New 'I want to buy a laptop' Thread (1 Viewer)

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Tulipa

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Collin said:
So it's a Core Duo T2250, 1GB RAM Toshiba M110 reduced to $1100?

I'd say that's a pretty good deal.



Link? I'm interested.

You'd be pushed to find an equivalent from even Dell or Acer for that price. As for such an alternative being even lighter, I refuse to believe that. Pretty much all 14.1" WXGA+ laptops hover around 2.4kg. Unless you're telling me you found a similarly spec-ed ultra-portable for $1100.. then I'd have to REALLY ask you to link me.
Um, the link for that computer shows it at 2.5kg.

I'm fairly sure she could get something lighter.

Also I'm completely anti-Toshiba due to their support and repairs being absolutely horrendous. I've never had to deal with so much bullshit before. We were told that they couldn't help us period because they didn't keep parts for computers older than 18 months.
 

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Tulipa said:
Um, the link for that computer shows it at 2.5kg.

I'm fairly sure she could get something lighter.

Also I'm completely anti-Toshiba due to their support and repairs being absolutely horrendous. I've never had to deal with so much bullshit before. We were told that they couldn't help us period because they didn't keep parts for computers older than 18 months.
Yes, I said all [14.1" WXGA+] notebooks hover around 2.4kg. Unless you're telling me there's a similar alternative for around 1.8-2kg? Unlikely. But if you're fairly sure, then by all means find me one. And find me one with similar specs to that one above. You'd be hard pressed to find a laptop at around the same weight with similar specs to the above from even Dell or Acer.

As for being anti-Toshiba - that's obviously a no-brainer, just reading your previous post!

Edit: Was your laptop still under warranty? In other words, did you extend the usual 12 months manufacturer's warranty? If not, then well..
 
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Tulipa

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Yup. We had an extended warranty. It's a good price sure but not only have I had a bad experience but I've never known a Toshi user who had a good one.

I've seen a few 1.8-2.0kg's floating around and personally I think that's what she'd be looking at but looking on them they are a bit more expensive.

My current laptop is 1.7kg and it's a lot better than lugging a 2.5kg around uni.
 

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Tulipa said:
Yup. We had an extended warranty. It's a good price sure but not only have I had a bad experience but I've never known a Toshi user who had a good one.
Well I won't comment on the integrity of their repair processes, but in terms of reliability they are supposedly [statistically] one of the more reliable brands.

If you bought an extended warranty off the place you bought the notebook from, then you might have fallen into a puddle of mud (i.e third-party extended warranty). If you actually bought an extended warranty off Toshiba, then I'd have to agree with you that your experiences reflect badly on Toshiba as a brand, regarding their customer service department.

Tulipa said:
I've seen a few 1.8-2.0kg's floating around and personally I think that's what she'd be looking at but looking on them they are a bit more expensive.
That's precisely the point, and I commend you for acknowledging it. There are most definitely lighter alternatives out there, but the point was that you just can't find a similarly specced machine with such a low weight for $1,100.

Don't get me wrong, I wish there was (so I could buy it for myself).

Tulipa said:
My current laptop is 1.7kg and it's a lot better than lugging a 2.5kg around uni.
No doubt. My current Dell is 2.8kg, and the weight is troublesome when I have to lug it back and forth between Engineering/SIT and the Education buildings at USYD on a near-daily basis.
 

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I think that Toshiba laptop is a pretty good deal.
 
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Don't let all the bullshit put you off. Find a price point you're happy with, pick out a laptop that has features you've mentioned at the start, then buy it. For the uses you've specified you're not going to manage to buy something so incredibly bad that it won't at least suffice.

If you do want to research it further, pick a site like http://www.notebookreview.com/ and do some comparisons for yourself (a lot of it may be pointless for what you're after, but you'll get a good idea of battery life and things like that, from a perspective other than that of the manufacturer).

The majority of this thread has been incredibly unhelpful. You'd probably do better ignoring most of the posts which have been made, and just going with whatever you're thinking yourself.

Short answer though, if the price is right, go for it.
 

bringbackshred

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OK guys, let's see if you can help me with a laptop. I'm looking at 1800-2100 bucks and this is what i'm looking at:

-Core 2 Duo (i don't really care about the clock speed, but the faster the better)
-At LEAST 1GB of RAM, pref 2. And hopefully DDR2.
-15.4" display, although, I'm ahppy to settle for 14. Resolution is a big factor here too, I want the biggest (i.e. bigger numbers) res i can get for the screen.
-A pretty damn good Graphics card - i want to play games. SO something like the 7600 GO or the 7300GO (i'm not too cluey about ATI's mobile chipsets, so i don't mind the equivalents)
- A Hard Drive of at least 100GB, although I might settle for 80GB.
- Wireless. Somethign I don't know much about, all I want is wireless internet that works well.
- Vista too. I might as well give the new OS a run for its money before I overwrite it with Ubuntu or dual boot.

At the moment, I have 3 main prospects:

Contender Number 1.


Contender Number 2.

Contender Number 3.

I've really only looked at ASUS, because i've never heard a bad word about them.

Also, don't give me a MacBook. I loathe the single button mouse.
 

mr_brightside

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bringbackshred said:
Also, don't give me a MacBook. I loathe the single button mouse.
Mac Mice are now double button plus multi directional scroll.
 

bringbackshred

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mr_brightside said:
Mac Mice are now double button plus multi directional scroll.
On the laptops? I know the new Imacs come with the two button thing. I'm talkign touchpad here, btw.
 

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yeah asus are a really good computer brand...have one atm and its been doing great
all 3 are good notebooks, but it does really come down to your personal preference
you said you wanna play games, so ill probably would go with contender 2, although all 3 are more than capable of playing games
 

mr_brightside

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bringbackshred said:
On the laptops? I know the new Imacs come with the two button thing. I'm talkign touchpad here, btw.
oh right. my bad, thats a good point. why DO they only have one button?
 

bringbackshred

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Yeah, I've never heard of the X2300 GPU before. Looks interesting. I think 2300 is a bit much to pay though. What I've found though, is that there is no real middle ground for 15.4 notebooks - i.e. the 1900-2000 range, where I can get something of good value without a big compromise.
 

bringbackshred

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mr_brightside said:
oh right. my bad, thats a good point. why DO they only have one button?
Because they know the most effective user interface. *cough*

EDIT: Don't get me wrong though, I like Apple, just not their mouse choice. And sometimes OSX shits me.
 

mr_brightside

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bringbackshred said:
Because they know the most effective user interface. *cough*

EDIT: Don't get me wrong though, I like Apple, just not their mouse choice. And sometimes OSX shits me.
They just don't want to copy PC's.
 

bringbackshred

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Yeah, true. Hit me with a lower price, a graphics processor that runs faster than my brain and a two button mouse, and i'm in.
 
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bringbackshred said:
OK guys, let's see if you can help me with a laptop. I'm looking at 1800-2100 bucks and this is what i'm looking at:

-Core 2 Duo (i don't really care about the clock speed, but the faster the better)
-At LEAST 1GB of RAM, pref 2. And hopefully DDR2.
-15.4" display, although, I'm ahppy to settle for 14. Resolution is a big factor here too, I want the biggest (i.e. bigger numbers) res i can get for the screen.
-A pretty damn good Graphics card - i want to play games. SO something like the 7600 GO or the 7300GO (i'm not too cluey about ATI's mobile chipsets, so i don't mind the equivalents)
- A Hard Drive of at least 100GB, although I might settle for 80GB.
- Wireless. Somethign I don't know much about, all I want is wireless internet that works well.
- Vista too. I might as well give the new OS a run for its money before I overwrite it with Ubuntu or dual boot.

At the moment, I have 3 main prospects:

Contender Number 1.


Contender Number 2.

Contender Number 3.

I've really only looked at ASUS, because i've never heard a bad word about them.

Also, don't give me a MacBook. I loathe the single button mouse.
Just out of interest, what is it about the prolonged trainwreck that spans the majority of this thread that suggests that this is a good place to ask for advice? :)
 

bringbackshred

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I figured I might as well not clog up the forum with ANOTHER "What laptop should I get?" thread.
 
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