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Good, sub 1500$ PC Laptop?

MacAztec

MacAztec

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 28, 2001
3,028
1
San Luis Obispo, CA
My brother dropped his trusty PowerBook, so he is going to sell it on eBay for 1100 buy it now.

He wants to know what his options are from both worlds. What laptop would you recommend for a PC User that is Sub 1500$ range? He is not a PC user, but he is going to look at both Mac and PC notebooks.
 
I tend to favor Dells and IBM ThinkPads. For $1500, you can get yourself a very nice PC laptop.
 
Originally posted by MoparShaha
I tend to favor Dells and IBM ThinkPads. For $1500, you can get yourself a very nice PC laptop.
Click to expand...

I agree. I hate supporting Dell, but you usually can't go to wrong. Something in the 5000 series range should do the trick. Watch www.techbargains.com for PC laptop deals.
 
i saw what's called an "outrageous" deal on a dell ad. it was really good...

inspiron 5150, i think. Pentium 4, 512 RAM, 40 GB HD, ATi card with 32 MB, etc. fully spec'ed and priced at $1100 after a $200 rebate, i think?

600M looks good too, with P-M chip.

check out their online store - i hate how it's designed and difficult to navigate, but there are some good deals in there.

for a Mac, i'd get a fully decked out iBook 12" if $1500 is your budget. (you may also consider 12" PB either refurb or edu. discounted, if you qualify...)
 
Go to Dell's refurb site here:


Dell Referb

Stay away from the Inspiron series. They are craptastic. If you can, focus on the Latitude. You don't get as many features but the quality is much higher.

Don't worry about the fact that its a referb site. Dell offers 3 year warranties with the products so its covered. More then a few friends have gotten REALLY good deals on the referb site. The trick is to grab the item as soon as you see it on the list since any given device can get snatched up in a heartbeat.
 
How bout an iBook running Virtual PC? :D

I service many Dells... If you can, get the Latitude line instead of the Inspiron. Historically I have had much higher success with Latitudes over Inspirons.

(I can't pinpoint it exactly. But I did have 2 times the service calls on the Inspirons over the latitudes... )
 
I have to agree with everyone else here, IBM makes a sturdy well designed laptop, function over style in the lower end but thats expected ...
 
the problem with PC laptops is that they're more expensive for quality. sure there are lots of low cost machines out there with great looking specs, but they have option of using cheap parts and casings. and that's what you'll get with low cost PC laptops.
it's been said but i'll repeat: stay away from dell's inspiron line. even dell geeks will tell you this. latitudes are much better. the D500 is a centrino machine and you can get it with like 512 MB RAM, a 30 or 40 GB HD, 1.3 GHz P-M, combo drive, 14.1" XGA for like $1300. it only weighs less than 5 lbs too. but you generally see where they had to cut the costs though--integrated, shared graphics memory, etc. the thing about the latitude D500 is that it's low priced, has an internal optical drive, AND is lightweight--something mac users have had for a few years with the iBook, but something relatively foreign on the PC side of things.
 
get one with centrino it'll give you semi decent battery life and weigh less
as far as brand, dell is okay some of the new hp's are looking pretty good too
 
Get a Dell, IBM, or Sony. DON'T get a Compaq--they really are cheap pieces of junk. I've had to work with a number of Compaq laptops over the past few years, and they just suck. They are extremely loud and run hot. Also, if you are going to get a PC laptop, get a Centrino. That is, unless you want a huge, 3.5" thick, hot, loud, plastic mess. Really though, I'd just stick with Apple. I might consider a PC if I were getting a desktop, but I just can't stand most of the PC laptops out there.

By the way, what kind of PowerBook did your brother drop? I mean, it must be a pretty good one if you think it's worth $1100 broken. Why don't you just get that one fixed?
 
We just ordered a Dell inspiron 5100 for our sales department.

$1048 with a p4, 512mb ram, 60gb drive and xp Pro.
 
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