Laptops?

shanekingsley

shanekingsley

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I need to buy a laptop for work. Price range is around $300-400. No gaming, but maybe for movies. I will be taking this on my bike regularly, so it needs to be durable.

I know very little of them and I'm willing to buy used - I just need it to work well. It can't be slow if I'm running multiple programs.

Not sure what kind of processor to get, but I am gathering that a core 2 duo is better than a pentium...?

Would like at least 2gigs of RAM that I can expand if necessary.

Will probably want at least 160GB Hard drive that I can expand if necessary.

At least 2 USB ports, preferably 3.

Battery life: prefer closer to 4hours

not sure what else..... any suggestions?

Cheers.
 
Screen size?
13" is easily portable but I prefer working on 15" screens. 17" is too heavy to move around.
 
Sitting here typing at a Compaq Presario right now. Battery life is around 2.5 hours, maybe 3, which is pretty good from what I've seen, and it has stayed that way, which can't be said for the cheapie Acer that I had before.
 
Panasonic Tough Book for durability. They are common to find refurb for a decent price. Not sure durability wise but i'm typing this on a 1.5 year old Acer Aspire 5251-1940. Averages 3-4 hours on battery and have never had an issue however it rarely leaves the house.
 
sorry should have mentioned - screen size preferred is minimum 13" and maximum 15", because as mentioned, I'm sure weight will become a factor.

I'm using it to design instruction - so will likely need to run Windows 7 and Office 2010...

Any things to be aware of? Brands to avoid?

I see some have bluetooth, fingerprinting, and other stuff I know little about....
 
some of HP ones going for around $300 would suite your purpose...windows 7, 4gb ram, 320-500GB hdd...in my expeirience, the battery's on the acer/asus stuff doesn't last long...toshiba would be another good one to look at, their stuff is pretty tough...as for going on your bike, i would consider changing the hard drive to an ssd drive...unfortunately boxing day sales are gone, but there is always a sales, just have to look more for them.
 
I'd suggest to keep an eye on the redflagdeals.com hot deals forum, there are some decent laptop deals from time to time.
 
regder said:
I'd suggest to keep an eye on the redflagdeals.com hot deals forum, there are some decent laptop deals from time to time.
Click to expand...

Found a coupon for $150 off of Dell orders on RFD, got a Vostro V131 for a little over $500, shipped to my door, taxes etc included.

[TD="class: scrtd1"][/TD]
[TD="class: scrtd2"]Intel® Core™ processor i5-2430M (2.40GHz with Intel HD Graphic 3000)[/TD]
[TD="class: scrtd3"][/TD]

[TD="class: scrtd1"][/TD]
[TD="class: scrtd2"]Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium SP1, 64-Bit, English[/TD]
[TD="class: scrtd3"][/TD]

[TD="class: scrtd1"][/TD]
[TD="class: scrtd2"]Microsoft® Office Starter 2010[/TD]
[TD="class: scrtd3"][/TD]

[TD="class: scrtd1"][/TD]
[TD="class: scrtd2"]13.3 inch High Definition LED Display (1366 x 768) with anti-glare[/TD]
[TD="class: scrtd3"][/TD]

[TD="class: scrtd1"][/TD]
[TD="class: scrtd2"]Aberdeen Silver[/TD]
[TD="class: scrtd3"][/TD]

[TD="class: scrtd1"][/TD]
[TD="class: scrtd2"]4GB Shared Single Channel DDR3 Memory[/TD]
[TD="class: scrtd3"][/TD]

[TD="class: scrtd1"][/TD]
[TD="class: scrtd2"]500GB SATA Hard Drive[/TD]
[TD="class: scrtd3"][/TD]

[TD="class: scrtd1"][/TD]
[TD="class: scrtd2"]Keyboard with Gesture Touchpad[/TD]
[TD="class: scrtd3"][/TD]

[TD="class: sc_review_selections_page_title_cell, colspan: 3"][/TD]

This was last month. But they post coupon codes quite often.
 
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That's a good price... I got the HP for $380 with less hardware than what that offers, but it seems like this will be perfect for what I need for a long time.
 
If taking it on a bike frequently, I highly recommend backing up anything important often. The most common failure I see in laptops these days is the hard drives, and the vibration from a motorcycle won't help. Also, if you can burn recovery DVDs in any way, I would do that now.
 
Thx. I have a 1TB external drive that I use strictly as a backup drive. One of the reasons I got this laptop is that it has a thing where the hard drive gets protected if it drops. It's described as a business rugged laptop meeting some military specs, but not as rugged as a dedicated military laptop.
 
check out slickdeals.net and bens bargains. Great deals can be found on notebooks.

In December I picked up a Samsung 11.6" notebook with an Intel i-3 processor for $249 (thanks Slickdeals). Using it right now. I also have a 14" Lenovo I got last June for $450.

If you can get to the U.S. watch staples and office depot for great deals; they seem to be better than many of the other stores right now.
 
shanekingsley said:
Thx. I have a 1TB external drive that I use strictly as a backup drive. One of the reasons I got this laptop is that it has a thing where the hard drive gets protected if it drops. It's described as a business rugged laptop meeting some military specs, but not as rugged as a dedicated military laptop.
Click to expand...


most notebooks have hard drive protection these days, not sure if it's part of the hard drive or the computer....

funny story on that

I was sitting on my couch with my macbook on my lap (a big nono, it's the cause of many notebooks to overheat and it's hard on hard drives). it was a little cool that night and i had my hands under the notebook to keep them warm. I look over and I see a bug on the arm of the couch. I live in the country in an 150+ year old farm house so it's is not unusual for me tooccasionally see some bug at some point in my house over the summer, outside you're guaranteed to see something hourly, usually some sort of beetle, wasp or mosquito. I lean over to see what it is, it looks like a beetle I've never seen before when the thing takes wing and flies straight at my face. At this point I'm only thinking "Eeek!!! Bug!!! Not in my face!!!!" and my hands fly up to protect me... well I haven't mastered the art of phasing through solid objects yet and my notebook reacted to the action of thrust applied to it's underside by my hands. It was launched into the air, achieved an altitude of about 3 feet from floor level and landed about 6 feet away from me on the hard wood floor... The worst part was I watched it the whole time unmoving while it flew through the air for what seemed like 5 seconds before it hit the floor. I'm sure some maths person could tell you just how long a 13" macbook would have for hang time and velocity while it took a trajectory that was not in it's best interests but it doesn't really matter as in mid air the macbook was smart enough to know it was in a bad situation and parked the hard drive saving it and my data from certain doom. I did have to reboot the computer as in parking the hdd caused the operating system to briefly crash. Those cases are amazingly tough, the screen didn't crack (biggest fear) and there wasn't any telltale signs.

Normally I tell people buy a mac when they want a notebook but in your price range i only have advice on what not to buy.
 
revrandy said:
check out slickdeals.net and bens bargains. Great deals can be found on notebooks.

In December I picked up a Samsung 11.6" notebook with an Intel i-3 processor for $249 (thanks Slickdeals). Using it right now. I also have a 14" Lenovo I got last June for $450.

If you can get to the U.S. watch staples and office depot for great deals; they seem to be better than many of the other stores right now.
Click to expand...


the problem with buying from the usa is often you have to get to the usa to claim any warranty work. not hard for some one near the border but some of us are a good couple hour drive to the border never mind getting anywhere useful in the usa. with the price of gas... that cheap deal can add up on a cheap notebook.
 
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