Need Help buying PC laptop (I know...I know)

[allisonv7]

First of all I'd get it at Circuit City, not Best Buy - just my preference though, I've known too many people that have had problems with Best Buy and all our dealings with Circuit City have gone smoothly.

I'd definitely go with either HP or Toshiba. My advice would be to go into the store and see what kindof deals you can get, sometimes they'll throw stuff in and knock the price down. He can easily get one of those computers for under $1000 and from my experience either make would be a good purchase.


allison.

 

[Sesshi]

Dell Latitudes are great business laptops. 3 year warranty as standard and built for a tougher life than regular laptops (and Apple 'Pro' laptops for that matter). There are various Latitudes for various business wallets and requirements. The D620 is a mainstream, truly portable 14" notebook which has a full-magnesium chassis / shell and steel hinges as well as HDD shock protection.
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/latit_d620?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04
The D820 is its larger brother.
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/latit_d820?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04

HP is also very good. I like the solid build quality, balance between performance and usability and features of the nc/nx series business laptops. They look... well, businesslike and are nice to work on.
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF25a/321957-64295-89315-321838-f1-1839150.html

If your brother is spending at the upper end of the market, I can recommend the Sony SZ ultralight and the Lenovo Thinkpad T60p series for more mainstream use. I'm not actually that enamoured of Thinkpads - I think they're overrated - but the T60p is a nice balance of durability, portability, quality and power. http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/...-category-id=19C791A03AF24034A0011B825513BCED
The SZ is a very good combination of portability, power and style. http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INT...=sstyle-SonyStyleRoot-homefeature-VGNSZ491N/X


I think Eraserhead was referring to a recommendation I made for a friend of his who was after long battery life. It's a pretty good ultraportable machine but due to an agreement between Samsung & Dell, Samsung don't sell notebooks in the US. So you can't buy the Q35 even if you wanted to. But a Hackbook which is just as powerful as the Apple equivalent, goes for at least an hour more on a charge but is a whole pound lighter is... well, intriguing

 

[mojitochica]

Dell Latitudes are great business laptops. 3 year warranty as standard and built for a tougher life than regular laptops (and Apple 'Pro' laptops for that matter). There are various Latitudes for various business wallets and requirements. The D620 is a mainstream, truly portable 14" notebook which has a full-magnesium chassis / shell and steel hinges as well as HDD shock protection.
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/latit_d620?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04

I can vouch for this PC; it's what I currently use, and I'm very pleased with it.

 

[mr_matalino]

What about a low end MB?

 

[Sesshi]

What about a low end MB?

Something similar but better built and warranted (but alas larger - though not much heavier) would be the Dell Latitude D520. GMA950 graphics, up to Core 2 Duo 2Ghz. It's a solid (although not a full-magnesium machine, just the chassis and lid) machine with an option to spec up to the 15" SXGA+ screen which is a very good size for business use on a 15" screen. Corner cutting is evident in the specs, especially the lack of gigabit Ethernet but then you pay less, you get less.
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/latit_d520?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04

One thing I really do like about the Latitudes is the docking stations, which turns the Latitudes into basically desktop PC's. All the Latitude D series share a common docking station which has VGA/DVI out, 4 USB sockets (in addition to any that may already be present on the laptop), audio out, etc. You just sit the laptop on the station to make all the connections. I have the D620 as my workhorse laptop and the reason is in part because the machine is nicely portable, but it also turns into a desktop when you click it into the docking stations along with an external monitor, keyboard and mouse.

 

[kellen]

Well if you are going for a PC, I would recommend going through Best Buy. Only reason is they got rid of their mail in rebate program and it is all instant. I detest mail in rebates, half the time I don't do it and the other half I don't get it back even when I do send it it.

Good luck with the purchase.