How the hell do you pick a laptop?!

[Jon]

I've been shopping for a laptop for a few months and it's driving me nuts. I've never bought a laptop, so this is new to me. I've always built my PC but a laptop... not an option.

What should I look for?
I'll be using it for CAD and other design software, as well as general web surfing and email stuff.
Minimal gaming, but obviously a dedicated video card will make the CAD software run much smoother.

My price range was around $500, but it seems like if I want to get enough oomph so I don't have to replace it two months down the road I'm looking around $800 and up.

Anyone with some insight for a first time lappy buyer would be appreciated!

[CustomLowz]

I am a fan of Toshiba machines. I did the research and between reading specs/reviews and working on various machines, I would to towards Toshiba or Asus. Stay away from Dell and HP (but those are my opinions) and obviously others will disagree with me.

[turbomaxx]

I am a fan of Toshiba machines. I did the research and between reading specs/reviews and working on various machines, I would to towards Toshiba or Asus. Stay away from Dell and HP (but those are my opinions) and obviously others will disagree with me.

I politely disagree...

When I worked for Walmart in the electronics dept, we had no joke at least 2 Toshiba's returned EACH month.

They were either broken, or the sound quality was garbage, or they were too slow (which was moreso because people don't understand the specs they read)

I have been using my Compaq Presario CQ60 for 4 years now. NEVER had a single problem. The sound quality is decent, the memory is good, the screen is quite large, and the keyboard is just perfect. The mouse pad isn't too sensitive or too numb. And it was only $398. I believe you can get them for less now, as well. I'd suggest checking them out. HP owns compaq presario, and HP has been #1 in computer sales for some time.

Hope this helps! Customlowz, I await your rebuttle.

[MikeW]

I've had my Toshiba satellite for over 2 years now. The only issues I have with it are that it doesnt have a 10-key and it fingerprints easy. There are a few other issues but they are caused by user error, lol.

I dont know(or care) alot about sound quality and all that blah, blah, blah. I can play, store and listen to plenty of movies, music and videos; i can cam, play games. It performs every function I need it to.

[Ralphie]

I have an Acer Aspire 1410 series netbook.

A lot of people talk shit about Acer but they are not as shitty as they use to be.

Go check out the new Acer's with the touchscreen keyboard...yes i said it...the bottom half is all touchscreen.

Anyway if your doing any type of editing, you need a Mac son.

Since they start at like 1100 lol i guess your out of the run.

For a Windows machine....def stay away from HP...i think theyre overpriced and they don't seem to last long(moms had 3 of them)

Dell....no.

ASUS and Acer is good from all my readings.

Lenovo makes a mean laptop...my mom replaced her HP with a Lenovo and it is pretty sick, and still runs pretty fast even though she dumbs garbage on it lol.

Toshiba ive never heard anything awesome about but ive never heard anything horrible either...there one of those companies i think that just produce a quality item for a decent price but don't ever astound anyone.

In the end, we can give you opinions, but you should do your research man.

Ive spent 3-4 months researching HDTV and im still learning new things about them.

Gotta put in the time if you want to make a solid purchase.

[CustomLowz]

I politely disagree...

When I worked for Walmart in the electronics dept, we had no joke at least 2 Toshiba's returned EACH month.

They were either broken, or the sound quality was garbage, or they were too slow (which was moreso because people don't understand the specs they read)

I have been using my Compaq Presario CQ60 for 4 years now. NEVER had a single problem. The sound quality is decent, the memory is good, the screen is quite large, and the keyboard is just perfect. The mouse pad isn't too sensitive or too numb. And it was only $398. I believe you can get them for less now, as well. I'd suggest checking them out. HP owns compaq presario, and HP has been #1 in computer sales for some time.

Hope this helps! Customlowz, I await your rebuttle.

lol... I think this is the most polite argument i've ever been a part of... I can just picture 2 old englishmen having an argument...


Anyways, I have gone through 2 HP's in the last 3 years. Every issue I have had with them, I found that is a VERY common issue and that HP's remedy is to have them replace the motherboard (which also can take months for turnaround) if its under warranty. I spent months looking for a machine for my personal use (same as the OP except that I dont use CAD anymore). Out of all the big names, I found that DELL's quality and customer service has gone down while their prices have gone up (paying for the name). I dont know anything on GATEWAY or ACER. HP has ALOT of hardware problems, SONY is very overpriced. Which leads to TOSHIBA and ASUS. ASUS is good but they arent as known as a laptop comany yet. They have been making PC components for over 20 years now. Since they manufacture their own internal parts, the cost is lower for the machine. TOSHIBA has a very sturdy high quality machine. The only "complaints" I've read are stupid... "the finish leaves fingerprints" and They touchpad is not centered... BOO FREAKIN HOO...



Your turn my friend...

[Pandemic]

this is going to be more confusing than not asking what laptop to get. Its like asking what car to buy.

The best around at the moment are Apple, Dell, HP, and Lenovo. I'd stick with one of those.

Ive been working with mac lately and I must say I'm surprised by them. I'm planning on buying a mac for my wife actually.

I always hated mac but now that I'm using the latest OS with an Intel chip it's pretty slick. Plus you can use bootcamp to run windows on. Or Parallels for a virtual desktop.

[CustomLowz]

this is going to be more confusing than not asking what laptop to get. Its like asking what car to buy.

The best around at the moment are Apple, Dell, HP, and Lenovo. I'd stick with one of those.

Ive been working with mac lately and I must say I'm surprised by them. I'm planning on buying a mac for my wife actually.

I always hated mac but now that I'm using the latest OS with an Intel chip it's pretty slick. Plus you can use bootcamp to run windows on. Or Parallels for a virtual desktop.

I completely forgot about LENOVO, which is bad, because I work on them for my company and am using one right now... I am all for lenovo (especially the business line) but they are WAY out of the OP's price range... at least 2X for the lower end stuff.

[19dabeast85]

Acer makes some great laptops. Asus and Lenova are up there too. You'll do fine with 4gb ram, 500gb drive, and 2.2ghz+ dual core processor but the graphics is where you want to spend extra on. More processor capacity will help with cad also but not as much as graphics. Here's a nice one for $745 shipped

Regardless of brand, if you want the best performance you're going to want to reinstall Win7 to get all of the incorporated manufacturer crap programs off the system. I also suggest making a separate c:\ partition of 30gb to install Win7 onto as well as an 8 gb partition to assign the local cache to and a third partition of the rest of the drive for all you programs, movies, music, etc....this will make for a much more reliable and smoother machine and is very easy to do during re-installation!

[turbomaxx]

lol... I think this is the most polite argument i've ever been a part of... I can just picture 2 old englishmen having an argument...


Anyways, I have gone through 2 HP's in the last 3 years. Every issue I have had with them, I found that is a VERY common issue and that HP's remedy is to have them replace the motherboard (which also can take months for turnaround) if its under warranty. I spent months looking for a machine for my personal use (same as the OP except that I dont use CAD anymore). Out of all the big names, I found that DELL's quality and customer service has gone down while their prices have gone up (paying for the name). I dont know anything on GATEWAY or ACER. HP has ALOT of hardware problems, SONY is very overpriced. Which leads to TOSHIBA and ASUS. ASUS is good but they arent as known as a laptop comany yet. They have been making PC components for over 20 years now. Since they manufacture their own internal parts, the cost is lower for the machine. TOSHIBA has a very sturdy high quality machine. The only "complaints" I've read are stupid... "the finish leaves fingerprints" and They touchpad is not centered... BOO FREAKIN HOO...



Your turn my friend...

"But I say, Sir, MINE has lasted all of four years!"


I agree, MOST complaints about Toshibas are just senseless. "The matte finish is ugly, the gloss finish leaves prints..."

But MANY times, people complained that the speakers sounded AWFUL, or they just didn't work. Sometimes the screens developed flaws, or keys popped off the boards.

I think Acer is a decent brand... But you get what you pay for. IMO, a cheap Acer is a POS. My roommate is an IT nerd. He has the $800 acer, and man... I hate to admit it, but it's one hell of a machine. Good, clear speakers... Big screen. LED lighting etc. HDMI outputs are pretty cool, too.

I agree with most here, Dell has a HORRIBLE rep at this point. But my sister had her dell for... 6 years? Maybe it was even 7 before it broke. And I think we can all agree that to be much longer than expected for a laptop!

I also think that it's more about the user and usage than it is brand. It's like cars, kind of. People tend to regard my beloved Dodges as trash. But I maintain them and pay attention to what they are doing inside and out, And I've never had a problem. Equally, I think that a Dell, used properly (No Limewire or any shit like that) could work very well for long periods of time.

The Gentlemens argument is now yours to make vocal. I await your reply...

[DrLove'sKuDang]

I got an acer from bestbuy for my wife. It was pretty cheap, under $400 on sale. It had a intel chip, dual 2ghz, 4gb ram and a 500gb hdd. Loaded with win7, but I reinstalled with a clean version of win7 ultimate... no more preloaded bs.

For your price range, you're not going to get a monster CPU, so just get anything you like for the right price. Check out a few CPU benchmarks, but depending on what type of "thinking" your CPU will be doing, Amd might be better, and usually less expensive.

[texasvtak]

when it comes to laptops, im absolutely a mac***.

[Tippey764]

I like HP alot.

Currently im on a HP zd7000 ( 2003-2004 era ) with a pentium 4 3.2ghz, nvidia fx5200, 2gb ddr1 ram and the fastest idea 2.5" laptop hard drive. The thing runs windows 7 like a champ.

In a laptop the main things to look for i would say are

Screen size
Graphics card ( because you can't upgrad this in 99% of laptops )
Hard drive speed

Hard drive space and ram can be easily upgraded so they don't mean shit to me

Always get an accidential warranty through the manufacture not through bestbuy or whereever

I have gotten 2 free laptops through my accidential warranty plan, if i could get one for this zd7000 i would.

[Jon]

Thanks for all the feedback guys!

I'm a Mac guy through and through (as I type this on my 27" iMac) and I would get a Macbook BUT I need a PC for a few "proprietary" things and don't want to spend more then $1000 (starting price of a Macbook). It never hurts to have multiple platforms around the house.

I've been hovering around Toshiba, ASUS, Acer, and Lenovo because it just seems like you get a better equipped machine for the price. That and I have an ASUS monitor for my shop PC and it's just an amazing monitor.

Right now I'm seriously looking at the ASUS N53JQ-XV1, seems to fit the bill for everything I want/need, just a little bit on the higher priced area I was trying to avoid. Need one to fall off the back of a truck.

I guess this weekend I'll head out and test drive some with all of this new info I have and see what I come up with.

[GeoffM]

You don't pick a laptop, a laptop chooses you.

Go to the store without doing any research, look at the specs for hours until you start to get sweaty. Finally just as the store is about to close give in to your misgivings and buy whichever one looks the coolest/best.

Hopefully I was helpful

Note: Using this method, I have an acer. The only complaint I have is Vista.
Something like 4 or 5 years ?