First laptop advice

[Imp]

I'm seriously looking into buying a laptop for a combination of portability (at home) and school work. This isn't going to be used in the classroom (in part-time grad school now), just for carrying around and working on assignments away from home. Also, I'd like to use it to surf infront of the TV without having to power on my desktop. No plans for games since my desktop is barely a year old and runs everything maxed.

My preference is for a 13"-14" for portability, and my price range is $600-ish or less. Since it'll mostly be used for surfing and Office, I don't foresee the need for much power, but I'm thinking an i3 and 3GB of Ram would be nice; really not sure what is adequate yet not gimped for running Win 7 32-bit.


I have it semi-narrowed down to these two (the XPS is over my budget and Inspirons only come in 15" hence the Vostro/business line):

http://configure.dell.com/dellstore...ca&l=en&s=bsd&cs=cabsdt1&model_id=vostro-3300

http://configure.dell.com/dellstore...ca&l=en&s=bsd&cs=cabsdt1&model_id=vostro-3400


I'm open to other brands, but I've had a good experience with Dell's service. Hope you can provide suggestions since I a have no experience buying laptops.

Thanks!

 

[sgrinavi]

Is the dell outlet available in your neck of the woods? great prices, they often run sales/coupons and have a warrantee like new

 

[AstroGuardian]

Since you aint gonna make money out of it i recommend you pick up as cheap combination as possible which matches your criteria

 

[Imp]

Is the dell outlet available in your neck of the woods? great prices, they often run sales/coupons and have a warrantee like new

Huh, just googled it and it turns out that we do have a Dell Outlet in Canada. Site looks cheap but legit.

http://dfsdirect.ca/

I'll run through it see what's available.


Edit: Someone's either on drugs doing the pricing, or this site is dead and a scam. There are 1+ gen old laptops with C2D or older, and 1GB of RAM going for the same price as a brand new i3/i5.

 

[Eug]

Every time I've looked at dfsdirect, it's been utter crap for not so low prices. Not a scam though, just stupid.

If you want some Canadian deals, I would suggest The Source "demo" laptops.

http://www.thesource.ca/estore/categ...y=demo-laptops

They're supposed to be demo models for clearout, but I think they're better described as old and discontinued models for clearout, because my "demo" was brand-new-in-box. The box had never been opened. Reports are that some are indeed demos, but many if not most are BNIB.

If you're really just wanting it for on-the-road light use and couch surfing, I'd suggest even a 13"-14" might be a bit on the large side. I have a 13.3" MacBook Pro and I find it annoying to carry around. Like you, I already have a maxed out desktop, so my heavy lifting is done on that and I decided I wanted an even smaller laptop, but one that isn't as crippled as a 10" netbook.

So, I bought a 11.6" netbook/laptop and I'm tickled pink by it. It comes with a reasonable Core 2 Duo class CPU, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, 2 GB RAM (upgradable to 4 GB), 250 GB HD, 8-hour battery (!), and it's only 3 lbs, perfect for carrying around lots, including to the couch. The best part is that it's only $399.96, with free shipping to your local The Source store (or I think usually $7 shipping otherwise).

 

[sgrinavi]

Huh, just googled it and it turns out that we do have a Dell Outlet in Canada. Site looks cheap but legit.

http://dfsdirect.ca/

I'll run through it see what's available.


Edit: Someone's either on drugs doing the pricing, or this site is dead and a scam. There are 1+ gen old laptops with C2D or older, and 1GB of RAM going for the same price as a brand new i3/i5.

DFS are off lease returns, usually a couple gens old. I would stay away too.

In the states we have a dell small business outlet and a dell home outlet .
The are returns, scratch and dents or ordered new and cancelled items and are 30-40% cheaper than new.

For example, the cheapest m4500 you can get new is about $1300. A guy I know just got one for a skatch under $700.

I don't beleive it exists in CA, but maybe you have a bud that woudl help you out.

 

[Imp]

Thanks for the additional advice.

Bleh, only person I knew that lived in the U.S. just moved back to my hometown (there goes my J.Crew contact), so no dice on the Dell Outlet.

The Source looks like a good place for getting great deals. Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of Acer (bad experienced with Asus cheap-lines). The HPs look good, but a bit out of my price range or too big in size. I'll remember to check it out in the future.


I ended up ordering that exact Vostro 3400 that I linked to in the OP. Just going to stick with 2Gb of Ram unless it really starts bugging me; surfing and ancient engineering programs shouldn't give it much trouble. Cost to upgrade Ram to 3GB from 2Gb is $40 anyways, and for that, I can get about 3Gb (~$60 for 2Gbx2 here). Comes out to $600 with tax, so that's not bad.