Buying first laptop

[Iambjm]

So I am in the market for my first laptop. What are most important features?

Processor?

Memory?

Hard drive?

Wifi or just wireless?

[Shack]

All of the above IMO

It is just me, but I say go will the most/best you can afford.

Are thinking PC or Mac?

If PC, I would recommend waiting until they start coming with Windows 7 installed from factory. I assume in the next month or so they should be on the shelves. Even if you do not mind getting the free upgrade voucher, waiting for when they have laptops sitting on the shelf with Windows 7 installed and right next to them laptops with Vista and a upgrade coupon, could spell some saving for the same computer.

The other thing about the Windows 7 free upgrade "Buy it now and get it later" program from Microsoft is it is not free $9.95 for shipping The upgrade will not come in a forum of a download from MS. It will be in a form of a voucher from the manufacture of the PC, on-line forms, some hand writing, UPC labels and the US mail How long until you get upgrade package of Windows 7 sitting at your front door? I have no idea. Then you have to install it!

Do you have a laptop you have been looking at (brand)? What price range are you looking? What are you looking for the laptop to do? What do you plan on doing with the laptop?

[jwhjr]

We're in the market for another laptop right now as well. I've decided to wait until Windows 7 launches, as most retailers seem to just be running their inventory down and there isn't much to choose from.

[Skeeter21i]

Check out the line of MacBooks. Macs are easy to use and have a stable, virus-free operating system. We have two MacBooks and two iMacs here and they have been trouble free and outlasted any of the PC's.

[upnorth]

Barb, you really need to step back and review what you are going to use the PC for.

If you are looking for, email, web browsing, general word processing and little photo editing a lower end laptop will do fine. I just picked up an HP with 250 gig hard drive, 3 megs of ram, AMD turion processor and wifi/wireless for $525.

If you planning on more heavy duty use where you are going to be running large spreadsheets and databases, you will want something with more power and of course going to cost a few more $$$.

Most any modern processor other than the real low end AMD or celeron will do fine.

I would get at least 3 gig of Memory/RAM.

Wifi and wireless are one and the same, that is unless you are talking things like Verizen Air cards or the like. The Air Card would allow you to do your email or post on FM from the Ice house if you are so inclined.

I have yet to even make the laptop I have at home groan, but it you really want to step things up a bit, upgrade the memory/RAM.

Just make sure that you go with windows 7 or at least get something that has the free upgrade like I got.

Happy shopping and if you want any clarification please as a direct question.

And MACs are slowly losing their virus free status, as more people buy them the hackers and virus writers out there are exploiting the MAC OS all the time.

[Iambjm]

I am looking at another Dell, my desktop is 7 years old and only has 512 mb of memory, 80 gb hard drive and has been giving me fits lately. I really like the Dell and Windows XP but I have already replaced the power switch in it and it has been making some strange noises lately plus lots of freeze up and crashes. It has been scanned for virus's, trojans, spyware, and malware and I have deleted a lot of the old programs I rarely used and removed a lot of file from it. I do regular defragmenting, but it is really become bogged down lately (could be my addiction to facebook). This laptop will have to be a workhorse, as I can't afford to get a laptop and a desktop. I have never been a fan of Macs so it will be a PC. I am wondering if it would be better to have a better processor or more ram.

[upnorth]

Barb, I would definitely beef up the RAM before the processor. Most any laptop, not net book, of today would run circles around a 7 old desktop with 512 mb of RAM.

One of the things you have to deal with now days is the virus software, the virus and malware scanning takes a lot of resources in itself that is probably part of the slowness of you old Dell. The virus definition database on PCs are getting bigger and bigger all the time and all files open, changed and closed have to be referenced against those definitions.

[Shack]

Barb, before you give up on that old pc, try down loading a third party defrag program like Auslogics Disk Frag, It is free. Then download Ccleaner and run this. It is free, so what they heck

Then go over to youtube and search "how to make XP faster". Look for videos with five stars and many replaies like "thanks a million" "it worked". Watch them and do what they say.

The noise thing might be something worse, but again if something free can get you working again, all the betta!

[DTro]

Don't get caught up in the specs game. Especially if you are using it to browse the web, email and view pictures videos.

Even the lowest priced laptops will be sufficient.

The less you spend is directly proportional to the better you feel when it drops off a table or someone steps on it, or you spill something on it.

Here is what I would look for.

WIFI

Several USB ports

Media Card Reader

WebCam

Battery Life

[perchking]

I agree DTRO because what ever you buy it's going to be outdated in a year anyway.

[deerminator]

I'm not sure what the answer is but I'd look for reliability after you find the options you want, and similar to what DTRO outlined. We bought a cheapo Dell laptop($600 base) and it sucks for lack of a better word. It's had more mechanical issues (screen, mouse, keyboard, fan, you name it) and run slower than any computer I've ever owned. All we do is look at hungting sites and facebook on it! And I've owned a few IBM, Macs and Dells. I've had it into Best Buys Geek Squad four times in the one year warranty period. Most of the problems recurr and the Squad told me most of them have become commonplace in the model we bought. You might want to check out Consumer Reports online or something first. I believe its six dollars a month and we use it whenever we make a big purchase. It usually steers us right ( we didnt use it for the laptop).

[Larson15]

Buy a Mac, you wont regret it! Its well worth the extra money

[gone2hunt]

I would actually get a bigger processor...bigger processor more tasks will get done at faster times and now a days the standard ram they would give you with a new computer would be like 2gigs which is decent for most computing and most of the time can expand to 4 gigs for like 50 bucks more... but if you can i would get a dual or quad core processor..way faster than any single core processor

[Swimbait2009]

i agree with the Mac votes. I was a PC fan my entire life, and once I bought the first iPhone, figured I should try a MacBook next. Only computer I've ever owned that three yrs later is still fast, free of thrid party spyware/viruses/[PoorWordUsage], cool-looking. Yeah, the virus-free title is deteriorating, but there's a reason Mac's will continue to have LESS viruses than PC's: market share. If I wanted to create a virus to create havoc, I would be interested in the largest "bang for my buck". More people have PC's, so I'm going to target those machines. Same work, but larger target. That's why Mac's are considered more secure than PC's; it has nothing to do with actual vulnerability. Just a smaller "audience".

A con to the Mac's is if you plan on playing lots of games or use a lot of third-party software. There are many more titles (games and more) that are available for PCs...again, market share. If you're happy with what's available for MAC, which is quite a bit (and most of the core stuff is comparable and compatible with the PC versions), then the Mac carries a lot more longevity than the PC.

And the greatest advantage to a Mac is their customer service. There's probably an Apple Store relatively close to where you live, or if you call their hotline you actually speak with someone in this time zone. I have had a couple minor things go wrong with my MacBook Pro, and I've taken it in to my Apple Store and they're handed me a replacement withing 10 minutes of walking in. If I didn't have an Apple Store, they would have over-nighted me the replacement. I live 15 minutes from an Apple Store so that's my solution.

[Nick Kuhn]

You should tell us what your budget is.

This is looking like the bang for buck winner:

Code:

New! Toshiba - Satellite Laptop with Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor
Model: U505-S2970 | SKU: 9553967

ENERGY STAR Qualified
Intel® Core™2 Duo processor P7450; 4GB DDR2 memory;
DL DVD±RW/CD-RW drive; 13.3" widescreen; 500GB hard drive;
built-in webcam; Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Best Buy will be selling them soon for the very nice price of $800 (they won't make much profit on just the laptop, so they'll try to make their money selling you software and service plans).

That comes with everything you should need from a computer (unless you plan on gaming but I'd recommend a separate desktop for that anyway). It has an HDMI output so you can connect to any modern TV with no problem, all the usual laptop ports/features with the exception of it lacking bluetooth. It contains a P series processor which should offer you the best battery life and also generate less heat (very important to the lifetime you will see from your laptop).

Now time to bash the Macbook, because Apple products are overpriced C students. First of all a comparably equipped Macbook costs almost triple the above laptop. Second Macs are actually less secure than PCs, they just aren't targeted as often (though they are becoming more and more attractive targets every day). This year the pwn to own contest was won by someone who seized complete control of a Macbook Air in just 2 minutes using only the default preinstalled programs on the Macbook (the Macbook was fully security updated).

BTW I've been running Vista Ultimate for about 3 years now, never reformatted, never had to reinstall, etc... I've also never picked up a virus or any malware, running pretty much without any antivirus or firewall save the immunization of Spybot. 99.9999% of all PC viruses and malware are picked up because the user did something they shouldn't do (ie open email attachments from strangers, click suspicious links, etc.) Windows 7 will be the same way, and on top of that includes all the features that were dropped from Vista's original design.

[smallieaddict]

Sorry Nick but I'll opt for Macs like a couple of other posters have suggested.

A pwn 2 own event that took place March 2008 doesn't really count anymore. That took place with OS Leopard 10.5.2 and Safari 3. Since then Apple has released Safari 4 as well as OS Snow Leopard (10.6) along with various security patches. I have no problem "paying more" for a machine that will last longer, be trouble free and work when I need it to. Been using Macs since '93 for business and at home with no plans on changing.

Today is a good day to be an Apple stock holder. Check out their earnings report they just posted. With record Mac sales it shows that people are willing to "pay more" for user experience rather than just basing their decision on price or specs.

To each their own and be glad there are choices so people can buy what they want.

[upnorth]

To each his own is exactly right. There are reasons to buy a MAC and there are reasons to buy Windows based PCs/laptops. In most cases people buying MAC are doing it for specific reasons. The old days of windows crashing on a regular basis is a thing of the past(there are few lemons and many times it is user based problems)yes windows 95, 98 and millenium(sp?) had some issues, but since the XP service pack 1 Windows has been a stable, reliable platform. Vista is a pain at times, but windows 7 promises to be a good upgrade.

Basically there is nothing wrong with either Operating system, the drawback to MAC is there are some limits as to who writes apps for it, but on the other hand sometimes the free junk you can find for Windows that people use causes some headaches for folks. 6 of one 1/2 dozen of the other.

[Iambjm]

I am looking long and hard at this purchase. The reason I don't look at the Macs is the software issue. I do a lot of various tasks and the software for the Macs is so pricey. I like the sound of the Toshiba, although it would be nice to have a bigger screen. Will have to check them out. I thank you all for the good suggestions, I do think I need to get a beefier processor, I am often doing several tasks at once which I am sure is the reason my present computer keeps bogging down. My budget is $1000 or less. I often work on websites, editing pictures, and other tasks all at the same time. The virus-trojan horse thing has never been a problem for me as I use PcCillan and have never had an issue. Of course I stay away from suspicious websites and never open e-mail attachments unless I am sure they are safe.

[Nick Kuhn]

Ok, there are some similarly equipped laptops (there's an HP at best buy that will be out soon) with larger screens (15.6"), and they'll run you about $100 more. Note that upgrading screen size you go from a standard ratio to widescreen ratio. Overall you don't get much increase in resolution going to the bigger screen unless you go to 17" laptops, which start to get pretty heavy.

You really don't need a big processor for those tasks, most of those would be RAM bottlenecked. Plus you'd be surprised how capable those new P series mobile processors are. A 7 year old desktop probably has a mid-life Pentium 4 in it, a task that would 100% load that will probably only load a P series to 20%. Very rarely does my Q6600 (3 year old desktop processor) even have to clock itself up to full speed, it almost always runs in power save mode. Just for fun I opened up Winamp (music), left this browser open and fired up Photoshop CS3 and I'm still at 4% CPU utilization in power save mode (running at 1.6GHz as opposed to 2.4GHz when it's at full speed).

[Borch]

Well Barb you've got lots of advice. I end up working on both platforms and each has it's advantages. But if you can't decide there always the option of running a dual platform machine. Yes both Mac and Windows on one machine. Have a few of those too.

We have virus software on our Macs too. There are bugs out there...

If you want simple, relatively worry free a Mac is a good option if it will work in your budget. Many of our school staff prefer them.

[AaronM]

I went through the same thing this spring and my biggest regret is not buyng a Mac. Next laptop I get will be a Mac. I know people who have Windows 7 BETA versions on their laptops (registered testers of the software through Microsoft) and it isn't that far of a step-up from Vista.

[upnorth]

Let's not turn this into a Mac vs Windows thread. Both have their advantages and a person is best advised to pick one that suits their usage best.

[Larson15]

Once you go Mac you never go back!

[DTro]

I guess I’m the exception to that rule.

I bought a Mac for my first computer.

Geez what a pile that thing was. Under powered, overpriced, could never find software and when I did it was already outdated. Just a Royal PITA

Mind you, it was a long time ago. I think it was a 6116pc with something like 700mhz processor 16mb RAM and 750 mb HDD

I told myself then that I would never deal with the hassles again, went with a PC and never looked back.

[Larson15]

That was a long time ago.....Try doing that now and going back....wont happen, Ive tried