laptops?

[slick2526]

Hey guys. Im looking a for a new laptop and I know nothing about wich ones are good and wich ones are bad.

I want to keep it under a $1000.00.

first and most I want long battery life because Im going to be traveling alot. If its alot of extra money to get a really long battery life I guess it isnt that important but then I would like something I could upgrade the battery on. I would like to have a 17" screen but no smaller than 15". I want atleast 3 gigs of memory. A wireless modem, and a built in webcam. I dont know much about hard drives or processor chips anymore so thats where i really need my help also.

I dont know if what im asking for is out of the price range I had listed but I guess basically I want the best I can get for a $1000.00

This is mainly just going to be used to surf the web(facebook,youtube,etc) and to download music,shows,and movies. and to watch dvds on.

Any suggestions on what I should look at for a laptop??

I think im also going to buy a portable hard drive to save everything on so could anyone suggest a descent one?

[jeffreyd]

Just bought my wife a sony viao 13.4 inch it was 899 at best buy. So far no problems.

[Sandmannd]

To be honest, all have pretty much the same parts in them. Bought a cheap $500 Acer a few years ago and works great. Most batteries are made to only last 2 or 3 hours. Get an extended travel battery with it. I know the HP's you can get one that clips to the bottom and adds six hours to the life of the battery.

[Jeremy airjer W]

I can't complain about my HP Pavilion. It has all the capability to handle graphics application and has given me no problems over the last couple of years.

[DTro]

I have always purchased the low price "whatever is on sale" at the time.

I mostly use it for web browsing and media stuff anyways. Its to the point where these things are almost disposable anyways. I feel much better abusing a 300 laptop than a 1000 dollar one? And yes you can get a decent laptop for 300 dollars.

[slick2526]

thanks for the info guys

[DrKen]

dell studio with a 15.4 display, 9 cell battery intel core duo processor led display. works great and pd 525 after discounts from the outlet. sign up at dell for the outlet newsletter for discount codes or do search on the web. Get 6 hours of battery life and no problems with the 2 we bought.

[eurolarva]

Try and stay away from celeron processors. Intel would be best or an AMD. Minimum should be a duel core. Not sure if the quad core ones are out yet for laptops. I bought a toshiba satellite for 600 and love it

[upnorth]

I would look at the low end stuff unless you are looking at some heavy duty computing. I have seen some pretty decent stuff that would be fine for general web browsing, email and general photo stuff that listed for about $500.

[Sandmannd]

Intel makes Celeron. I've used them and had good luck with them. I prefer the actual Intel though, little more speed. AMD is good. Like Upnorth said, unless you are doing some high end work, you really don't need one over five bills. I've seen some on sale for around $300 that will do justfine for the majority of people.

[MN Shutterbug]

I'm using an Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad and have had no problems. The battery last a good 5 hours. I have no idea why you think you need 3 gigs of ram. Mine has just 1 gig, and it's fine for the web and processing photos.

[hanson]

I just got a Dell Inspiron 15" a few months ago for 500 something. I could dig up the details but I really like the computer, other than Windows Vista. I wasn't going to pay the extra $150 to "downgrade" to XP but oh well, it works for web surfing. The only upgrade I made was a wireless N network card for an extra 30 bucks or so. Kind of nice to sit on the couch with internet that is faster than my work computer with no wires to connect. I've been very impressed with battery life so far.

[eurolarva]

I'm using an Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad and have had no problems. The battery last a good 5 hours. I have no idea why you think you need 3 gigs of ram. Mine has just 1 gig, and it's fine for the web and processing photos.

If you are running vista you will want much more then 1 gig of raam. Vista is a resource hog. Google vista ram requirements and you will find most hits recommend at least 2 gigs of ram. You can believe Microsoft if you want and stick with a measly 1 gig. If your computer is running a virus scan and you are running vista and also trying to surf the internet and maybe copy and paste to a word document a duel core processor is going to do you little good if you dont have the ram to handle the tasks you are doing. The upgrade from 1 gig to 3 is probably around 100 dollars. The more complicated and smaller these machines get the more ram you are going to need in the future.

[Sandmannd]

I'm using an Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad and have had no problems. The battery last a good 5 hours. I have no idea why you think you need 3 gigs of ram. Mine has just 1 gig, and it's fine for the web and processing photos.

Lenevo's are nice laptops. You must have XP on your system? If you had Vista the 1 gig would not keep up, actually 1 gig is minimum I believe for windows. I run four gigs in mine. Just nice to have the power when you need it. Just like a boat motor, don't always need the full 250hp, but it's nice if it's nice to know it's there.

[delcecchi]

I have an acer with vista home basic and 1G. Black friday 07 at walmart for 358. Works fine for email and web browsing.

[Hookey]

I have been carrying a few Thinkpads for about ten years now. They get left in the car in the heat and in sub-zero temps of winter. They have fallen out of the car countless times (in a soft case with tools) and I have not had a single hardware problem. Mine gets bounced around from call to call all day and tossed in the car seat, trunk or whatever no problem.

For durability I would consider a Lenovo due to the construction of it's case.

If you do not see duralibity as a big need then I would buy whatever is cheap as all laptops use the same parts from China, Taiwan or whatever country happens to be selling parts for the lowest price the day the 'brand' orders the [PoorWordUsage].

Personally I do not believe there is a 'best' laptop and would not waste the money to buy the best if there was one.

The machine you choose will be obsolete in a year anyways so why not pay half the price, save your money then buy twice the machine a year later ?