laptop computers

[hoolign]

I need to buy a new laptop.
dvd's
ethernet
floppy drive
tons of memory
what does someone suggest

[Dr. Eagle]

Originally posted by hoolign
I need to buy a new laptop.
dvd's
ethernet
floppy drive
tons of memory
what does someone suggest
Emachine Laptop (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=1063670218918&skuId=6046824&type=product)
This is what I have, well the same with smaller hard disk.. Got it in April and it rocks so far (knock on wood). Built in wireless, tons o memory, cdrw/dvd, large 16:9 sreen, you would need a external floppy, none of the new ones have internal floppies. My dad liked mine so much he got one too...and loves it....
Had a Vaio laptop and it was a POS. Spent almost 2X as much for the Vaio too....:mad:

[hoolign]

what did that one run you ??

[GlastronGuy]

link (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,113454,00.asp)

[Dr. Eagle]

Originally posted by hoolign
what did that one run you ??
It was the same price, with the $150 rebate that they have one there. If you are thinking seriously, hurry the $150 rebate is good thru the 3rd. After that it goes to $100.
They had a 150 rebate when I bought mine and that took the price down to 1099. The Vaio I bought was 2400 at the time...and was in the shop more than in my hands...

[WetWillie]

Bad Ass machine. On it right now on the couch!
Centrino 1.7
4 hours battery
1 gig ram
ATI 9000 64mg video card
Best computer I ever bought
http://shopper.cnet.com/Acer_TravelMate_804LMi___Pentium_M_1_7_GHz___15__T FT/4014-3121_9-30580828.html?q=

[Dr. Eagle]

IMO,
every one of the computers shown in other posts here is around or above 2K.
The Emachine is around 1K. I have owned toshiba, compaq, HP, Sony Vaio, Dell and Gateway. The emachine so far has kicked ass on all of them. Long battery life, stable machine (I know windows XP has a lot to do with it), but overall quality is WAAAAYYYY better than I have had in a laptop to date. Again, just my 0.2....

[hoolign]

thanx for the info!
Jeff

[MagicMtnDan]

Buy one from Costco (be sure to check their Web site - they sell Dell products too!) - they offer the most liberal return policy around - 6 months no questions asked. With that policy you can buy one today and return it in 5 months for a state-of-the-art computer which you can return in 5 months for a state-of-the-art computer. That way you've always got the latest, greatest 'puter.
That's where I'm buying my next computer.

[GlastronGuy]

Originally posted by Dr. Eagle
IMO,
every one of the computers shown in other posts here is around or above 2K.
The Emachine is around 1K. I have owned toshiba, compaq, HP, Sony Vaio, Dell and Gateway. The emachine so far has kicked ass on all of them. Long battery life, stable machine (I know windows XP has a lot to do with it), but overall quality is WAAAAYYYY better than I have had in a laptop to date. Again, just my 0.2....
While emachines have improved over the past year, IMHO it isn't worth the risk of buying one. If they go under, who is going to provide service?
Gateway, Dell, etc will still be around for a while.

[Dr. Eagle]

Originally posted by GlastronGuy
While emachines have improved over the past year, IMHO it isn't worth the risk of buying one. If they go under, who is going to provide service?
Gateway, Dell, etc will still be around for a while.
I bought the 3 year warranty from Best Buy. I am not concerned about warranty, unless Best Buy goes belly up... I suppose it could happen.
And Gateway and Dell (especially Gateway) have teetered on the brink of bankruptcy in the past. Oh and I have already had mine for 8 months of the 1 year manufacturers waranty.
This is one of those things that you do what is comfortable to you. For me, I am not just a little happy with this confuser, I have never had one that worked so damn well (knock on wood). Others don't mind paying a bunch more to be sure their one year warranty is there for them :confused:
but I do, especially when I spent 2400 on a computer that was ABSOLUTELY useless to me. It was so undependable I couldn't use it for my work. So my kids are using it now. And it is a Sony...talk about major companies....
Again, my .02

[Oceanside]

Yesterday the sales guys at Best Buy had nothing good to say about the e-machine, they really pushed me away from buying one. Two different sales guys said the best laptop feature for feature was the Toshiba, but the suggested the sony because it has the least amount of returns. This was the Best Buy in Thousand Oaks Ca. I have had my sony for 4 years with no problems.

[hoolign]

Once a gain thanx for all the input,i'm gonna look around when I get back fro work,lots of info to look at, i kinda like the costco idea because i know about their warrnty system

[Dr. Eagle]

Originally posted by Oceanside
Yesterday the sales guys at Best Buy had nothing good to say about the e-machine, they really pushed me away from buying one. Two different sales guys said the best laptop feature for feature was the Toshiba, but the suggested the sony because it has the least amount of returns. This was the Best Buy in Thousand Oaks Ca. I have had my sony for 4 years with no problems.
INteresting, they told me the same thing about the Toshiba. I think maybe they may get some sort of spiff for selling them...I don;'t know.
I have had three toshibas over the years and still have one Toshiba laptop upstairs in the guest bedroom. All three collectively were second only to the Sony in giving me grief. Two had hard disks that crashed. One had the main board croak, and lots of other issues. two of them were company machines so I had an IT guy when they croaked, but they did it too much.
I kinda like the Costco idea too, maybe the next machine....

[Boozer]

Get a Dell.
Emachines makes a good product at an affordable price but they also use a lot of low end parts in their machines. My aunt had an emachine desktop and it was a pos. Based on my aunts experience and the experience other clients of mine have had with emachines i strongly advise you look at other manufacturers.
I am co owner of an IT company that does on site support and consulting for clients as little as your average home user to larger clients like United Airlines and Office Depot. Myself and all of my guys use Dells. I had an HP before my Dell and the HP was one hell of a machine but the Dell is hands down the most reliable and powerful machine for the money.
There are many manufacturers that produce lap tops for half the price of a dell but you get what you pay for. A manufacturers warranty covers the machine itself but does not cover all of the data that you can potentialy lose if you buy a low end machine like an emachine. Not to mention when having warranty work done you are without your machine for weeks possibly months. Do you really want to go months without having your laptop?
My current lap top is a Dell and my next lap top will be a Dell. As a T-Mobile employee I am offered compaq machines at a significantly reduced price but I will still pay full price for a Dell because saving a couple hundred bucks isnt worth giving up the reliability that I have with my Dell.
Also Dells sales people do an incredible job advising you on what you need when you call in to place an order through them. They dont push the most expensive unit they offer on you. They ask you questions and advise you on what will suit your particular needs the best.

[Jet City]

I have only bought 1 laptop and it is a Toshiba, it has been 100% reliable (bought in 1998), I went with Toshiba because one of the guys who worked in the service dept. used one that he had dropped a couple times and it still worked fine. I beleive the Toshiba's are one of the most durable units out there, the company I am now with issues Dell laptops, which I haven't yet received. You might check out some consumer reviews at epinions.com.

[MagicMtnDan]

Like I said, buy a Dell from Costco :cool:

[Dr. Eagle]

Originally posted by Jet City Rebel
I have only bought 1 laptop and it is a Toshiba, it has been 100% reliable (bought in 1998), I went with Toshiba because one of the guys who worked in the service dept. used one that he had dropped a couple times and it still worked fine. I beleive the Toshiba's are one of the most durable units out there, the company I am now with issues Dell laptops, which I haven't yet received. You might check out some consumer reviews at epinions.com.
The one up in my spare bedroom is a 1998 vintage satellite, PII 233 mhz. It still works, but barely. I guess that isn't too bad for all these years and it has been to Brazil, Mexico, Canada and England... and from Florida to New England as well as Seattle and San Diego, all over the US too, so its been around.
But it was not 100% reliable. Far from it. It was the best Toshiba that I have owned or been issued though. The second machine was so troublesome that the IT guys finally just replaced it and gave me another. It too had problems, not on the same scale though.
I thought I'd take a chance on the emachines laptop, and sorry boozer it aint a cheepie. It has premium components from the main board (toshiba) to the drives, the 802.11 g built in wireless, the CDRW and DVD, the USB 2.0 and firewire I/O...lots of features for a reasonable price.
In 8 months now it hasn't been touched by a computer professional, in that amount of time the sony had been in the shop 5 times for an average of 3 weeks a trip. This is why I said it was a useless machine to me, couldn't use it for work...I am a consultant and have to have a reliable computer.
My Dell that I had lost 2 Hard disks in 1 year, and their award winning service, ship me the part and make me restore the computer. This was before they had restore disks (1997), so you had to load each application.
the compaq I had lost a hard drive but otherwise was a pretty solid machine.
I think a lot has to do with the luck of the draw. I do know I will never buy another Sony or anything from CompUSA.:mad:

[v-drive]

We are going to replace all of our sony laptops at work. We wave an existing Toshiba that has been around since 96 0r 97 . The sony's have been around since 01 and have been causing many headaches. We have 3 e-machines and i'm sorry but they are not a cut above anything. Toshiba wins our vote.
:cool: v-drive

[Dr. Eagle]

Originally posted by v-drive
We are going to replace all of our sony laptops at work. We wave an existing Toshiba that has been around since 96 0r 97 . The sony's have been around since 01 and have been causing many headaches. We have 3 e-machines and i'm sorry but they are not a cut above anything. Toshiba wins our vote.
:cool: v-drive
Emachine desktop computers are bargain basement computers and their laptops are similar, but they do use good to premium components. All I have been saying is that my experience So Far has been excellent with this one. There are lots of negative issues with Sony, first of all there is way too much propreitary crap on their computers. Emachines does not spend a lot of money on engineering and R&D. They marry commercially available compatible components together to make a product.
It is like anything, depends on batch, model, etc. Even with the problems I have had over the years with Toshiba, I know their reputation is as an industry leader in laptop computers. I would buy another if the deal were right.
A Toshiba comparable to the emachine features was on sale for 1899 when I got the emachine. I almost bought it instead, but now that I have used this computer, I am happy I took the leap.
I am not at all impressed with Dell though. There are people that swear by them, but my experience with them was not good at all. If I wasn't a half decent tech, I would have had to pay someone to put in the hard drive and restore my machine... That was less than award winning service IMO.

[Bow Tie Omega]

That is odd, my Sony has performed absolutely flawlessly, and as far as propreitary programs (Vaio???), you can uninstall them and the WOS will function just fine.

[mikev]

we have two toshibas never had a problem out of either one and the old one is from 98

[MagicMtnDan]

Originally posted by Forensic
These guys are all about performance... And they look cool while there at it.
AlienWare (http://www.alienware.com/)
Forensic
Spendy stuff!

[Caribbean Jet]

check out this web site, they rank just about everything thing you need, they have pricing from a ton of different shops. Its also good for just about anything that deals with electronics.
www.cnet.com
I have an IBM think pad and Love it.

[GlastronGuy]

Originally posted by Forensic
These guys are all about performance... And they look cool while there at it.
AlienWare (http://www.alienware.com/)
Forensic
It was going to buy one of these but they don't sell port replicators. And when you ask them if they plan too, they get snotty.
Got a Dell instead.