Need help selecting a laptop vendor

[brad310]

I was a member here about 6 years ago and lost my login about 2 years ago...so I'm starting the counter over, but not new to the forums

At any rate, im looking to spend about 1200 on a laptop. I havent done my research yet and I have no experience with Vista yet, so this will likely be my first.

I presume from what i've picked up thus far, I want Vista Ultimate, 2GB Ram, and a non-integrated graphics card. I will not be gaming on this laptop, just for the family to use for surfing + office apps. This will be wireless w/ a printer

I just started hunting a couple of hours ago and so far the best deal I found was from ibuypower.

Do you guys have any specific recommendations ?

 

[TheStu]

Alright... You do not need Vista Ultimate, 2GB of RAM or non-integrated graphics

Frankly for what you are doing, a laptop from 3 years ago will do the job just fine, so long as it has 1GB of RAM.

You might want to head on over to Best Buy or Circuit City... check out their selections there if for no other reason than that you can get a feel for the keyboards and trackpads (i don't care who says that trackpads suck, they do on most, but not all... and frankly you can't always have a mouse) and also what screen size you want.

 

[brad310]

Thanks for the reply. Screensize is not important.

plus i think since im keeping my desktop wired i can share out my existing printer that way.

 

[onlyCOpunk]

If you have no intentions of playing games then integrated graphics are fine. You don't need Vista Ultimate, home premium will do, but 2gigs of ram will certainly be sufficient. Have you given a thought to the Macbook? It would be in your pricerange and do everything you suggested flawlessly, inlcuding running Windows Vista

 

[Build it Myself]

can you build laptops like you can build a desktop? I'm just curious since I can't seem to find anywhere selling those kinds of parts other than laptop RAM...no cases, mobo's etc. My wife's laptop died today and she's using mine now but she needs a new one.

 

[Old Hippie]

Originally posted by: Build it Myself
can you build laptops like you can build a desktop? I'm just curious since I can't seem to find anywhere selling those kinds of parts other than laptop RAM...no cases, mobo's etc. My wife's laptop died today and she's using mine now but she needs a new one.

Try Googling for ABS laptops (for some reason I can't link to it). That seems to be the happening place. You more or less, just configure lappies.

Good Luck!

 

[TheStu]

Building a laptop is more like putting together a barebones desktop. You will usually receive the case, mobo, screen and keyboard/trackpad. Then you would shop your own CPU, RAM, Hard Drive and Optical drive. Frankly, I would much rather have an actual warranty on all the parts together than any possible savings that would exist.

Oh, and OnlyCOpunk, i'm glad someone other than me suggested the MacBook... but now that it is out there... WOOOOO get a Mac!!!!!

 

[DaveSimmons]

> just for the family to use for surfing + office apps

1 GB RAM and any AMD or Intel processor should be fine, though 2 GB will be a little faster in Vista when running Office applications. Dual-core (AMD X2 or intel Core 2) is nice but not essential.

The Dell Inspiron 1521 $749 system (Turion X2, 2GB, Vista Premium, 120GB HD) would be nice, though I'd spend the +$40 for a DVD burner = $799.

The Dell Inspiron 1520 $849 system includes an intel core 2 a real graphics card (nvidia 8400) but you'll need the DVD burner +$40 and will probably want to upgrade the RAM to 2 GB (+$125 = $1,014 with Dell RAM, a little less if you buy elsewhere)

You'd probably be OK with a $500-600 laptop with Vista Basic or XP, but the above should have better build quality and performance.