Best Laptop for the Buck

[EdfromCocoa]

To all,

This must have been asked a thousand times. Looking for a laptop with XP Pro that is state of the art now. What is important is ability to run VISTA and has great reliability.

Ed

 

[AmigaMan]

reliability==Lenovo. Best bang for the buck==Dell (or maybe an Acer or Asus). You have to pay for quality though and if I were looking at an XP machine today, I'd get a Thinkpad T60p or something similar. The other option is you can add on the extra warranty to the Dell and pray their customer service improves if you have a problem. There's no way I'd get a Dell today without getting an extended warranty and really, that advice should go for any laptop (Thinkpads come with a 3 year std warranty).

 

[WackyDan]

Originally posted by: AmigaMan
reliability==Lenovo. Best bang for the buck==Dell (or maybe an Acer or Asus). You have to pay for quality though and if I were looking at an XP machine today, I'd get a Thinkpad T60p or something similar. The other option is you can add on the extra warranty to the Dell and pray their customer service improves if you have a problem. There's no way I'd get a Dell today without getting an extended warranty and really, that advice should go for any laptop (Thinkpads come with a 3 year std warranty).

ThinkPads come with either a 1 year or 3 year. You can typically find the same configs with either, with just a higher price on the 3 year model.

 

[AmigaMan]

Originally posted by: WackyDan

Originally posted by: AmigaMan
reliability==Lenovo. Best bang for the buck==Dell (or maybe an Acer or Asus). You have to pay for quality though and if I were looking at an XP machine today, I'd get a Thinkpad T60p or something similar. The other option is you can add on the extra warranty to the Dell and pray their customer service improves if you have a problem. There's no way I'd get a Dell today without getting an extended warranty and really, that advice should go for any laptop (Thinkpads come with a 3 year std warranty).

ThinkPads come with either a 1 year or 3 year. You can typically find the same configs with either, with just a higher price on the 3 year model.

that's weird, when I was in the process of choosing between my MBP and the T60p a couple months ago, all I saw were Thinkpads with 3 year warranties so I figured it was standard. I could have swore I saw "std." next to the warranty, maybe I imagined it...

 

[slackwarelinux]

I think Acer has one of the best "bang for buck" laptops out right now. For $1070 online you can get a core duo laptop with a X1600, 1GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive, and a DVD burner. Two or three year extensions on the warranty are available at reasonable prices.The build quality might not be up to more expensive laptops, but I don't think it would be all that bad.

 

[ai42]

I think Gateway is certainly coming up. I bought a MX3215 a couple of months back on a Best Buy sale and I am rather surprised how well built it is, with a magnesium LCD lid, and the shell appears to be made largly of nickel. Certainly not the lightest thing around but for $400 I was really surprised on the build quality of it overall. It is cheap cheap but performs decently with 1GB of RAM.

 

[6000SUX]

Originally posted by: AmigaMan

Originally posted by: WackyDan

Originally posted by: AmigaMan
reliability==Lenovo. Best bang for the buck==Dell (or maybe an Acer or Asus). You have to pay for quality though and if I were looking at an XP machine today, I'd get a Thinkpad T60p or something similar. The other option is you can add on the extra warranty to the Dell and pray their customer service improves if you have a problem. There's no way I'd get a Dell today without getting an extended warranty and really, that advice should go for any laptop (Thinkpads come with a 3 year std warranty).

ThinkPads come with either a 1 year or 3 year. You can typically find the same configs with either, with just a higher price on the 3 year model.

that's weird, when I was in the process of choosing between my MBP and the T60p a couple months ago, all I saw were Thinkpads with 3 year warranties so I figured it was standard. I could have swore I saw "std." next to the warranty, maybe I imagined it...

I think that T60p models may always come with three-year warranties, at least that's all I've seen on their website. I'm too lazy to look in tabook to find out for sure.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Dell's "Gold Tech Support" is actually good, you have to pay for it though.

Bang for the buck, look at HP:
http://www.laptoplogic.com/reviews/list.php?firm_id=4

 

[EdfromCocoa]

To all of you thanks. You have given me the ammo I need to make a decision. Leaning towards an Acer or Think PAd but will not rule out an HP either.

Thanks to all,

Ed

 

[WackyDan]

Originally posted by: AmigaMan

Originally posted by: WackyDan

Originally posted by: AmigaMan
reliability==Lenovo. Best bang for the buck==Dell (or maybe an Acer or Asus). You have to pay for quality though and if I were looking at an XP machine today, I'd get a Thinkpad T60p or something similar. The other option is you can add on the extra warranty to the Dell and pray their customer service improves if you have a problem. There's no way I'd get a Dell today without getting an extended warranty and really, that advice should go for any laptop (Thinkpads come with a 3 year std warranty).

ThinkPads come with either a 1 year or 3 year. You can typically find the same configs with either, with just a higher price on the 3 year model.

that's weird, when I was in the process of choosing between my MBP and the T60p a couple months ago, all I saw were Thinkpads with 3 year warranties so I figured it was standard. I could have swore I saw "std." next to the warranty, maybe I imagined it...

T60P's come with 3yr on all, and "regular" T60 can come with a 1 or 3.... So yes, a 3year is standard on the "p" models.

 

[Rogue 2]

PLEASE do yourself a favor and don't get an Acer! We (the college I work for) purchased about 20 of them last summer and we've sent back no less than half of them for dead motherboards, failed HDDs, crappy WiFi cards w/ no range and can't connect to our network, etc... just bad.

We've been through so many that were supposed to be "good" that we consider it a craps shoot - we just buy the one w/ the best warranty and service so when they break we're not out for long. Gateway's been real good to us in this regard, good service and so far a pretty good product. Much improved over days of old, so our Help Desk guys tell me...

So I have a choice, I go with the flow and get a Gateway M-255E series laptop, or go "on my own" and get something else and fix it myself if/when it breaks (since I'm not going w/ the college standard). I'm thinking of just sucking it up and going w/ the Gateway. We've banged a bunch of them around and the build quality seems good.

Maybe it's because we're a college that we have good service, not sure. But.. YMMV of course!

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: Rogue 2
PLEASE do yourself a favor and don't get an Acer! We (the college I work for) purchased about 20 of them last summer and we've sent back no less than half of them for dead motherboards, failed HDDs, crappy WiFi cards w/ no range and can't connect to our network, etc... just bad.

We've been through so many that were supposed to be "good" that we consider it a craps shoot - we just buy the one w/ the best warranty and service so when they break we're not out for long. Gateway's been real good to us in this regard, good service and so far a pretty good product. Much improved over days of old, so our Help Desk guys tell me...

So I have a choice, I go with the flow and get a Gateway M-255E series laptop, or go "on my own" and get something else and fix it myself if/when it breaks (since I'm not going w/ the college standard). I'm thinking of just sucking it up and going w/ the Gateway. We've banged a bunch of them around and the build quality seems good.

Maybe it's because we're a college that we have good service, not sure. But.. YMMV of course!

I've not been impressed with the quality of low end Acer's and MSI in general, but my experience is limited compared to my experience with HP, Lenovo, Dell, etc. Gateway quality seems okay (assuming they fixed the hinge issues), but their basic consumer support is a bit disappointing IMO. I've heard reports of their business support also and wasn't impressed with that either. Could have changed though, they've been making big pushes for business contracts.

 

[Rogue 2]

Yeah, we have a Gateway rep who handles our account and is pretty responsive. Like I said, it's probably because we're "higher ed" and buy a lot of stuff (though we're a smaller college they still treat us nice). Guess it's a lot different when buying a laptop for personal use.

 

[esun]

I'll just add in another vote for the Thinkpad. Honestly, the best evidence you'll find is walking into a big tech company and looking around. All you'll see are IBMs (okay, Lenovo now, whatever). They're just built the best, but they do cost extra.