Seperate questions about notebooks (1 Viewer)

[Mike Schmitz]

A friend of mine is buying a notebook for the first time, and he's suffering from sticker shock. He keeps asking when the prices will be driven down due to lack of consumer demand. I know (instinctively?) that there's a good reason that notebook prices are up there, but I don't remember why. I think it has something to do with it being more expensive to manufacture notebook PC's. Anyone wanna chew my ear off about high notebook prices?
Also, my sister's boyfriend's father used to work for Compaq, and he took exception to my telling my friend to avoid both HP and Compaq notebooks. I remember from years ago that both were considered of poor quality. Have HP and/or Compaq notebooks changed to the point where they're not bad enough to avoid buying?
Mike Schmitz,
Englewood, CO

 

[MikeAlletto]

Those LCD screens and smaller parts mean more expense.

If I were shopping for a windows laptop I would only buy a dell or IBM one. Dell is always having deals. I priced a wicked one a few weeks ago for under 2k which is pretty cheap for a laptop.

I don't like HP's or Compaq's designs...

 

[Steve_Ch]

Yes, notebooks are relatively more expensive than desktop, reasons are already mentioned in the previous post, but just for fun, let's say if you want to fit a 500 Horse Power engine on a bicycle and have it work, I think it's probably fair to expect the 500 HP bicycle will cost more than a 500 HP Semi. Kind of the same story with laptops.

>>He keeps asking when the prices will be driven down due to lack of consumer demand.

 

[Mike Schmitz]

He has access to about $1,500. But he seems to only want to spend $1,000 of that. Can anyone give me any leads on a semi-decent notebook with a CD-ROM or CD-RW drive?

Mike Schmitz,

Englewood, CO

 

[Thomas Newton]

The Apple iBook is a pretty decent notebook. $1500 for one with a 12" screen, 600 MHz G3, 128 MB of RAM, 20 GB HD, and Combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive. FireWire, USB, Ethernet, a 56K modem, and video output (mirroring only) are standard. Bundled software includes Mac OS X, Mac OS 9, AppleWorks, iMovie, iTunes, iPhoto, and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

One of the nice things about the iBook is that the whole thing weighs just under five pounds -- many PC laptops that include optical drives weigh something like seven and a half pounds, something you may notice quickly if you travel a lot with a notebook and other luggage.

There are CD-ROM and DVD-ROM versions of the iBook, with slower CPUs and smaller hard drives, for less money.

One of the advertisers on Macintouch is advertising "new" 500 MHz Combo iBooks (128 MB RAM, 10 GB HD) for $1279. I personally would rather pay $1600 for a current unit with the custom-order 30 GB hard drive, on the theory that you never have enough memory or disk space. But ~$1300 is an awfully good price for a light, high-quality notebook with all of the features of that iBook.

(As you may or may not be able to tell, I was just about ready to buy one, until the new TiBook/550 and the new iMac came along to make the choice difficult again.)

 

[Lary Larson]

I just got a refurbished Sony Vaio with 900 MHz Duron, 15" XGA LCD, 128 Mb RAM, 15 Gb HD, DVD-ROM drive, WinXP Home from www.ubid.com for less than $1000. I personally think the more cutting-edge laptops go for too much at ubid, but you can get a good deal there if you're not looking for top-of-the-line specs.
Lary

 

[Darren Lewis]

I've got a Sony Vaio and it's superb

 

[Steve_Ch]

>>He has access to about $1,500. But he seems to only want to spend $1,000 of that.

 

[Thomas Newton]

How about these deals?
Macintosh PowerBook Duo 280C + Express Modem + 12MB RAM bundle. 8.4" active-matrix display, 600 x 400 x 16-bit color or 640 x 480 x 256 colors, 66/33 MHz 68LC040 CPU, 320MB hard disk, no optical drive, $3899. Floppy drive might or might not be included in that price.
IBM Thinkpad 755. "Enhance your road show with the first full-function, self-contained mobile multimedia notebook." 100 MHz 486DX/4 CPU, CD-ROM drive, TV video output, RAM & hard disk sizes unspecified, $4899 for cheapest unit which had a passive-matrix LCD, running all the way up to $8199 for the most expensive active-matrix LCD variant.
Admittedly, these are from a Christmas 1995 MacConnection catalog, and were for cutting-edge units of that time. I think you can see that the metrics of price, performance, and price/performance have all gotten considerably better since then.