Buying a new laptop

[dilettante]

I'm in the market for a new laptop and thought I'd see if anyone here has suggestions or advice. I'm not familiar with Macs, so those are out, I'm resolved not to buy another Dell and I'm pretty leery of Gateway.

I'd like something fast, with 3-4 Gigs of RAM, and with a long battery life (my current machine has a battery life of around 10 minutes, which is about as long as it takes to start up). High-end graphics for graphics-editing/gaming would be a plus; screen size isn't a priority since it can be hooked up to a large-screen monitor when at home.

Any thoughts, witty remarks, or horror stories?

[Americano]

I'm in the market for a new laptop and thought I'd see if anyone here has suggestions or advice. I'm not familiar with Macs, so those are out, I'm resolved not to buy another Dell and I'm pretty leery of Gateway.

I'd like something fast, with 3-4 Gigs of RAM, and with a long battery life (my current machine has a battery life of around 10 minutes, which is about as long as it takes to start up). High-end graphics for graphics-editing/gaming would be a plus; screen size isn't a priority since it can be hooked up to a large-screen monitor when at home.

Any thoughts, witty remarks, or horror stories?

I'm happy you're not being sucked by Dell or Gateway. I used a local shop to recently replace a power supply on a desktop because I didn't want to wait on it being shipped in and he said he was smothered by out-of-warranty Dell laptop repairs.

[dilettante]

It looks like I can get a deal on an HP Pavilion DV7-1270US (http://www.amazon.com/HP-Pavilion-DV7-1270US-17-0-Inch-Laptop/dp/B001NPDKU8) for <$900. I'm thinking about going for that unless something better comes along.

[The Drunk Guy]

I had a XPS from Dell a couple years ago. With the 9-cell battery, I could use it for an hour or two, but I did have a smaller screen than average. I've heard people talk shit about Dells, but that little guy was a trooper.

I'm currently running on a Toshiba. It gets most jobs done, but it has some bugs that are very annoying. It's not a bad machine, but I'll probably buy something else next time.

I'm considering going Mac because I'm interested in experimenting with some graphic design. PC design programs are outrageously expensive and have steep learning curves.

Oh! And you may want to check this out. (http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2009-07-22-deals-laptops-walmart_N.htm)

[The Drunk Guy]

It looks like I can get a deal on an HP Pavilion DV7-1270US (http://www.amazon.com/HP-Pavilion-DV7-1270US-17-0-Inch-Laptop/dp/B001NPDKU8) for <$900. I'm thinking about going for that unless something better comes along.
What, no swoopo.com? :ummm:

[Margot]

It upsets me that you're writing off Macs so quickly. I've sworn a blood oath to never return to PCs, and also to promote Macs at every turn (the fan-base is well earned).

Otherwise, I have no other recommendations, and am wasting your time. ...then again, you're wasting your own with your silly PCs. :p

[dilettante]

It upsets me that you're writing off Macs so quickly. I've sworn a blood oath to never return to PCs, and also to promote Macs at every turn (the fan-base is well earned).

Otherwise, I have no other recommendations, and am wasting your time. ...then again, you're wasting your own with your silly PCs. :p

My wife is the Mac user in the family (and she's a big fan), but I don't really feel up to learning a new OS. Our next purchase after this one will be a new MacBook Pro for her.

[Michael]

PC design programs are outrageously expensive and have steep learning curves.
I don't know where you are getting your information from, but almost all professional graphics are done using the exact same programs common to both platforms.

Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop are the present standards and both have original releases on both platforms and there is virtually no difference in these programs based on OS platform. As a general rule, these software packages are often cheaper on the PC platform (due to a much larger installed base).

These Adobe products are by far the most expensive graphic software products on the market and they are by far the best. Everything else is second best.

[drgoodtrips]

I'm in the market for a new laptop and thought I'd see if anyone here has suggestions or advice. I'm not familiar with Macs, so those are out, I'm resolved not to buy another Dell and I'm pretty leery of Gateway.

I'd like something fast, with 3-4 Gigs of RAM, and with a long battery life (my current machine has a battery life of around 10 minutes, which is about as long as it takes to start up). High-end graphics for graphics-editing/gaming would be a plus; screen size isn't a priority since it can be hooked up to a large-screen monitor when at home.

Any thoughts, witty remarks, or horror stories?

Just curious, but what is it about Dell that turns you off? I don't have any brand name loyalty to hardware or software, so I have no personal stake - I'm just wondering.

[Michael]

Yes, I'd be curious about that Dell comment too. We have a formal 'buy-Dell' policy here at the office because they appear to be a much superior supplier to any other and their service is second to none. And yes, I'm the author of that policy here so I am indeed interested in your comment. :)

As for my own computers, I buy no-name computers from anyone of a couple dozen electronics shops in Chinatown here in Toronto and pay about half the price of any advertised stuff in stores, but this kind of shopping isn't for everyone.

[Americano]

I had a XPS from Dell a couple years ago. With the 9-cell battery, I could use it for an hour or two, but I did have a smaller screen than average. I've heard people talk shit about Dells, but that little guy was a trooper.

I'm currently running on a Toshiba. It gets most jobs done, but it has some bugs that are very annoying. It's not a bad machine, but I'll probably buy something else next time.

I'm considering going Mac because I'm interested in experimenting with some graphic design. PC design programs are outrageously expensive and have steep learning curves.

Oh! And you may want to check this out. (http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2009-07-22-deals-laptops-walmart_N.htm)

That's interesting about Wal-Mart. With their volume buying power they should have few problems in capturing that market.

[drgoodtrips]

Yes, I'd be curious about that Dell comment too. We have a formal 'buy-Dell' policy here at the office because they appear to be a much superior supplier to any other and their service is second to none. And yes, I'm the author of that policy here so I am indeed interested in your comment. :)

As for my own computers, I buy no-name computers from anyone of a couple dozen electronics shops in Chinatown here in Toronto and pay about half the price of any advertised stuff in stores, but this kind of shopping isn't for everyone.

I don't set our policy, but all of our computers are leased from Dell. I can't speak to their service department or prices, but I can speak to hardware reliability, which is excellent. I'd estimate that I've used about 15 Dell computers in my time here with some regularity, and I've never had a single hardware component fail.

Could be the proprietary/odd hardware specs forcing you to buy expensive replacement parts from Dell. I'd imagine that would irritate an individual consumer.

[dilettante]

I was a fan of Dell until these last two laptops I've had. Both have been Dells and in both cases the battery life dropped to less than half an hour within the first year, making them essentially little desktops. The AC adapt for the first one died completely after a couple years, which I gathered from forums was a common occurrence with the model. So I bought a new adapter, which became temperamental to movement within a few months. By that time the battery life was literally zero, so if I sneezed while typing the AC adapter would flicker and the computer would lose power and turn off.
The AC adapter for the new one still works fine, but the battery life is down to about 10 minutes.

Anyway, I may have just gotten a bad bunch, but I'm feeling ready to give HP or Toshiba a shot instead of Dell this time.

[drgoodtrips]

I was a fan of Dell until these last two laptops I've had. Both have been Dells and in both cases the battery life dropped to less than half an hour within the first year, making them essentially little desktops. The AC adapt for the first one died completely after a couple years, which I gathered from forums was a common occurrence with the model. So I bought a new adapter, which became temperamental to movement within a few months. By that time the battery life was literally zero, so if I sneezed while typing the AC adapter would flicker and the computer would lose power and turn off.
The AC adapter for the new one still works fine, but the battery life is down to about 10 minutes.

Anyway, I may have just gotten a bad bunch, but I'm feeling ready to give HP or Toshiba a shot instead of Dell this time.

Understandable. I've never had a battery life issue myself, but I also don't really like laptops, and tend rarely to use them on battery.

If you want to maximize battery life, however, I'd suggest looking at the brand and model of processor rather than the hardware manufacturer. The processor's power consumption and behavior are paramount (assuming that all user controlled things, such as screen brightness are equal), with the hardware OEM being relatively unimportant. To a lesser extent things like RAM and disk behavior affect it, but that's really, mostly because of how the processor accesses those things. For instance, more RAM saves battery life because your processor is less frequently navigating disk reads/writes, which are power intensive.

Just a thought.

Edit: By the way, if you want a "graphical" machine, good for gaming, that's murder on battery life. You're generally better off gaming from desktop machines.