PC laptop??

[kevinuaa]

So my idiot friend won't listen to me. He won't get an ibook. He says he needs to use special statistics software which isn't available on the mac. Anyway, I was trying to help his ignorant yet determined arse find a decent PC laptop.

Any suggestions for something under $1100?
Would appreciate help. I was thinking about the thinkpad R50e

Thanks, I can only trust a mac user's opinion. :>

 

[ChrisBrightwell]

So my idiot friend won't listen to me.

I wouldn't, either, with that attitude. A Mac would be a waste of money for him, so why keep insisting that he get an iBook?

As for laptops, go Dell or IBM. Stay away from Compaq and HP.

A couple of friends and I had Dell's 8000-level Inspiron laptops and used them in A/V production for several years (using Vegas and Sound Forge) and never had problems with them. I also use Dell hardware at work.

IBM makes a good laptop, but I have no personal experience with them.

Whatever you do, the first order of business should be formatting the drive and throwing a fresh copy of XP Pro on there.

 

[shadowmoses]

R50e is a very nice laptop its very well built and will last a long time, if someone must have a windos laptop thinkpads are the best bet if you dont need them for gaming etc....

 

[ewinemiller]

I'd lean towards the Dells. I use an inspiron 600m for a portable and it works pretty good for the things I do. Relatively powerful, nice resolution, ~4 hours battery life, and cool and light enough to actually use as a laptop. I do development and 3D stuff on it, some casual gaming (City of Heroes).

We used to be an IBM shop at the day job. Of the last batch of thinkpads we got I think 5 of the 17 had to have the motherboard replaced within the first year. All of them had the same problem, a memory slot failed. Now we're a Dell shop.

Keep an eye on the coupon sites and you should be able to get quite a bit of laptop for $1100. I paid $1276 delivered for 1.6ghz Pentium M, 80 gig 5400 HD, 64 meg video, 1400x1050 LCD, wireless G, 8x DVD burner, 512 meg of RAM, 3 year on site warrenty, six months ago from the refurb store, but you can probably find better deals new now. Dells Outlet is my favorite place to shop.

 

[mandis]

So my idiot friend won't listen to me. He won't get an ibook. He says he needs to use special statistics software which isn't available on the mac. Anyway, I was trying to help his ignorant yet determined arse find a decent PC laptop.

Any suggestions for something under $1100?
Would appreciate help. I was thinking about the thinkpad R50e

Thanks, I can only trust a mac user's opinion. :>

Get an HP mate! They are Cheap, solid and quite capable.
I got an Omnibook XE2 @500MHz nearly 6 years ago and it is still going strong. Last time i formated the harddrive was 3 years ago in order to install W2K and since then it hardly ever crashes. A proper workhorse i would say.

 

[Vanilla]

Personally I would go with IBM.

I've owned a couple of refurbished T20's in the past that were excellent, in terms of build quality, online support and cheapness. Its also worth noting that the keyboards are very, very nice.

If it was me I'd go for a "T" range refurb and up the Ram but if you have to go new then yes the R50 looks fine but I don't have direct experience of it I'm afraid.
Vanilla

 

[chibianh]

My sister's laptop died last week, and earlier this week, after looking around, we decided to get a Medion Akoya laptop for her. it was about $1100 after taxes. I have a pic and specs on my weblog - http://homepage.mac.com/chibianh

After a few days, there hasn't been any problems. She's not real computer literate, but I couldn't sway her to the Mac side. For her needs (school work, web, email), it is way more than enough.

 

[m-dogg]

I have an IBM T41 for work which I am happy with. Not sure what the cost is though, or if it fits in his price range...

 

[dollystereo]

Packard Bell Easy Note

I dont know why in the usa is hard to find packard bells, here (Chile) a friend bought a EasyNote A7741, is great, 1.8Kg, 1.5ghz Centrino, DVD-r9, WIFI, 13.3 WUXGA, (1280x800), 512 Ram DDR, 50GB HD. (1100usd)
I think is quite good, my PB 1.5 cost me most than twice that, and is almost the same.

 

[Abstract]

But will the past history of reliability and greatness of the Thinkpad line carry over to Lenovo now that IBM isn't steering the boat anymore?

Hmmm......I don't think you should suggesting IBMs based completely on past performance, because we don't really know whats up with Lenovo. I never even heard of them until they got IBM's Thinkpad lineup.

Anyway, there's a Dell 12" widescreen that my friend just got, and its hottt. Great machine. I have a 12" PB, and I'm very jealous of his widescreen.

Going with the Thinkpad might not be such a bad thing, I guess. Not much about it has changed in such a short period.

 

[weg]

I have an IBM T41 for work which I am happy with. Not sure what the cost is though, or if it fits in his price range...

It costs only 3 times as much as he's willing to spend ;-)
An excellent notebook, though (wonder if they will become
cheaper now that Lenovo has taken over IBM's PC department).

 

[zelmo]

I got my wife a Sony Vaio last November. She loves it, and has had no trouble with it, especially since I made her swear to only use Firefox for browsing.
It has a Pentium M 1.6, 512MB RAM, 40GB hdd, 802.11b/g, CD-R/DVD, a gorgeous 13.3" WS X-Brite display, and a keypad that shames my PowerBook's.
I know a lot of folks are down on Sony kit these days, but we are very pleased with the laptop so far. You can get a slightly better spec Vaio these days for around $1200-1300 if you shop around.

 

[sw1tcher]

I'd lean towards the Dells. I use an inspiron 600m for a portable and it works pretty good for the things I do. Relatively powerful, nice resolution, ~4 hours battery life, and cool and light enough to actually use as a laptop. I do development and 3D stuff on it, some casual gaming (City of Heroes).

We used to be an IBM shop at the day job. Of the last batch of thinkpads we got I think 5 of the 17 had to have the motherboard replaced within the first year. All of them had the same problem, a memory slot failed. Now we're a Dell shop.

Keep an eye on the coupon sites and you should be able to get quite a bit of laptop for $1100. I paid $1276 delivered for 1.6ghz Pentium M, 80 gig 5400 HD, 64 meg video, 1400x1050 LCD, wireless G, 8x DVD burner, 512 meg of RAM, 3 year on site warrenty, six months ago from the refurb store, but you can probably find better deals new now. Dells Outlet is my favorite place to shop.

Coupons such as these:

ONLINE ONLY: Save $500 on select Inspiron™ notebook purchases $1399 or more (before tax and shipping)! This Coupon code is valid on these Inspiron e-value codes or order codes only: 11111- i600mA1, 11111- i700mA1, 11111- i2200A1, 11111- i6000A1, 11111- i6000A2, 11111- i6000A3, and 11111- i9300A1. May not be combinable with Deals of the Week, Outrageous Deals, dollars off, percentages off, or select other promotions. Only one coupon may be applied per cart at checkout. Offer Subject to change.

Coupon Code: TWMNMWS6?PTT2F

ONLINE ONLY: Save $600 on select Inspiron™ notebook purchases $1599 or more (before tax and shipping)! This Coupon code is valid on these Inspiron e-value codes or order codes only: 11111- i600mA1, 11111- i700mA1, 11111- i2200A1, 11111- i6000A1, 11111- i6000A2, 11111- i6000A3, and 11111- i9300A1. May not be combinable with Deals of the Week, Outrageous Deals, dollars off, percentages off, or select other promotions. Only one coupon may be applied per cart at checkout. Offer Subject to change. View Details in 'My Cart'.

Coupon Code: 3KV1HKCZVXKFCV

Save $750 on select Inspiron™ notebook purchases $1899 or more (before tax and shipping)!

This Coupon code is valid on these Inspiron e-value codes or order codes only: 11111- i600mA1, 11111- i700mA1, 11111- i2200A1, 11111- i6000A1, 11111- i6000A2, 11111- i6000A3, and 11111- i9300A1. May not be combinable with Deals of the Week, Outrageous Deals, dollars off, percentages off, or select other promotions. Only one coupon may be applied per cart at checkout.

Coupon code: SD8STR$BW13B46

 

[StokeLee]

besides my new imac, ,, ive gota laptop too.

Its fujitsu siemens amilo m 7400
with a centrino setup (i.e wireless network card inside, lighter, longer power supply fromthe battery,)
Ive never had any trouble with it, except once my hard drive failed, but i was under warranty, and they replaced it, collect and return though.

Their website is great, loads of downloads for the parts inside of it, and their customer services i found was quite good too. Also I got this through a scheme from work, a uk goverment tax scheme and the company that ran this scheme choose my laptop after testing lots of other laptops,, so Id recommend it

Regards

Lee