Need to find an inexpensive laptop (mine was stolen) (1 Viewer)

[Dave George]

For those of you who haven't seen my thread in the After Hours section, my apartment was burglarized yesterday. In addition to a bunch of other stuff, they took my laptop, which was a few years old. The insurance company told me to go buy a new one and they'd reimburse me, so I'm looking for opinions on which laptop to buy. I built my own desktop, but I don't know much about laptops. So far, I'm leaning toward Dell or Toshiba. I hear IBM is good, but prices are very high. Anything I buy now is going to be faster than what I had, from what I've seen so far I don't see much slower than a 900 mhz celeron processor. However, my computer did have a really nice screen, so I'm hoping not to get stuck with a 12.1" display or the like. Any suggestions?

Dave

 

[Kevin T]

i had a dell insprion 2500 with 14.1" screen. i think i paid roughly $1500 for it. i have never dealt with any other laptop manufactureres but dell's customer support was very good...wait time on the phone could be long depending on what time you call...but late at night you can get through pretty quick.

kevin t

 

[Phil Kim]

You should browse Dell's refurbished notebooks. My friend bought one recently and it looks and feels brand spanking new.

 

[Jason Merrick]

Have you checked out any of the computer websites or magazines? pcworld.com pcmag.com cnet.com all have reviews and comparisons between models.

Dell seems to be pretty consistenly rated at the top of the notebook heap. I just purchased an Inspiron 8100 for +/- $1750. Huge 15" S-XGA screen, PIII-M 866 mhz, 20 gb, 256mb, DVD, 32mb Nvidia GeForce 2 Go, free Epson color printer.

You could knock off $140 if you go with the onboard winmodem (I upgraded to the PCMCIA Xircom) and another $99 if you go with the 16mb video card. At $1500 or so, this would be unbeatable in my opinion.

Good luck to you with whatever you go with.

 

[DonRoeber]

If you don't mind using a Mac (I love mine, I'll never use windows again!) get an iBook, with a combo drive. You'll love it.

 

[Dave George]

Thanks for the replies. I was already looking at Dell, so you guys have pretty much convinced me (still have to decide between 4100 and 8100). I did look at the iBook, and while it looks nice it's just not right for me.

My question now is: Does anyone know what the next deal will be on the Dell website? Until the 12th, it's a cerain amount of (I think around $150) and a free palm m105 pda (which I don't need, I'm looking at a Sony clie 610). I'm somewhat skeptical that they'll actually raise the prices of the machines after the 12th, and I see posts like Jason's in his other thread talking about getting free stuff more valuable to me than the pda (such as a battery, camera, printer, free dvd upgrade, etc.) So, should I wait?

 

[Tan Nguyen]

I have a slightly used IBM ThinkPad T22, 800mhz, 20GB, DVD, 14.1" LCD, 128MB RAM for $1150. Power adapter, usermanual, all software CD's also included.

I got it for my own use, but got company's laptop about 2 weeks after, you can't tell from a brand new one.

Tan