Looking at a new laptop.

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OtisBlkR1

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#1 a laptop is space saver and what we like, so i want to keep this to a laptop.
#2 it must have (wi-fi) as thats how my house is set with a wireless router.
#3 DVD disc drive is a must, Blue ray optional.. but must have a disc player..
Yes we already have a tablet for those that may suggest that, I like haveing a laptop for the disc drive and larger screen.

This laptop is used for our at home, online banking, ebay, facebook, amazon, yahoo/email and general Web browsing.

I am NOT brand loyal, a 15 inch plus screen would be great.

I dont want to overpay for a laptop, and dont want to replace it in 2-3 years Id like to get 4-6 years minium out of it. My current machine is 11 years old and its starting to have trouble displaying txt. Im told that my version of windows is getting to old..and that may be the problem.
 
I have several in the house, my son's HP, a Dell, and an eMachines-which was the cheapest of the bunch at only $270 brand new-and has also been the most dependable.
 
I have bought 3 at Walmart (online) and they are all fine. In the $300 -$400 range. HP & Compaq I believe.

On my personal one I added max memory and SSD.

You may not like Windows 8, but 8.1 should be out soon which has an interface that is more like what you are use to.
 
To be honest buy a 300 dollar 15.6 inch laptop and plan on replacing it in two or three years. Buying something twice the cost doesn't make it last twice as long. The lifespan of the battery is a huge factor, as is the wear and tear any laptop experiences. The performance difference between my 300 dollar home special and my 1200 dollar work laptop is nill, and while the commercial grade is better built I wouldn't expect it to work in 11 years.

I would also wait a few weeks for Windows 8.1, IIRC the release is mid October.
 
I bought a 17" HP laptop in June of 2012. It has 4 GB Ram a 500 GB Hard disk, a AMD processor and it has a blu-ray player and DVD R/W drive. A HDMI output jack, I use that a lot for Amazon Prime viewing on my larger flatscreen. The battery is good for 3 or 4 hours of real world use. It qualified for a $15 upgrade to Windows 8, which I like, YMMV, but I added a free Start Menu program, which truly transformed my impression of Windows 8.

The laptop has been 100% reliable. Best part is I paid $379 total, with a 2 year interest free financing. The 17" HD screen is real nice, and it makes the blu-ray disks pop. Took it on a flight and had no problems watching a 2+ hour movie at full resolution and adequate brightness. I got mine from Nebraska Furniture Mart. Good luck in your search.
 
This July I bought a HP ProBook 4540S 15" laptop for $599 from Micro Center and am very happy with it. It has the Intel Core i5 3230M processor, 750GB hard drive, 8GB of DDR3-1333 RAM, a dedicated AMD Radeon HD 7650M 1GB video card, 15" LED LCD low-glare matte finish (not glossy) screen, DVD RW, Wi-Fi & Bluetooth and running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit with a Win 8 license included. Being a ProBook it is geared toward business use so it came with a minimum of bloatware and a more robust case than a consumer oriented laptop. I routinely have several IE windows open plus MS Word on a 24" display, while playing CDs and it has never even ran warm, much less hot. It also runs LightRoom quite well if you're into photography.

I place a priority on performance, reliability and future-proofing when buying computers and this does all that beautifully.
 
If you want a business grade laptop with Windows 7 for a reasonable price, consider looking in Dell Outlet Business a their Latitude line. These are refurbished but from the few I've seen, they are just like new and come with the same warranty as new:
http://www.dell.com/us/dfb/p/

The construction of the Latitude E6 line laptops I've seen is first class. The Latitude E6530 is 15.6" if you like one so large.
They frequently have discount coupons. Currently code "XV442WSHN7BR94" (expires 10/4/2013 at 9 am CT) takes 30% off the listed price at checkout.

But as bepperb wrote, even with the discounts, these will still cost about double that bargain bin $300 laptop. You have to decide what is worthwhile to you.
 
i appreciate the tips.. Im truly clueless on this topic.. 15 years ago i was somewhat familiar with PC's and what they offered.. nowadays im completely lost.
 
Dell Latitude or Lenovo Thinkpad T-series.

Both will last you for years.

I am really brand loyal to Lenovo but I have used Latitudes at work and they have stood up just fine as well.
 
I'm looking to replace this HP ZV6000 laptop that was given to me. It runs great, Windows XP Home SP2, but is starting to show signs of wear.
I have replaced the hinges once and they need it again. The plastics are starting to crack in places and I have worn the finish completely off the mouse pad. But, this "dinosaur" runs fantastic!

My 15 year old has a Gateway laptop that we got for him for Christmas last year from Walmart and it has been trouble free so far. A newer version is just $328 at Walmart these days so my wanting a new tablet has waned now!
 
find a good used Mac laptop, 1-2 years old from a reputable source. You'll save a lot from buying new and enjoy it for years to come...all without that stinging-high price tag.
 
Originally Posted By: bepperb
To be honest buy a 300 dollar 15.6 inch laptop and plan on replacing it in two or three years. Buying something twice the cost doesn't make it last twice as long. The lifespan of the battery is a huge factor, as is the wear and tear any laptop experiences. The performance difference between my 300 dollar home special and my 1200 dollar work laptop is nill, and while the commercial grade is better built I wouldn't expect it to work in 11 years.

I would also wait a few weeks for Windows 8.1, IIRC the release is mid October.


Isn't the 8.1 upgrade just about free for 8.0 users? I think with prices like we're seeing you almost can't go wrong. Personally, I would get cheap, but not cheapest. Get something that may seem somewhat overpowered now (like a quad core); it likely won't be overpowered in 3-4 years (about the period I upgrade computers at).

As far as battery life, it's all about battery managment. Laptop batteries hate to be left either near all empty of all full. My Samsung (3 Series NP..) has a setting in the BIOS that let's me select to maximize either battery life or maximize charge of the battery (at cost to battery life); so it charges the battery only to 80% capacity (this is not a big deal as the processor is efficient and runs for hrs even on 80%); the laptop is almost 2 years old now, and the battery seems to perform about the same as new.

I had a Gateway dual core prior to this (terrible experience and quality in my experience) that would always charge the battery to full (or 98% or so) and that thing would eat batteries on a yearly basis. There was no such setting in the BIOS to be found. (If the brand still exists, I would expect them to have improved slowly since Acer took them over.) Prior to that I had an HP single core machine that gave me a good number of years, until the power outlet finally went completely FUBAR (I had replaced the batts on that one once, with a cheap generic from china, worked fine).

I would say that I'm really happy with the Samsung; it's a quad core (AMD) but a power miser (35W TDP) and it seems to run much cooler than the i-core laptops from friends that I've come across. It vents some warmer air (like a mini space heater for you fingers) when you max out the CPU with BOINC but the body of the laptop is never hot.

I've got it set up in dual boot going to linux by default, and windows 7 only rarely on a need basis. I prefer to do any banking and such only by linux. I know win 8.0 has had safety improvments but I still trust unix more. I would urge anyone with old laptops or desktops to keep these machines and to put some easy to use version of linux on these (eg. mint, ubuntu, watt os).

Here's another 35W TDP laptop, with a larger screen less suitable for travel but ok for home:

http://3btech.net/hppag717ledl.html
 
Originally Posted By: 97prizm
Check out system 76 laptops. Very reasonable in price and very customizable.


+1; I have a system76 desktop running Ubuntu; avoid the Windoze nonsense and get a machine that doesn't slow down year after year.
 
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