parents want a laptop

[miketheidiot]

they want something under $1500 thats a good value for the money. Good tech support is a must, and from my perspective is a priority because i'm sick of doing remote tech-support. Something reputable that won't break in a year or that ships with cra harddrives, and doesn't have vista (unless they've fixed it)

 

[miketheidiot]

i've never owned a laptop and really have no clue.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Vista is fine for non-gamers, but Dell still offers XP as an option on some models.

In Dell's Small Business the Latitude 830 has a $1199 package with 15" screen, dual-core, 120GB, 3 years on-site service and 3-years accidental damage warranty.

If you choose Vista instead of XP you'd want to bump the RAM up to 2 GB (1 GB is fine for XP) (+$90), and for backups it might make sense to upgrade the CD-RW/DVD-ROM to a DVD burner (+$50)

The Latitude is better built than the Inspiron, and this package has 3 years of full coverage.

They could go much cheaper though -- a $600 Inspiron or Vostro with 1 year mail in warranty and no accidental damage coverage.

 

[JustaGeek]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
they want something under $1500 thats a good value for the money. Good tech support is a must, and from my perspective is a priority because i'm sick of doing remote tech-support. Something reputable that won't break in a year or that ships with cra harddrives, and doesn't have vista (unless they've fixed it)

Everything now has Vista - get used to it. And it is way better now after 11 months of updates.

You can't beat this deal, and you can pick up a copy of Crysis and Bioshock for free with it at Best Buy

Or any other 2 games for that matter. You can keep the games

$1299.99
Processor PlatformEnhanced Intel® Centrino® DuoProcessorIntel® Core(TM)2 Duo MobileProcessor Speed1.66GHz
Display TypeWXGA+ widescreen TFT-LCD with TruBrite technology (1440 x 900)Screen Size17"
System Bus667MHz
Cache Memory2MB at die Level 2
System Memory (RAM)2GBSystem Memory (RAM) Expandable To4GBType of Memory (RAM)DDR2 SDRAM
Hard Drive TypeSerial ATA (5400 rpm)Hard Drive Size240GB
Optical DriveDouble-layer DVD±RW/CD-RW driveOptical Drive Speeds4x DVD+R DL; 4x DVD-R DL; 8x8x8 DVD+RW; 8x6x8 DVD-RW; 5x DVD-RAM; 24x16x24 CD-RWDirect-Disc LabelingYesDigital Media Reader or SlotsYes, digital media card readerDiskette DriveNoGraphics
NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GTVideo MemoryUp to 255MB TurboCache (256MB GDDR2 discrete with up to 511MB total)

 

[Parasitic]

How about a Macbook? If you bought one from the Apple store and there are problems they can just bring it in to the Genius bar and have the tech support guys look at it for them.

$1099 + $349 Apple care?

Edit: you can get it cheaper if you are a college student too!
My parents (who aren't really technologically savvy) love my Macbook.

 

[ubercaffeinated]

lenovo thinkpad. it's what i'm getting my mom. stick to the thinkpad line and wait for some good deals.

 

[Rottie]

PC world magazine readers voted Lenovo and Apple tech support the best than HP and Dell so if the Tech support is important to you then you might want to look at Lenovo notebook I think Corkyg is going to tell you after he read this message...Or Apple MacBook Pro notebook you can have both worlds with Windows XP and Apple's new Leopard OS.

 

[Boo Boo]

dell under 1500 and complete care. get a xps 1530

 

[TC91]

i would definately recommend the acer aspire 5920/5920G. i have the lower version of the acer 5920, with the integrated gma x3100 instead of the geforce 8600m gt on the 5920G. i think it is a great laptop, awesome looks, excellent build quality, very very good speakers for a laptop, very good bang for buck, and has a very long battery life with the included 8cell, a little over 6hrs for word processing with no wifi, and 4-5hrs with wifi/wmp on surfing the net, 2.5-3hrs on a heavy load. i have the integrated graphics, so the one with the 8600m gt might have slightly less battery life.
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3897
http://www.notebookcheck.net/R...G-Notebook.4217.0.html

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: Parasitic
How about a Macbook? If you bought one from the Apple store and there are problems they can just bring it in to the Genius bar and have the tech support guys look at it for them.

$1099 + $349 Apple care?

Edit: you can get it cheaper if you are a college student too!
My parents (who aren't really technologically savvy) love my Macbook.

Seconded. For people you don't want to ever have to support again get them a Mac of some kind.