laptop for my sister

my little sister needs a laptop for school. she needs it to be under 700 way less if posable. she dont play video games at all .she needs good battery life i assume and wireless conectivty for school also i would like it to be strong she may drop it

CompUsa has a good deal on a Toshiba

Processor Brand: Intel
Processor Class: Celeron M Processor
Processor Number: 360J
Processor Speed: 1.4 GHz
Bus Speed: 400 MHz
Mobile Technology: Other
L2 Cache Size: 1 MB
Memory Speed: PC2700 (333MHz)
Memory Technology: DDR-SDRAM
Installed Memory: 256 MB
Maximum Memory: 1.25 GB
Hard Drive Capacity: 40 GB
Drive Controllers: IDE (ATA/EIDE/ATAPI)
Rotational Speed: 5400 RPM
CD-RW Write Speed: 24 X
CD-RW Rewrite Speed: 24 X
CD-RW Read Speed: 24 X
DVD Read Speed: 8 X
Additional Drives: DVD/CD-RW Combo
Sound Support: 3D Audio
Video Chipset: ATI Mobility RADEON 9000
Shared Video RAM: 64 MB
Shared Video RAM (Max): 128 MB
Resolution: 1024 x 768 (XGA)
Display Size: 15.0 in
Display Type: TruBrite™ Screen Technology


I wouldn't recommend dropping it though.

Raggie, have her look on Techbargains.com - they are always posting deals on laptops there. Good luck to her...which school is she going to?

There are some good Dell Inspiron 4150's on eBay going for about 1/2 of what you're willing to spend. That's the laptop I've had for a couple of years now, no complaints. Mine doesn't have wireless, but you can get a card for $40-60.

Watch out for the Dell Inspiron 600. It's a nice machine but it has a poor design where the 3-pin power connector is soldered directly to the motherboard (it should float). The stress from day-to-day plugging in, unplugging and bumping the connector around tends to focus the stress on the solder connections on the MoBo, so they break. And the machine has to be COMPLETELY disassembled to get to that *@!% connector.
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

Does the school have any recommendations for what to get? Often if you get what the tech guys are recommending they will go out of their way to support that model. Where if you get something different, even if it's the same in everything except the name they will blame any problem you have on your not being compatible. Which is bogus, but they do it anyway...

That being said, one of my favorite Mac resellers Small Dog Electronics has lots of used and refurbished iBooks for between $500 and $600. Some really good deals on their iBook page. And I've bought a lot from those guys in the past, nice folks and easy to deal with, very helpful.

she is going to kenesaw ga coledge i forget there name she went there before but she wants new degree or something.i think she is going for a nurseing degree which is weird she already has great job but my dad said the kinda nurse she is going to be makes a lot a money i hope he is corect.i told em about the laptop at compusa.price aint bad and we can add more memory if she wants.

[ QUOTE ]
James said:
Often if you get what the tech guys are recommending they will go out of their way to support that model. Where if you get something different, even if it's the same in everything except the name they will blame any problem you have on your not being compatible. Which is bogus, but they do it anyway...

[/ QUOTE ]

My brother-in-law has a Dell laptop. I helped his wife {my sister} buy it for him last Christmas. We went with the Dell wireless card that is just as energy-efficient as the Intel Centrino card, but he lost the Centrino badging.

Anyway, long story short, the network guys at his school said that ONLY the Centrino cards were supported on the campus network, but they'd be happy to sell him one. The Dell card supported the network encryption method (LEAP Protocol) he just needed a newer driver, and a brother-in-law (me) that refused to believe the campus network guys.

And for the record, Mac's support LEAP out of the box /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Sorry, that was a mostly pointless post.

I'm a Mac guy, she'd probably love a 12" iBook. Dells are built fairly well and they offer those 50% off sales every now and then. Can't go wrong with a used IBM thinkpad.

A Pentium-M processor is going to produce longer battery runtime.

I don't think that you can get a more durable laptop than the iBook.

My local county had a contract for all the high schools to supply every student with an iBook for about 3 years and now they're switching to another format. They've offered the iBooks to the students for $50 and the remaining ones will be sold off in 2 weeks to the public for the same $50. One per person and I plan to be in line at least 2 hours early.

Rags come on up to Richmond!

GJW--that IS a really good price for the Toshiba. Too bad laptops weren't that price a few years back when I needed one for school.

I've witnessed a frightening amount of Toshiba Satellite failures in the field, every day I go in and see the most messed up laptops I've ever seen. Could be the owners don't even attempt to try and take care of them, also could be they ain't built to take the abuse.

You won't find me behind anything but a Dell, although IBM is pretty OK, too. But I draw the line at these two brands. 10 years of Dells, never been wrong, although I must definitely admit they don't make them like they used to (my first one always seemed to be a hell of a lot more rugged than the current wimpy ones - dropped, smashed, pounded, you name it. Still runs great today, 10 years later.).

Kevin do you have Inspirons or Latitudes? I've heard the Latitudes tend to be better. Any truth?

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Wits' End said:
Kevin do you have Inspirons or Latitudes? I've heard the Latitudes tend to be better. Any truth?

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Definitely! Get the Latitudes. I've been trying to study why, even when the Latitudes are built with almost the same hardware, they last so much longer and better than an almost-identical Inspiron. Even after looking at Dell's field service manuals, which tell me how to strip the laptop down to the last screw and last connector, I can't see an obvious difference, yet the Latitudes somehow require less trips to the repair dock.

The only Inspiron I've owned was really what I call a Latitude in disguise - their Inspiron 2100 was a L400 at heart and probably rushed out to satisfy the unexpected consumer demand for an ultralight (they had no consumer ultralights prior), I confirmed this by taking a huge risk and flashing it with the L400 BIOS files. Worked great.

Friend went ahead and bought an Inspiron 4100. Spends most of the year at the local repair facility. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ohgeez.gif

So even within a 'good' brand there are variations. The rest of the people I know are all Latitude owners as well.

perhaps there are more people with the inspirons ?

I've dealt with many inspirons at school and at work, and I really don't like them. I would avoid cheap processors at all costs (celeron, sempron), they just don't hold up over time. Avertec, is a company that has recently started up, and I have to say that they have amazing quality. You can buy a fairly decent one on http://newegg.com for under 1k. Personally I would avoind Dell, HP, and Compaq as much as possible, unless you plan to refomat as soon as you get it. (they put to much crap on their comps). Toshiba's are nice but have yet to really be proven, and there are many current issues with reliability. Sony Vios have excelent quality, but are way overpriced. Avertec is a very nice soloution, good price, awesome quality. Whatever computer you decide to get look for these things: Athlon XP, Athlon 64 or Pentium M processor (centrino is great if you can find it cheap) IF the comp has an Athlon as what chipset the motherboard has. If it has an Athlon XP you want an nForce 2 chipset, and if its an athlon 64, you want an nForce 3 chipset. Intel doesnt matter too much. IF the comp has one of those chipsets and a reasonable amount of ram (don't get anything under 512MB) I would grab it. IF you have any questions, you can PM or email me.

Oh, yeah one more thing. If you want a REAL computer, get a Mac. powerbook g4 or ibook g4. *drool*

and whatever you do, don't drop it with the screen open /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif I've never had a hardware failure on a powerbook that wasn't directly caused by my dropping it with the screen open.... But I've tortured them as far as just generally carrying them around and stuffing them in backpacks and dropping then and whatnot. They are very rugged as long as you don't drop them with screen open. I think that probably applies to any other brand as well. No matter how good the hinges are, if you let it fall off your lap with the screen up. by by.

Check out www.fatwallet.com under the hot deals forum.


wwglen

Here's a Dell for the same price as the Toshiba:
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/odg_yahoo?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

Smaller screen and no WiFi though.

Personally I've had three Dells that were DOA but none from Toshiba.
Dell always made things right but it was annoying none the less.

I also prefer the power adapter on the Toshibas.
Regardless of how it's soldered those small metal barrel connectors have no place on computers.
Razors maybe but not on computers.

An electrical connection should never double as a mechanical connection for something that suffers as much stress as a laptop power cord.