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Recommendations for a new laptop

S

Steve Crook

Flightless Bird
Hi all,

I'm helping a friend to select a new laptop after the screen failed on
his 4 year old Fujitsu Siemens.

Although he wants a laptop, it's unlikely to be travelling much, except
perhaps between rooms. There also isn't a great demand for powerful CPU
or gaming features. A large 16:9 screen would be desirable due to ageing
eyesight and build quality is certainly a primary consideration.

As someone who uses a PC for work, I'm a Thinkpad fan but I've had no
experience of other machines in the Lenovo range. I'm quite
impressed with Toshiba machines and have shortlisted the L550 as ticking
all his boxes. There's also the Dell Inspiron range that looks
impressive on a webpage but I have no hands on experience.

I'd appreciate any recommendations.

Steve
 
B

bobmct

Flightless Bird
On Fri, 5 Mar 2010 17:46:42 +0000 (UTC), Steve Crook
<steve@mixmin.net> wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I'm helping a friend to select a new laptop after the screen failed on
>his 4 year old Fujitsu Siemens.
>
>Although he wants a laptop, it's unlikely to be travelling much, except
>perhaps between rooms. There also isn't a great demand for powerful CPU
>or gaming features. A large 16:9 screen would be desirable due to ageing
>eyesight and build quality is certainly a primary consideration.
>
>As someone who uses a PC for work, I'm a Thinkpad fan but I've had no
>experience of other machines in the Lenovo range. I'm quite
>impressed with Toshiba machines and have shortlisted the L550 as ticking
>all his boxes. There's also the Dell Inspiron range that looks
>impressive on a webpage but I have no hands on experience.
>
>I'd appreciate any recommendations.
>
>Steve

Steve;

I have personally purchased two new Toshiba's in the past several
months that fit your requirements. They each had 2GB RAM, 250GB hdd
and 15.6" 16x9 LCD's. Great machines. And I paid $299 each at Best
Buy.

I know many will attack this next statement but I setup and maintain
quite a number of laptops for a national organization. In my own
opinion I think the Dell's are the least favorable of all the brands
that I maintain.

YMMV - Good luck. Bob
 
T

the wharf rat

Flightless Bird
In article <9pb3p5lm46t160c65ijhffkdht2kublth9@4ax.com>,
bobmct <r.mariotti@fdcx.net> wrote:
>I have personally purchased two new Toshiba's in the past several
>months that fit your requirements. They each had 2GB RAM, 250GB hdd
>and 15.6" 16x9 LCD's. Great machines. And I paid $299 each at Best
>Buy.

Ever needed support on one?
 
S

Steve Crook

Flightless Bird
On Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:28:56 -0500, bobmct wrote in
Message-Id: <9pb3p5lm46t160c65ijhffkdht2kublth9@4ax.com>:

> I have personally purchased two new Toshiba's in the past several
> months that fit your requirements. They each had 2GB RAM, 250GB hdd
> and 15.6" 16x9 LCD's. Great machines. And I paid $299 each at Best
> Buy.

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the feedback. My friend ended up buying a Toshiba A500 and
seems to be very happy with it so far. Hopefully he will get many years
of use from it. :)

Steve
 
B

bobmct

Flightless Bird
On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 13:35:25 +0000 (UTC), Steve Crook
<steve@mixmin.net> wrote:

>On Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:28:56 -0500, bobmct wrote in
>Message-Id: <9pb3p5lm46t160c65ijhffkdht2kublth9@4ax.com>:
>
>> I have personally purchased two new Toshiba's in the past several
>> months that fit your requirements. They each had 2GB RAM, 250GB hdd
>> and 15.6" 16x9 LCD's. Great machines. And I paid $299 each at Best
>> Buy.
>
>Hi Bob,
>
>Thanks for the feedback. My friend ended up buying a Toshiba A500 and
>seems to be very happy with it so far. Hopefully he will get many years
>of use from it. :)
>
>Steve


Steve;

Glad you followed up. The ONLY issue I've seen with these few are on
one a key top snapped off (I attribute it to operator error). I
found a source to purchase a single key for $5. It snapped on as easy
as that (keys are NOT covered under the warranty and it wasn't worth
sending it back anyway).

Keys at "individualkeys.com".

Good luck. Now tell your friend to install Linux and he'll REALLY
like it.

Bob
 
S

Steve Crook

Flightless Bird
On Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:38:48 -0500, bobmct wrote in
Message-Id: <606bp5dukar5js1ap1v3gaeude8gnv8moh@4ax.com>:

> Good luck. Now tell your friend to install Linux and he'll REALLY
> like it.

Yes indeed. There are so many people who never venture outside their
browser. Their online lives would be so much more secure if they ran
Linux, plus of course they wouldn't have to buy it and upgrade it every
few years.
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
In news:slrnhpc591.56p.steve@news.mixmin.net,
Steve Crook typed on Tue, 9 Mar 2010 09:30:09 +0000 (UTC):
> On Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:38:48 -0500, bobmct wrote in
> Message-Id: <606bp5dukar5js1ap1v3gaeude8gnv8moh@4ax.com>:
>
>> Good luck. Now tell your friend to install Linux and he'll REALLY
>> like it.
>
> Yes indeed. There are so many people who never venture outside their
> browser. Their online lives would be so much more secure if they ran
> Linux, plus of course they wouldn't have to buy it and upgrade it
> every few years.

Well I have been running Windows since '93 and I never got a virus yet.
Thus I don't know how much secure you can get. And I have been running
Windows XP for 8 years now and I never plan on upgrading. Plus my
Xandros Linux machines were not free and I had to buy them like you do
with Windows. Plus there are no upgrade options available even if you
wanted too. And people say you should upgrade Linux all of the time do
to security flaws.

--
Bill
Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) 1 of 3 - Windows XP SP2
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
In news:606bp5dukar5js1ap1v3gaeude8gnv8moh@4ax.com,
bobmct typed on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:38:48 -0500:
> Now tell your friend to install Linux and he'll REALLY
> like it.

Actually Linux has been around since '91 and almost 20 years later,
still less than 1% of computer users like it. And I tend to agree. My
Linux machines do far less than my Windows machines. Plus they need far
more processor power for multimedia and the formats are far more limited
as well.

--
Bill
Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) 1 of 3 - Windows XP SP2
 
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