PSA: Anyone looking for a laptop on Friday

[meadmaker]

I just wrote this up for my sister, so I thought I'd share it with anyone else who cares.

EDIT:This is written for a basic consumer. Your needs may vary! Here's my original note describing what different terms mean, and what to care about.

Pretty well anything of recent vintage should do that for you. I'd be surprised to find a laptop from the last three years that doesn't have a DVD player.  As for connecting to the internet, most laptops will do that for you too.  However, if you want somethingreally convenient, you'll want it to have wireless networking.  (Also known as WiFi, or 802.11b or 802.11g).

That said, some things that I'd suggest:
* Do you like watching your movies in widescreen format?  If so,it's pretty worthwhile to buy a laptop with a widescreen.  Even if you don't care about themovies, getting a widescreen laptop means that the laptop keyboard is alittle more like normal keyboards.

* Screen size.  You'll pay for your screen size, but I consider it worthwhile.  You won't find a resolution less than 1024x768these days, and likely you'll find one better.  Also pay attention tothe physical screen size.  If the manufacture fits 1280x1024 in thesame physical area that they also fit a 1024x768 screen, that will just make all of the icons and text smaller.

* If you take it traveling, getting an extra battery can beuseful.  For instance, my sweetie got an extra battery with her laptop, and we have around six hours of battery life without doing much to stretch that out.

* Wireless - If you want wireless networking on the laptop, lookfor something that says 802.11 or wireless or WiFi or Centrino.  If the laptop doesn't support it, you can get an add-in card that will add theability, but that card will have to stick out the side.

* Memory - Shoot for 512MB to 1GB of memory.  If that's nothitting your price point, you can look for 256MB to 512MB, but you'llprobably want to upgrade that within a year or two.

* Apple -you might consider getting an Apple laptop.  It will do everythingyou've asked for, and they make really good machines.  They're oftenmore expensive, though.
 

 Do you know of any sites that sell used laptops?

 
There's the king of all such sites, ebay.
Also look at craigslist: http://www.craigslist.org/.  A search for "laptop" might be useful.

Thenyou can also check out refurbished systems by manufacturers.  They'lloften carry a warantee of some sort, which could be nice.
Dell - http://www.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/notebooks?c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh

HP - http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/can.do?landing=outlet&lanAttr=Computing&category=Notebook+PC&catLevel=1&storeName=storefronts

Lenovo (Spinoff of IBM's PC business) - http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/special-offers.workflow:ShowPromo?LandingPage=/All/US/More%20Ways%20To%20Shop/Outlet

Now, on to the Black Friday laptop deals!

There's a list of Black Friday deals at http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/black-friday-plan/the-gizmodo-ultimate-black-friday-deal-guide-324697.php that includes brand-new laptops.  My take is:

Best Buy
Toshiba 1.73ghz Celeron Laptop & Canon 3-in-1 Printer Package
Price: $229
Savings: Can't find specific model, though we know it has a Celeron processor. They claim 20/store.

This is a basic model - it has a minimum of RAM, a stripped-down processor, and Windows Vista Home Basic (eg: not very useful).  If you don't have the money to get something else, this can work for you.  On the plus side, it also comes with a reader for photo memory cards.  However, if you can spare the money for one of the other models I'd suggest you do so.

Sony 15.4" Laptop w/1GB RAM, 120GB HD, DVD Burner
Price: $399.99
Savings: ??

With no details, I'm wary of this.  Nothing that's said is wrong; I'm just worried about what's not said.  I'm also a little wary of Sony branded computers.

Circuit City
Compaq Dual-Core, 1GB RAM, 80GB HD
Price: $299
Savings: $300 (includes mir)

Again, everything that's said looks nice, but there's a lot left unsaid.  This one has a respectable amount of RAM, wireless networking, a DVD burner, and Windows Vista Home Premium (yay!), but I'm not sure what the processor is or what the size of the screen and keyboard is.  Also, part of the savings is $150 mail-in-rebate (which is what "mir" means.  For a moment I was wondering if you got a space station as part of the deal.)

OfficeDepot
Toshiba 15.4" Notebook, AMD w/2GB RAM, 160GB HD
Price: $499.99
Savings: $250

I found some details for this one here.  It's a solid option, with a respectable processor, widescreen, RAM, hard drive, and DVD burner.  My only real qualm with this one is that I don't have a lot of experience with Toshiba computers of late, so I don't know what the company's track record is.  Also, I can't discover which version of Windows Vista this will come with, so that may be a pain.  Finally, they don't list wireless networking, so it may or may not be there.

Lenovo 14.1" Notebook Computer w/Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 160GB HD
Price: $599.99
Savings: $200

This is another solid option.  It has a decent processor, a good amount of RAM, a good hard drive, a good DVD burner, and an integrated camera (think video calls to home!  At least, to relatives other than Mom.), and wireless networking.  The downside is that the screen size and therefore keyboard size is a bit smaller.  Finally, Lenovo is a name I trust - they took over IBM's laptop lines.

Wal-mart
Dell 15.4" Laptop w/1.6 GHz AMD Turion, 2GB RAM, DVD Burner
Price: $598.00
Savings: $150

This is another strong contender.  For $2 less than the Lenovo, you get a machine with a bigger screen and a photo card reader.  However, you give up a bit of processing power (you'll never miss it), 40GB of drive space, and the webcam.  Dell is, of course, one of the biggest names in computer manufacturing, and they have decent support. 

Comments

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I hope pierceheart sees this.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

Nah, none of them are the monster desktop replacement I'm looking for.

But I'm glad to have looked.

[meadmaker.livejournal.com]

I just threw in an edit to that effect - this is intended for basic use.

That said, probably the only real difference between something like the lenovo and a desktop is the screen size. And as I recall, you have a good external monitor already for when you need it to act like a desktop.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

When I get my poor hp fixed, I'll start saving up for a new one, maybe a year from now.

I have a tower running now, and using the widescreen for it.

[drwex]

I am still strongly recommending that people buy machines with XP instead of Vista. Reasons on request.

Request!

[meadmaker.livejournal.com]

I can see the reasons for business - that since Vista is not a significant improvement upon XP, it won't justify supporting two different versions of Windows or the investment to upgrade everyone.

What are your reservations for personal use?
(PS: I'm about to send you mail from my mail account, in case you don't want to air it in the open. I just figured this won't get caught by spam filters, whereas that might.)

Re: Request!

[drwex]

My reasons for disrecommending Vista at this time are three:

1. User lockout. The machine is inherently constructed to treat its owner as a hostile entity. Permissioning of programs, default lockouts of communications, and intrusive digital-rights management software built into the hardware and OS. I don't expect this ever to change. I do expect we'll see bumps and blips as people find they can't rip their own CDs and play them, or can't do what they want with their own created digital movies and photos. Vista is a great big sucking DRM hosebeast.

2. Stability. I never buy any Microsoft OS prior to SP1 and sometimes not before SP2. I just don't believe it's stable enough.

3. Devices. Many consumers want to hook up different devices to their PCs and Vista doesn't have universal support yet. Given a random sample of "PC compatible" consumer electronics I'd bet money that 100% of them have validated XP drivers and something less than 100% have Vista drivers. In addition, due to item #1, some things will never have Vista support.

Re: Request!

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

Is there any hope for someone wanting a 64 bit proc?

Alternatives

[meadmaker.livejournal.com]

WinXP: It can still be found, even in 64-bit flavors. The hardware support for the 64-bit WinXP is a bit limited, though. Alternatively, you could run it in 32 bit mode.

Linux: Probably the best end-user oriented Linux to be found these days is Ubuntu. Dell will even support it on certain models.

MacOS: They've been doing some really good things.

What all do you need to do with the machine? One or both might be a good solution for it.

Re: Alternatives

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

I was really just looking to buy a monster of a laptop, such as
this or

this

but I don't want to be shackled with Vista.
I also realise that if I want to be able to access 4gb of memory, I NEED a 64 bit proc ... and I'm also assuming I would need a 64 bit OS.

Re: Alternatives

[meadmaker.livejournal.com]

I also realise that if I want to be able to access 4gb of memory, I NEED a 64 bit proc ... and I'm also assuming I would need a 64 bit OS.

That's only somewhat true:

• True: You do need a 64-bit OS to be able to use the 64-bit applications and the 64-bit memory addressing space


• False: XP is 32-bit only. There are 64-bit versions. (Again, the hardware support for them is lacking.)


• False: 32-bit computers can't use 4GB of RAM. 2^32 = 4G. You'll be able to use the full amount of memory.


• Slightly more false: Intel created a stopgap fix for this problem a while ago. Servers routinely have 6, 8, 16, and 64 GB of RAM. Unfortunately, Microsoft has limited XP so that it won't use that stopgap fix. Which leads to...


• True: XP will limit your applications to not using more than 2GB of RAM individually, and of the 2GB usually they can't use more than 1.5GB of contiguous RAM. (If you want a better explanation of what I mean here, track me down in person. I'll probably need to draw things out.)
  • Except... you can supply a flag that changes that 2GB to 3GB.

So, do you intend to use an application that needs more than 2GB of memory? If not, then the memory model of regular XP could still let you do everything you want.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

I'm curious as to why, as well, even though, on a quick gut check level, I agree.

unfortunately, the computer I am eyeing is ONLY available from HP with Vista.

Could be because I'm going with a 64 bit Turion.

[lightcastle.livejournal.com]

My intention was to buy either the Best Buy or the Circuit City deal (as both are in my price range) and strip Vista off of the machine and replace it with XP because really, I've heard nothing but nightmares about Vista.