Laptop Help PLEASE!!

[chasineyes]

I am in complete darkness with new technology so here it goes...we would like to buy a laptop and with the newer ones that say built in internet, does that mean we DON"T need a wireless router thing?

THanks!!

"Connect to the Internet anywhere, anytime; 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi CERTIFIED conveniently delivers rapid and reliable wireless connectivity from your home, at work or on-the-go"

[upnorth]

The laptop will have the wireless card, and yes it will be Internet ready, but it will still need something to connect to. You will need a wireless router to connect to.

[Jim Almquist]

Or have a neighbor so close you can pickup there Wi-Fi

It will make the laptop ready but like upnorth said you will have to have something broadcasting that signal.

[DTro]

You might be confusing laptop with some of the new netbooks. Those also have wi-fi built in but also some of them have built in harware to use cell service or 3G/4G. With these you don't need a router, but you will need a subscription to the cell service and also a decent signal to the tower.

Yes, it gets a little confusing.

[upnorth]

Yeah forgot the wireless cell service, commonly called air cards.

[BobT]

Virtually all computers, except the ones you build yourself, come internet ready too but you still need to access the internet by subscribing to an internet provider service. My cell phone is cell ready but until I buy a service from AT&T, G-Mobile, Verizon, or another cell service provider, my cell phone is nothing more than an electronic piece of junk.

[spearchucker]

Internet ready is just marketing gobligook. Dang near everything you buy is internet ready. Its like saying a car is road ready... that why you buy the dang thing.

[pureinsanity]

Post a link to the one you are looking at! We can give you our insight.

Personally I am a dell or gateway kinda person just for the fact they are easy to fix IMO and they come with all the cds you need to reformat. Any of those other brands make you download this, make a back up of this, and make a recovery cd. Blah blah blah.

[chasineyes]

Thanks everyone! I don't really want to spend more than 500$ on one. Mainly used for the kids to reasearch papers and the wife to work on organizing pictures. Not really a "Gamer" family so don't need fast and fancy graphics. This is one I was looking at...

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-AS5552-3036-1...AYEP4XW9Q15EEY8

[upnorth]

Sounds about like the hp that I have at home to just do some basic web surfing and picture management. Works good for me. Just don't expect a lot of it and you will be fine.

[delcecchi]

Looks like a decent machine. I got an Acer from wally a couple years ago and it works fine. Mine is a little light on memory, but this one has 3GB so that should not be a problem. And 7 is supposed to be way better than vista.

The built in webcam is useful too. Video chat instead of long distance calls to the grandkids.

[MuleShack]

Personally I am a dell or gateway kinda person just for the fact they are easy to fix IMO and they come with all the cds you need to reformat.

This is not so true anymore, Dell has everything attached to the mother board now, so if the ehternet goes out...replace motherboard etc. Now with windows 7 you get no disks anymore, even the office software is preloaded before you get it. If the hard drive crashes, you get a new hard drive with windows installed along with your office software. In my opinion this has to be one of the dumbest things i heard of. i can see why they are doing it to cut down on piracy etc, but if your computer crashes you have to wait 4-5 days before you get the new drive from them preloaded. When you are out of warranty, this almost makes them your sole option to get anew drive from because it hasto be loaded with the windows nand office software.

I may not be relaying this correctly, but this was my experence last month with a new dell XPS 8100 desktop when the hard drive crashed 3 weeks after it was delivered.

[upnorth]

Yeah not particularly fond of the "restore partition" thing myself. If you find you need or want to upgrade to new hard drive it makes it pretty dang hard if not impossible to do without going out and buying the OS and software.

And where I work now is pretty much a dell shop and support, replacement/repair and shipment of correct products lately have not been so good. I about blew my cork over a repair issue yesterday. Could be they are getting a little to big as of late.

[Jim Almquist]

I have a Toshiba with with Windows 7 and what I did was make complete backups of my system to DVDs. It took 2 DVDs to get all the info but at least if my drive dies I can reload the entire system along with all of the drivers back to the day it was new. The one thing that I have seen is that most people don't keep track of those backup disk and if you need a computer on a daily basis one should really have a case for all there software to minimize there downtime.

[pureinsanity]

This is not so true anymore, Dell has everything attached to the mother board now, so if the ehternet goes out...replace motherboard etc. Now with windows 7 you get no disks anymore, even the office software is preloaded before you get it. If the hard drive crashes, you get a new hard drive with windows installed along with your office software. In my opinion this has to be one of the dumbest things i heard of. i can see why they are doing it to cut down on piracy etc, but if your computer crashes you have to wait 4-5 days before you get the new drive from them preloaded. When you are out of warranty, this almost makes them your sole option to get anew drive from because it hasto be loaded with the windows nand office software.

I may not be relaying this correctly, but this was my experence last month with a new dell XPS 8100 desktop when the hard drive crashed 3 weeks after it was delivered.

It is hard to copy any dell stuff to a computer. This was one thing I loved about dell. The windows cd they gave you worked on ANY dell but no other computer! I loved that! So I do not know how anyone could use it towards piracy...

Times have changed and I haven't needed or used a computer for personal use in at least a couple years now since my smart phone.

[pureinsanity]

Ghost back ups!!!!!!

[Nick Kuhn]

For those worried about backups: all you need to do is write down your Windows product key. You can then download whatever version of Windows you have installed and burn it to your own disc. Nobody will come after you for doing this for backup purposes. Then if you need a repair install or to reformat you don't need to worry about what is/isn't included from the manufacturer. Also is a good idea to make a disc containing all of your drivers. It won't be the nice all in one install package but it'll get the job done.

[upnorth]

Are you sure that will work with OEM and non OEM. I have worked in IT for 13 years and XP wouldn't take an OEM number on a non OEM install disk. That was XP pro and have not tried anything of that nature with Vista or Windows 7 so don't know much about whether or not it would work with either of those 2.

[Jim Almquist]

The reason it will work for Windows 7 is your product key determines what version you are running and that is also why they now have the anytime upgrades because you have the full or Ultimate version loaded all the times.

[Nick Kuhn]

That's what I did with my friends laptop (Vista) when he managed to get his infected with a virus.