50mxe20 Posted May 10, 2008 Posted May 10, 2008 My daughter would like to get a fully function of reasonable quality laptop. Needs to be wireless as she does not have a phone line of any kind. What do people recommend? What kind of prices to get a good one?
Scorchie™ Posted May 10, 2008 Posted May 10, 2008 I always swear by HP laptops, but not the ones you see at Harvey Norman. Their business range is: http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/au/en/sm/WF...51-1124051.html That said, really depends on her budget
50mxe20 Posted May 10, 2008 Author Posted May 10, 2008 Thanks Caniffe. What would one get for $2-$3K? Looks like there are a few there at that link in this price range. My son has a NEC and I used to think highly of Toshiba's?
Scorchie™ Posted May 10, 2008 Posted May 10, 2008 Toshiba's are also good, but you pay a premium for the name and a lot more bloat :\ I use a HP nc8230 (nearing end of life), and haven't had an issue with the 8230 to date and it's more than 2 years old. In the days of Vista you are probably looking for a 8510p or 6910p - depends on what you want in terms of weight, screen, RAM, etc. My humble two cents.
Douglas Posted May 10, 2008 Posted May 10, 2008 (edited) Firstly, what do you mean by "wireless"? Do you mean "able to connect to WiFi" or "able to connect to the internet via something like a 3 Mobile NetConnect card"? Let us know. My reccomendations: 1. Avoid anything with the words HP, Compaq, or Acer on them like the plauge. They come with a load of bloatware, and I would only wish these upon my worst enemy. And even then it would be with a heavy heart. 2. Never had much experience with Asus notebooks, but they appear to be fine. Very little bloatware, and they appear to have Nero (Woot! Nero!) 3. My mate recently purchased a Dell XPS M1530, which is a very nice notebook, and is available in black or blue, or in a special Product(red) charity thing (Is Bono involved with it? I don't know). A bit of bloatware, but is suitable. He spent $2800 on it, I think, and he got 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, nVidia Graphics, DVD Burner and Vista Ultimate. Sadly, it comes with the next to useless McAfee suite (I like Trend Micro) 4. Apple MacBooks are far better value than the MacBook Pro ones unless you need dedicated graphics. But, from what I can gather, your daughter would only need the GMA X3100 in the MacBook unless she's an avid gamer. 5. If the wireless option is the latter one, you want to avoid Telstra, and try 3 and Optus in that order. 3 requires 3G, but if no 3G is present, it will use the (much slower) Vodafone 2G GSM network. Telstra should only be conisdered an option if you can only get NextG coverage in your area. 6. If the wireless option is the former one, any notebook made within the past three years will be suitable. 7. An el cheapo useless laptop will cost you $799. This you want to avoid. Ideally, you want to spend $2,500+ on a laptop. The Dell website is an excellent sandpit for this kind of thing. Look at their Inspiron range: you can get them in eight colours, and some in three designs as well as the eight colours, which your daughter will no doubt fall in love with. My reccommended specs: * Core 2 Duo Processor with speed of 2.2GHz or higher. No Celerons, No Pentium Dualcore, No AMD processors, just Core 2 Duos. * 1GB or more of RAM, 2GB is good for Vista, if you can't get the 64-bit version of Vista, you want no more than 3GB of RAM, as there is a limitation that 32-bit versions of Vista can't see anymore than 3.5GB of RAM, graphics card included. * 250GB+ Hard drive. Vista needs 15GB of Hard drive space. Office will need 1GB plus, and all other software will require about 3-5GB. The restore partition will usually be 10GB+ * Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate. Home Basic should be Vista Home Basically No Point In Buying, as it is a load of rubbish. In my opinion, it doesn't constitute an OS. If you choose a Mac, then you've only got one choice: Mac OS 10.5 Hopefully I have been a help, and that I have not overloaded you with information! EDIT: My sister has a Toshiba M200-something. It's a good little unit. Another one to look at, but I think it was at the pointy end of $2,000 (about $2999, I think), but it has a large hard drive, 2GB RAM (I think), and an nVidia Graphics Chipset. And, as Harris Technology would call it, a 'trail' of Office 2007. Edited May 10, 2008 by Douglas
Austen Posted May 10, 2008 Posted May 10, 2008 Hi Lyle, I too wasn't sure what you mean by "wireless", having a wireless notebook isn't much good for connecting to the internet unless she has a wireless router in the house connected to the internet, and it sounds like she doesn't ?? As I travel so much, I've just gone to Optus Unplugged, 6Gb for $49 / month. Optus also have a slightly cheaper plan (less data) and also Vodafone have a similar plan. As long as your daughter can get a (Vodafone or Optus) mobile fone signal where she lives, there's not much between these plans, they are all about the same "value"....the price changes as the data volume changes. Three / Virgin and Telstra did not have similar value plans when I was looking.................... Hope this helps, Austen. *I was with iBurst, but limited coverage and not so good value any more....
Foggy Posted May 10, 2008 Posted May 10, 2008 If it's mainly for "staying connected" Lyle, then I'd suggest an Asus EeePC.... they're handbag sized!
betty boop Posted May 10, 2008 Posted May 10, 2008 My daughter (28) would like to get a fully function of reasonable quality laptop.Needs to be wireless as she does not have a phone line of any kind. What do people recommend? What kind of prices to get a good one? lyle, I walked into a shop thinking of getting a tosh or something, looking to spend $2-$3k on a laptop and walked out with a macbook instead ! theyre upwards of $1499 http://www.apple.com/au/macbook/ come fully loaded including with all software. and with wireless etc.she can check out at your local dse and worth buying from there I reckon as if she doesnt like it can take it back within a couple of weeks no questions asked. after owning a macbook cant think of buying anythign else !
50mxe20 Posted May 10, 2008 Author Posted May 10, 2008 Firstly, what do you mean by "wireless"? Do you mean "able to connect to WiFi" or "able to connect to the internet via something like a 3 Mobile NetConnect card"? Let us know. Needs to be wireless as she does not have a phone line of any kind. Wireless to the WWW. Sorry, I thought that was obvious.
Volunteer Kazz Posted May 10, 2008 Volunteer Posted May 10, 2008 Wireless to the WWW.Sorry, I thought that was obvious. So did I. I have a Toshiba and find it quite good. None of them will have in built wireless modem, only the ability to connect wirelessly to your home network.
betty boop Posted May 10, 2008 Posted May 10, 2008 Wireless to the WWW.Sorry, I thought that was obvious. thats just a matter of getting a 3G dongle or network card from your network provider.
Mr.Bitey Posted May 10, 2008 Posted May 10, 2008 Well... In my experience.. HP Business laptops are pretty good - the main difference being is that they'll still be updating drivers for them long after the 'home' models have ended. Toshiba lost it a few years ago ive been burnt with heaps of toshibas in the past... Careful for ones with shiny screens - they can be hard to read in ANY light (reflections etc). Cheers, Bitey
Austen Posted May 10, 2008 Posted May 10, 2008 If it's mainly for "staying connected" Lyle, then I'd suggest an Asus EeePC.... they're handbag sized! There was an article in a computer mag a couple of months ago, and apart from their physical size, IIRC there wasn't a lot of good things that they said about them. I seem to recall that the main issue they had was the cost was $500, when for $600 you could buy a "proper" laptop nowadays ............ Austen.
Roderick Posted May 10, 2008 Posted May 10, 2008 (edited) I bought a Toshiba U300 'ultraportable' a month ago -- about $1700. This was mainly to take when travelling, and to act as a backup in case my desktop decides to pack it in. This was the one picked by APC or PC User as one of the best value machines at the more portable end of the market. Its not very small -- a 13" screen, powerfull duo processor, 2 Gbyte memory, 250 mbyte hard drive and DVD burner, all in a 2kg package. Very sexy looking shiny dark blue case. it comes with Vista, but you can 'downgrade' to Widows XP off a DVD if you want to. However, Vista performs well on it. When I first bought it and fired it up, I discovered several unsecured WiFi networks in my neighbouhood, so I immediately proceded to download all the Vista SP! upgrades, and Norton Antivirus updates. It also has a fingerprint reader. Good buy, but models seem to change every 2 months! Rod Edited May 10, 2008 by Roderick
mwd Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 (edited) I have bought 2 laptops from The Dell Factory Outlet ( Online takes a bit of a search through the Dell website to locate. ) Extremely good savings but you must be able to understand specs as some have really strange setups. steer clear of Vista stay with XP. 99.9% of laptops are WiFi enabled these days. Following on from Roderick's post "Network Stumbler" finds local networks and status. Handy in Airports. Try it at home and you may get 'Nicked' I am currently using a Mitac EL80. Survived 2 years in desert dust and constant travelling with job. Good spec 15.4" screen and about $400.00 cheaper than Big Names. Got it from Umart online stores. Edited May 11, 2008 by mwd
Douglas Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 I seem to recall that the main issue they had was the cost was $500, when for $600 you could buy a "proper" laptop nowadays ............ $600 laptop = cr*pbook, not notebook. Linky. Note: Shameless self-blog plug!
Austen Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 Well...Ummm.....I was just comparing it to the ASUS EeePC....... In todays JB catalogue there is an Acer 15" notebook / Celeron 2.0Ghz / 1 Gb RAN / 80 Gb HDD / DVD Burner / Full complement of USB and other ports / Wireless / Vista Home for $ 496. In the SAME catalogue they have the Asus EeePC for $486. If you really wanted to compare apples, if you put Linux on the Acer notebook, you'd have a sub-$500 screamer .................. Austen. Edit: Talk about $500 screamers belongs in another thread....Maybe one of mellos or Biteys !!!!
Deaf Bhoy Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 $600 laptop = cr*pbook, not notebook. Linky. Note: Shameless self-blog plug! That link is too clean for this forum!
Deaf Bhoy Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 Deaf Bhoy, how in the hell did you find this thread? I miss read it... I thought it said Lapdance-What Is A Good One!
Douglas Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 By "Miss Read", your, erm... "assistant" Miss Read read it out as lapdance?
Foggy Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 Well...Ummm.....I was just comparing it to the ASUS EeePC.......In todays JB catalogue there is an Acer 15" notebook / Celeron 2.0Ghz / 1 Gb RAN / 80 Gb HDD / DVD Burner / Full complement of USB and other ports / Wireless / Vista Home for $ 496. In the SAME catalogue they have the Asus EeePC for $486. If you really wanted to compare apples, if you put Linux on the Acer notebook, you'd have a sub-$500 screamer .................. Austen. Edit: Talk about $500 screamers belongs in another thread....Maybe one of mellos or Biteys !!!! Yeah, but the Acer is not "handbag sized". We geeks tend to get caught up in the power requirements, when to a female, size really does matter.
Deaf Bhoy Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 By "Miss Read", your, erm... "assistant" Miss Read read it out as lapdance? But she tells a good bedtime story I turn the pages for her!
Austen Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 Yeah, but the Acer is not "handbag sized". We geeks tend to get caught up in the power requirements, when to a female, size really does matter. True, But the OP wasn't (necessarily) looking for a handbag sized one for his daughter ........... My daughter (28) would like to get a fully function of reasonable quality laptop...... ........ when to a female, size really does matter. Maybe not as much as you'd think............... When Mrs A was looking for one*, she tried heaps of them, and settled on the smallest one she could find, it did have a number of features that the bigger ones didn't though............... Austen. *Her laptop of course !!!!
Foggy Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 Yes, but "fully functional" could mean runs a web browser, and MS Office to many people
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