best sub-$1000 laptops?

[vaporize]

I am thinking of buying either Dell Inspiron 1100 or Toshiba A15-S157. I think the Toshiba is better. Its got bigger hdd, mem, screen, and built-in wifi-b. i want 15", 256+, 2G, dvd/cdrw. both dell 1100 and tosiba a15 are $800 after $250 rebate. do you guys know any other good value laptops?

 

[vaporize]

oops, how did this post get bumped?

 

[Lyfer]

I would get the Dell. Just wait around for specials, they usually throw in additional 256mb of ram or a DVD/CD-RW combos for free every now and then.

 

[vegetation]

I agree, just wait around for the next deal. $800 after rebate is just too much for the 1100.

 

[madthumbs]

Dell isn't so great for laptops. Toshiba is about the best you can get. The weakness of the A15-S157 is the video chipset, and the limited usb ports. If you're not a gamer... no problem. I don't really think it's too bad for gaming. I've run Quake 3 on it ok, but haven't seriously gamed on it yet. I believe this model is discontinued. I bought mine last week, and it was the last one in Circuit City. I would consider a Fujitsu over a Dell also. Fujitsus are probably one of the top 4 brands for reliability in laptops and seem to come with plenty of usb and other features.

 

[egale]

I have the A15-127 which is very similar. Paid $749 for it after rebate. I originally ordered the Dell but they are so difficult to deal with that I finally cancelled the order. I had it on order and found a new coupon so I asked Dell to apply it and they cancelled the order and said I had to reorder. I did and the new ship date was a month away! So, I went to Compusa where the Toshiba was on sale.

All in all it is very good for what I need it for. It is not a desktop replacement by any means. The screen is no match for my Viewsonic VP171P and the video is slow. Spec wise, it is very similar to the Dell. My only real complaint is with the battery life. If I am running a game, I don't think it will last more than an hour. With no game running, maybe an hour and a half.

Also, the finish on the Toshiba is not very sturdy. The top cover has spots that look like the finish has been rubbed off yet the laptop is stored in a padded case and never knocked around.

 

[egale]

I have the A15-127 which is very similar. Paid $749 for it after rebate. I originally ordered the Dell but they are so difficult to deal with that I finally cancelled the order. I had it on order and found a new coupon so I asked Dell to apply it and they cancelled the order and said I had to reorder. I did and the new ship date was a month away! So, I went to Compusa where the Toshiba was on sale.

All in all it is very good for what I need it for. It is not a desktop replacement by any means. The screen is no match for my Viewsonic VP171P and the video is slow. Spec wise, it is very similar to the Dell. My only real complaint is with the battery life. If I am running a game, I don't think it will last more than an hour. With no game running, maybe an hour and a half.

Also, the finish on the Toshiba is not very sturdy. The top cover has spots that look like the finish has been rubbed off yet the laptop is stored in a padded case and never knocked around.

 

[madthumbs]

I had a similar problem ordering from Dell once. They cancelled my order and didn't even inform me of the cancellation! So here I am waiting around for weeks for my part until I decide to call them. They actually had the nerve to try to get me to reorder through them! I wouldn't order from them again. A good friend of mine bought a desktop from them. Nothing but problems. For some strange reason, I couldn't run a lot of simple programs like Opera! This forum is much better than their useless tech support.

Anyway, I thought there was a poll on this a short time ago, where Toshiba and IBM came out on top, and Fujitsu got mentioned a few times. I don't trust IBM because of their HD fiasco.

 

[alexruiz]

Get the Compaq Presario 2100z, or the HP pavilion 4500 with AMD..... with the existing 10% coupon and the $100 MIR it can go as low as $664 for a machine that will run circles around the celerons offered by the competition. (happy 2100z owner)

 

[sniperruff]

anything with a pentium-m is good stuff

depends what kind of laptop you're looking for.
1) desktop replacement
2) light and mobile

basically desktop replacement will get you more features aka CDRW/DVD. bigger screen, more expandable and faster CPU, but they are heavy (the new toshiba with a p4 HT CPU and a 17inch LCD weighs almost 10 pounds)

a light and mobile will generally cost more and be slower. however with the new pentium-m they are fast and also saves energy. they generally cost more than the big laptops, and are about 5 pounds, or even 2.9 pounds (dell 300m and the IBM X31)

so decide what to get first, $1000 will get you a pretty fast desktop replacement but only an OK pentium laptop

 

[madthumbs]

Originally posted by: alexruiz
Get the Compaq Presario 2100z, or the HP pavilion 4500 with AMD..... with the existing 10% coupon and the $100 MIR it can go as low as $664 for a machine that will run circles around the celerons offered by the competition. (happy 2100z owner)

-If only Compaq/HP had the reputation that Toshiba has. (happy 2.2 GHz owner with 40GB toshiba HD and 512MB ram for ~$850). Something to consider also would be the amount of time the battery lasts. Centrino's I've heard last around 8-9 hours, and may consume much less electric overall. The a15-S157 lasts approximately 3 hours for full use, but centrino based laptops can cost more initially. I tried running futuremark 2003 today and found it would only benchmark 1 of the 4 games, and wouldn't touch the cpu benchmarks which I find odd. It does play Quake 3 rather well though.

 

[Abhi]

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=51&threadid=1146718&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=

Answers all ur Qs.