hoping to get a laptop

[here_is_gone]

If i can save up enough money I plan to get a laptop, but I definately want to get one that's going to last a long time. My friend says that Sonys are the best there is, but they dont have a single notebook under 1000 dollars, so that's not an option. He got a Toshiba Satellite, and he says those are really good. Are those generally reliable? Also, I've heard a lot about AMD processors being better/faster than Intel ones, as well as being cheaper, is this true? Thanks.

 

[Tommy Boy]

I know some people are going to disagree with me on this one, but I'd say get a dell, they have cheaper models and they are good. toshiba makes a good laptop, as does hp and gateway IMO, so it's really up to you.
and yes, AMD's processors are better than intel and maybe a little cheaper, but they're getting up there too.

 

[alvino]

The real mobile processors you want are the AMD Turion and the Intel Pentium M. Those are hands down the best mobile processors in the market. Some really good ones that save alot of energy are ones from VIA and Transmeta...they really save lots of energy and are usually used in ultraportables.

 

[Kage]

My dads laptop runs off a VIA C3 processor, and its the slowest processor i've ever seen, even with it running at its specced 1GHZ rating (telling you ghz isn't everything)

I'd say to stick with either AMD or Intel with the two processors Alvino is saying about.

With AMD, the processors in my opinion are just as good, and yes, are cheaper.

 

[Washington]

I got a hewlett packard compaq presario 2500. It has a 2.8Ghz Celeron and its nowhere near as fast as my desktop which has an AMD Athlon running at 2.1Ghz. So it's not a good idea to get a celeron chip.

Also on the graphics side. It's got an ATI Mobility Radeon 64MB chip integrated that is nowhere near as fast as the Geforce MMX440 64MB that I used to have in my old desktop. So you can't compare graphics cards on laptops to those on desktops MB for MB.

What do you want to laptop to do???? If it is for playing games I would be very careful what machine you buy.

Also the lack of upgrading is a major problem for laptops.

Of course there are laptops on the market that are capable of running the present games at reasonable framerates, but they tend to be very expensive and two years down the line probably obselete.

Of course if you just want to surf the net and check your e-mails or write a novel then laptops are great and a lower (and cheaper) spec machine will do these with ease.

 

[here_is_gone]

Pretty much, all i plan to use with it is word processing, internet, email, and instant messanging. By the way, it'd also be a plus to get a laptop with built in wireless or something like that.

 

[Kage]

Yeah, built-in wireless would be good. If you don't get one with one though, try and find a laptop with extra ports on the sides to place things like networks cards in to add it later

With what you want to use it for anyway, it doesn't have to be all that powerful and so could be rather cheap to buy one. You might find some that are internet ready for online messaging and that contain Office software. Have a look around

 

[TRDCorolla1]

I know some people are going to disagree with me on this one, but I'd say get a dell, they have cheaper models and they are good. toshiba makes a good laptop, as does hp and gateway IMO, so it's really up to you.
and yes, AMD's processors are better than intel and maybe a little cheaper, but they're getting up there too.

I agree with you on the Dell and Toshiba. Before I bought my laptop from HP/Compaq, I was seriously considering Dell ot Toshiba models. I liked Dell because of the variety of selections you can choose from and all have very good configurations. Their line of Centrino's was really impressive. Toshiba is hands down performance. They use a lot of battery depending on the model, but I feel they're a little bulky.

What comes down to is price. I wanted performance without the high price. I wanted to stay away from Celerons too. I gave up on a Dell laptop because HP/Compaq had sale on the sub $1,000 Turion64 laptops which caught my eye. You won't believe what I went through to get this. I went to 5 different CompUSA stores to get this because they were all literally sold out or on hold. The third store I went to had one more in stock but there was a kid and his dad there already asking for it. I was kind enough (knowing I'm such a gentleman) to let him have it.

But at the top of my head, Dell, Toshiba, HP/Compaq make great notebooks. Acer is also pretty good too. Toshiba's are reliable laptops. If you want performance in terms of CPU, get the Centrino powered Pentium M. They are currently better than the AMD Turion 64.

 

[newguy3]

I would have to go with the apple I book 12 inch and if you go to school and buy direct from their webstie you will be able to get it for $950 + tax I think. Stable, fast, reliable. standard 512mb ram. Runs a version of Unix which MS is trying to emulate now in their latest version of MS. Which I think is to be let loose on the world in late 2006.

 

[alvino]

Mmm...Apple Powerbook G5's are awesome...very sturdy construction. You won't find any of that plastic Dell crap from Apple.