Laptop Suggestions

[Beltar]

I just had someone ask me to recommend them a laptop for their daughter as a gift. She's going to be going away to college and they wanted to get her one as a gift. All she would need is a basic laptop for regular use, and school. I don't personally know too much about which laptops are good so I figured I'd ask around here and see what some of you all thought. They didn't really give me a price range, but I know they don't want to spend a ton on it. Any suggestions?

 

[tynopik]

college is about being cool, and all the cool kids have macbooks

 

[bruceb]

Dell is good, but a bit costly.
HP is good
Toshiba is very good (can't kill mine about 8 years old now)
Acer is said to be good

 

[nerp]

18-year-old girl, first year in college..

First dorm party, it gets stolen.

Get her the cheapest compaq you can find at bestbuy (300-400) upgrade it to 2GB of ram and make sure you write down the serial number.

Nuff said.

 

[Rottie]

It depends on how much you want to spend your money Apple MacBook Pro costs well under 2000 depends on the size of screen and other have said about Compaq is cheaper like between 500 to 800 depends on configuations you choose. If you want rebates look for Dell and HP/Compaq notebook. I dont know about Apple Macbook Pro with rebate.

Good luck

 

[atbnet]

I guess I am the Dell outlet advocate here. I've bought two desktops and two laptops without any problem from there even though they were listed as refurbish, they were brand new as far as I could tell. It will definitely save the parents some cash. I really wouldn't worry about it getting stolen from the dorm because dorms are small so any party would be limited to close friends and if you have to worry about your friends taking your stuff you need to look for new ones. Just lock your door up and you are good.

Apple is nice, I owned a Macbook but I didn't care much for OS X. I guess I have been using Windows far too long to switch.

Thinkpads are solid machines, though expensive. I just bought a used one and for being a few years old it is still very nice.

Looking for a used one on eBay or around here is also a solution because there are a lot of people out there like me who go through a laptop a year and take good care of their machines, but always looking for the latest and greatest. This is definitely YMMV.

I would also wait until summer to buy it because there are usually better deals such as Apple's back to school sale where you can get a iPod product or money off a more expensive one. Last summer it was a $175 rebate or a free Nano. Plus there will probably be a refresh by then from just about any manufacturer.