I am about a buy a labtop and my dad is about to buy a handheld...anyone have any does and donts and what to look for? I want my labtop for college/personal use, I dont need some big business one...

 

Do's and Don'ts......


How about this Don't: Don't Go into a store and ask for a LABTOP...Ask for a Lap Top as in, A computer to put in or on your lap. This is not intended as an insult or slam, it is in fact a true helpful hint. If you walk in and ask for a labtop, the salesman will feel he has an easy target.

Ed

 

are you into gaming? If you are then, look for something with at least 256mbRAM, 20gig HD, 32MB video card.

If you're just looking for something to type papers on and surf the net, then all you will need is a base model.

 

I bought the Toshiba 5005-504, It is a PIII 1.1 with the Nvidia graphics. Pretty good laptop and so far it has played about any game that I have put on it. Major drawbacks of it is the battery life is not very long at all and it has no serial or parrell ports on it.

The ports are not an issue for me since my printers here are networked, but for some people this could be a issue.

Overall I am very happy with it.

 

I haven't checked lately, but unless Sony had changed their attitude, stay away from their VAIO series if you plan on experimenting with different operating systems.

I was looking at them when I bought my computer (Toshiba Satellite 2775). This was when Win2k was just coming out and they had a blurb on their website basically saying their computers have not been tested with Win2k and are not supported running Win2k. They even went so far as to say they didn't even know if they would ever write the drivers for Win2k for existing machines.

Toshiba, on the other hand, quickly provided drivers and versions of their laptop utilities for Win2k and XP - including support for older machines like mine.

Oh, and do yourself a big favor and buy a laptop that has the CD-ROM and floppy drive in the case at the same time. Some computers have those swap bays where you plug in your floppy drive or CD-ROM drive to use, but you can't have both at the same time. Some computers will allow you to plug in the floppy drive to a port when the CD-ROM is in the bay, but this is still a pain in the ****.

 

I went with the Cmpaq 1700 series. I upgraded to a DVD/CR-RW drive. (yes it is the swapable bay ones, no problems) If I were you, I would definatly go with a CD-RW. I went with the 10/100 ethernet plug built in. Here at OSU, its nice to just plug it in and not have to mess with the adapter thing. If this will be your computer for everything, Get a docking station with it, it makes taking the laptop somewhere else really easy.

 

Dell, all my PC's are Dell's and havent had a problem with it. I recently read a review with 5 different lap tops Dell and Toshiba were considered the best ones to buy.

 

Stick with Dell. I have yet to hear a complaint about Dell support.

 

Dell has some good deals going now. I'm thinking of getting a laptop sometime soon. The only time i'd buy from dell though is when they have one of those 2 for 1 deals like "get a free CD burner upgrade" or something the like.

 

Ill speak for their service. During my move to WA recently I left behind every single CD for one of my systems. I called Dell and with no hesitation they sent me a new PC packet no charge Next Day Air. They are very good at customer support.

 

I have a good friend that is in my MBA classes that can get a 10% discount off of a HP system...He works for HP and says right now they have a refurbished system with a 800MHZ processor for 749.....he said its not really refurbed but it was a unit that did not sell out when it was in stores...he says it is plenty fast and has enought memory, etc...it has a DVD players I think, no CRW but thats no biggie since I have one in my desktop...I guess anyway you go it will be out of date in six months, so i would rather spend 800 than 1600....

Is ethernet the connection I need to hook up to the school's system to get online??

Thanks for the advice guys

 

The ethernet is more than likely what you need. That is what OSU uses. What classes are you taking in MBA. Next semester I will finally start on some business classes, like Finacial Accounting and Micro Economics (both Honors). On the notebook I would try to play with one before you bought it. Some are thicker and the keyboards are different. If your happy with your destop, I would buy the same brand. Anyway, just my

 

I have completed 17 hours of the MBA program...The most difficult three so far have been Operations MGMT, Financial MGMT, and CISM MGMT....through the speech MGMT in there as well, I hated that class!

 

dell lap top

any windows ce device (Not palm os)

my .02