compared to HP? They used to manufacture some of the best laptops out there back in the day but I am not sure if that still holds true. HPs are usually cheaper than competition for the same specs but I heard some horror stories about them. And now I see ASUS also makes pretty & high performance laptops but are they any good when it comes to long term stuff? I liked ASUS mobos back in the day but building a component must be a lot different than a whole PC. I used many IBM Thinkpads back in the day and they were the best computers I've ever used but they say the support has gone way down with the Lenovo takeover even though the build quality remains the same (as they did manufacture them on IBM brand anyways).

So what do you guys suggest? Should I go get the cheapest with the latest CPU? Hear T9500 are good and will last a long time. My mother is ridiculous when it comes to finding some weird applications online (her latest being a tailor's custom app o_O ) so I am pretty sure I will need to install XP on the purchased laptop. Do all XP 32bit apps work on Vista 32bit?

Anyways, I would love to hear some suggestions all.

Thanks

Edit: Oh, they'll using it for websurfing, email and office apps. And some simple programs like the mentioned above.

deadonthestreet

Nearly everything that works on XP works on Vista.

Newres

My advice is to buy a nice ASUS laptop.

I picked out two, one for my brother and one for my sister and both have zero problems as of yet (one is a year old the other three years, knocks on wood). They have in my opinion a really good quality for their price, no cheap parts that break off and the like. What was important for both is that they have models with non-integrated video cards for decent prices. Although this later is probably less relevant to your case watch out as integrated graphics cards can be a nightmare for anything mildly graphics intensive.

Big Dookie

If they want something on the smaller end with decent battery life, an Asus EEE PC might be a good choice. The 901 and 1000 models use the new Intel Atom processor which offers better power efficiency, and both are under $600 from places like Newegg. Of course, if they would consider the netbook style laptops, all of them are worth consideration, such as the MSI Wind, Acer Aspire One, and HP Mini-Note.

mspencer

Would it be inconsiderate of me to post my own laptop questions in this thread? I feel like I'd be clogging up the forum creating my own thread when this one is still on page 1. (Short version: I'm a Comp Sci grad student and need a no frills workhorse, and will be buying within the next month. No advice until I share details though, please.)

So should I fire away here, or make a new thread?

Edit: if people are curious:

You'd think someone with a CS degree would know exactly what to buy, but I don't know the reputations of any of these companies. Review sites can be biased, forums can have paid posters planted from other companies, but I'd still rather ask you guys.

I know I want at least two cores and 2 GB RAM minimum, and I can always supplement the internal hard disk with an external USB drive enclosure. I'll almost always be plugged into utility power, so I don't think battery life matters to me. Some sort of 3D accelerator would be nice -- one that supports most modern features with low performance -- but I'm not playing games, just writing stupidly-simple XNA programs. It'd be nice to be able to test a program at low performance before deploying to my 360.

Problem is, a laptop is more than just a bunch of computing resources. I've never owned a modern laptop before, and I know there are other features to consider, like the quality and size of the screen, quality of the keyboard, ability to withstand wear and tear, failure rate, etc. I don't know much about these -- what is standard, what is above average, how much extra should I be willing to spend for a laptop that's better one of these ways, etc.

So my first, naive solution is "go to Wal Mart and buy the cheapest dual-core machine that's capable of accepting at least 2 GB of RAM, and then go buy more RAM separately." I somehow doubt that's really my best option.

So: first, the whole thing is moot if I buy something that fails because it was fragile and I mistreated it. I know the screen is glass and will break easily. As long as I don't crack the screen somehow, will I be OK just throwing the machine in my bag, or do I need a padded laptop bag instead? Would people recommend spending a little more for a certain manufacturer of extra-reliable or extra-rugged laptops?

Second, what kind of screen might I want? I'm fine with "OMG how can you read that?" dots per inch, so 1280x1024 on a 15 inch screen wouldn't be a huge problem for me. What do hard-core-techie types tend to require out of a screen, size and resolution?

Third, laptops come with what kinds of graphics chipsets now? I want 3D hardware feature support but again don't care about speed. So a modern game would probe my hardware and find all of the shader services it requires, but the frame rate would be unplayable. XNA would also find all of the shader services it requires, but my program would require so little that it'd run just fine.

So in all my questions have two goals: other than machine resources available to the OS, which I have a good handle on, what other laptop-centric things do I need to look for? Can I go somewhere to educate myself? Then, what type or brand of laptop would people recommend? The funds come from grad-school-sized student loans, so I can spend whatever I need to spend. $500-600 would be ideal, but if I have to spend $2500 to get what I think I need, and each additional $100 really is buying me something significantly better with little waste, then I'll spend what I need to spend.

(Sorry for the weird question. The best way to answer might be "go to such-and-such web site and read their archives. You'll learn what you need to know.")

Edit 2: also, tablet PC, yes or no? Do people who have one find the extra cost for pen input ability is really useful, or not useful enough to justify the price -- the money could have been better spent on other system resources?

dlpwillywonka

For both of your questions, it'd help if we knew of a price point you were lookin at. I personally like the Asus computers that are 1000+ and up. Almost all of them come with 2gigs of ram, dual core, webcam and a decent graphics chipset.

Here's my personal favorite to recommend to people.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220337

Again, hard to recommend without a price.The Thinkpad T61's and X61's are still good. I can't speak for their support, but the machine itself is strong. And as for the parents laptop, What are the "simple" programs that they might use? Some programs can be finicky.

Dalboz

I'll just drop in and mention the obvious Dell laptops. I've been using my Dell Inspiron for last two years without so much as whimper. Right around now, you could start looking for back to school sales, which have started or will be starting in the next week or two.

Basar

Thanks guys, yeah Asus computers look like they are high-performance for a relatively lower price than brands like IBM, Sony, etc. but as I asked before, how is the build quality? I also heard they are a little thicker than other brands, is this true?

Dalboz: I am looking at some of the Dell models as well. They have 3 years warranty in Turkey so that's a definite plus over other brands (which have only 2) but I am not sure if we get school deals here. Will try to find out.

Budget: $1500 max.

Gxmk

Look up Asus G1S, pretty high end but good for the value.

Newres

Basar wrote: »

Thanks guys, yeah Asus computers look like they are high-performance for a relatively lower price than brands like IBM, Sony, etc. but as I asked before, how is the build quality? I also heard they are a little thicker than other brands, is this true?

Well my experience is that they are very solid as far as build quality goes. I also looked up reviews of them before buying and the only minor complaint was that you can wear out the touchpad if you go at it like a maniac. That said there were no problems with the touchpad on the laptops that I chose.

mspencer

Sorry to bump this, but: after asking around separately I've been told lots of good things about Lenovo Thinkpad T61's. These are also higher-end laptops so they'll approach your $1500 price limit.

(I'm going to be buying a T61 once I get my student loan check. Yes I think I can justify that as an education-related purchase since I'm working on a Masters in Computer Science. :-P I'd like to swap the Nvidia Quadro discrete graphics card with something a bit more mainstream, though. Can I just call them on the phone and get a T61 configured with a different discrete graphics adapter?)

Big Dookie

Don't worry, I'm using my student loan refund to buy a laptop as well. It's for... my senior design class. Yeeeah, that's the ticket.

dlpwillywonka

mspencer wrote: »

I'd like to swap the Nvidia Quadro discrete graphics card with something a bit more mainstream, though. Can I just call them on the phone and get a T61 configured with a different discrete graphics adapter?)

With laptop graphics it's pretty bone dry as to choices. You can always ask if they have the same model with a beefier option but I'll bet the answer is no.

Crashtard

Might want to also consider Gateway. They weren't very good for a little while, but they've really done well with their newer stuff the last few years. I just bought one in July that I love. I don't imagine they are going to be playing any of the newer graphics heavy games, so:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4006226&CatId=1902

Refurbed Gateway, very similiar to what I bought. Video is only up to 256MB, but unless they're going to be playing some crazy games it's not really a problem. That's what mine has and it plays WoW pretty well, so they should be ok.

Elin

I just bought an Asus G50 and it's my new baby. It's solid, quiet, cool and fast. The only "down" side is it's a bit heavy for real portability but it's fine for me as it's my home machine. I just like to be able to work in whatever spot I want whenever I want. I upgraded from a Gateway laptop and the Asus feels more sturdy and well designed. I'd really have to say go Asus.