Best Value on a laptop.

[Solema]

First off, that lappy at BB is back in stock.

Every person I know that has a Toshiba laptop (5) has had their batteries go bad within a couple years, to the point of total uselessness. My brother's Tosh also became unuseable one day when the CPU decided it was going to run 20x faster than it should, and would overheat within 5 seconds of power on. I stay away from Tosh laptops like the plague.

I have no experience with Gateway laptops so I will not comment on their quality.

I too am waiting for either a good deal ($600-$750) on either an Inspiron 700m or whatever replaces the 600m. I want widescreen but 15.4" makes for too heavy a laptop for my tastes. Unfortunately, small widescreen laptops have not been Dell's forte yet. But I don't want to pay the price premium for a Sony!

 

[Hacp]

Originally posted by: Solema
First off, that lappy at BB is back in stock.

Every person I know that has a Toshiba laptop (5) has had their batteries go bad within a couple years, to the point of total uselessness. My brother's Tosh also became unuseable one day when the CPU decided it was going to run 20x faster than it should, and would overheat within 5 seconds of power on. I stay away from Tosh laptops like the plague.

I have no experience with Gateway laptops so I will not comment on their quality.

I too am waiting for either a good deal ($600-$750) on either an Inspiron 700m or whatever replaces the 600m. I want widescreen but 15.4" makes for too heavy a laptop for my tastes. Unfortunately, small widescreen laptops have not been Dell's forte yet. But I don't want to pay the price premium for a Sony!

Nope stil sold out.

 

[BBock7271]

As Doctor Emmit Brown would say "thats COLD, AIR COLD"

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: Toolmantb
A. Instead of thread bashing, add something constructive. Like a beater deal.

B. What's not so great?

I have one for you:

C. As a courtesy to your fellow Hot Dealers it would be nice to have a detailed thread title such as:
Toshiba Satellite A75-S125 @ OD $999 AR

 

[JackRipper]

Originally posted by: Toolmantb
A. Instead of thread bashing, add something constructive. Like a beater deal.

B. What's not so great?

No1's bashing nething (u should stick around and really get to know what thread bashing is... especially in Hot Deals lolz)... Toshiba lappy's arent the greatest anymore... Even with the specs u will be disappointed with many things later on down the road:

A) battery time, power consumption
B) its size, weight


In addition, the dells aren't too bad either especially for the $$. It really depends on if you want a desktop replacement or a real laptop. Btw I could be wrong ( 1, too lazy to read the current reviews. 2, according to reviews a few months ago). Mobile Pentium 4's and Pentium M's are two different things. Don't underestimate the 1.6/1.7 Ghz Pentium M (or Centrino certified - same chip just with intel wireless card) ratings.

Personally, even on a budget when I need a lapyop it has to meet the A and B listed criterias otherwise I would just get another desktop. Desktop replacements are rediculous... if you need that much power expect to lose out somewhere else.

- JR


some links

http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20030205/centrino-13.html
http://www.powernotebooks.com/articles/index.php?action=fullnews&id=14

 

[Toolmantb]

Did anyone happen to wright down the model number of the Gateway with the AMD at Bestbuy? I want to take it in and have them do a search to see if any of the stores around here still have one in stock. They took it off the web site.

 

[Toolmantb]

How about this Acer at Circuit City? Mojor specs. I don't know much about Acer though?

 

[Devistater]

Originally posted by: Solema
First off, that lappy at BB is back in stock.

Every person I know that has a Toshiba laptop (5) has had their batteries go bad within a couple years, to the point of total uselessness.

Thats not limited to toshiba. All laptops that use lithium ion batteries will have the batteries go bad fairly quickly under any amount of heavy use. Why? Because thats the dirty little secret of lithium ion batts. No memory, and much better capacity than all other rechargable battery types (ni-mh, ni-cad, etc), BUT very limited charge cycles.

Dont you remember the class action lawsuits against apple for some of thier ipod batteries that died within a year or 2?

Laptop makers dont mind, they make a good percentage off of selling replacements, and all they care about is bragging how much runtime it gives you when its new.

Dell was at least honest about it when I was looking at the specs when buying my new lappy. The 9300 battery (high capacity and normal) it says lasts for 500 charge/discharge cycles. Toshiba doesn't mention anything like this, and I cant find any specific cycle numbers on apples site either about ipods or whatever.

According to apple, http://www.apple.com/batteries/
A full discharge cycle is when your battery is fully discharged and then recharged. Or if you ran the battery to 50%, then charged, then 50%, then charged, thats one full cycle since it adds up to 100%.


Run your laptop battery fully down once a day and you will hit that 500 charge cycle limit in a year and a couple months.

So this is UNIVERSAL ACROSS LAPTOPS (and any other lithium ion using devices, cell phones, etc), not just one brand.

 

[route66]

Thats not limited to toshiba. All laptops that use lithium ion batteries will have the batteries go back fairly quickly under any amount of heavy use. Why? Because thats the dirty little secret of lithium ion batts. No memory, and much better capacity than all other rechargable battery types (ni-mh, ni-cad, etc), BUT very limited charge cycles.

Also, LiIon batteries slowly die and lose capacity if they are not in use. So don't buy a replacement battery right away thinking that you can store it until you actually need it, because 2-3 years later it will have weakened.

 

[coolzero16]

I sold a ton of those amd 64 laptops you guys are talking about at best buy. I don't remember the model #, but right before I left I know at least in MY store it was on clearance.

Also, yah, the battery thing is mostly true except toshiba batteries, at least in my experience, have far fewer charge cycles than some of the vaios or even hps/compaqs. Also our display models take a lot of abuse from customers especially kids who try to reach out of their cart as mom's are strolling by and maybe its just luck, but over 3 years the most durable laptops have NOT been the toshibas. We almost always have at least 1 or 2 of them in service with something or another having broken on them (usually screen/HD)

If I was going to buy a laptop at Best Buy I'd get a gateway or vaio (vaio seems to be out of your price range), but then again I would never get a laptop at Best Buy =p

 

[intogamer]

I wouldn't buy it

533FSB is crap... you dont' use the CPU to the full

 

[Devistater]

Something is screwy about the OP. How can you get a mobile pentium with 3.2 ghz?
Either its a normal P4 which means its going to suck battery and be very hot, or its a pentium M thats not nearly 3.2ghz.

And I'd prefer a pentium M for a laptop, a 2.13 ghz pentium M will outperform a P4 3.6 or 3.8 ghz on almost anything (except maybe encoding).

Ok I checked on toshiba's site:
http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cmo...=-27931&sel=0&rcid=-26367&ccid=1291021
Looks like its basically a normal P4, not a pentium M.

My reccomendation is to stay away from any laptops that dont have pentium M.

Unless you are like the guy I was chatting to the other day who didn't care about heat and power and didn't mind if his $3,000 laptop only lasted 30 mins battery, didn't care if it scorched his nads, he wanted to be able to take it places and plug it in and use it like a portable desktop for gaming purposes (and yet he was willing, despite my explainations, to buy one of the suckiest graphics cards in a laptop for gaming, the x300, which is really going to dissapoint him in gaming lol). So he wanted a "real" p4 with HT chip in his laptop, and thought that was all he needed to game.

 

[fr]

Originally posted by: Devistater
Something is screwy about the OP. How can you get a mobile pentium with 3.2 ghz?
Either its a normal P4 which means its going to suck battery and be very hot, or its a pentium M thats not nearly 3.2ghz.

http://www.intel.com/products/processor/mobilepentium4/

 

[Hacp]

Originally posted by: fr

Originally posted by: Devistater
Something is screwy about the OP. How can you get a mobile pentium with 3.2 ghz?
Either its a normal P4 which means its going to suck battery and be very hot, or its a pentium M thats not nearly 3.2ghz.

http://www.intel.com/products/processor/mobilepentium4/

qft. Basically, an neutered p4.

 

[numatrix]

Originally posted by: Toolmantb

Originally posted by: tfinch2
Gateway makes terrible notebooks.

Can't argue with that logic :Q

gateway laptop quality sucks. had the pleasant experience of having to repair 3 of them the past couple of years. just poorly assembled. - tft does not stay up, drives dying, screws falling off....looks great new, falls apart shortly after.

 

[Toolmantb]

The Gateway at BestBuy Model number is 7508GX

 

[Hacp]

Originally posted by: Toolmantb
The Gateway at BestBuy Model number is 7508GX

Wow you found it lol.

 

[Toolmantb]

Found it but yesterday 1 BB about 45 min away had five of them. Sold out today :|

 

[imported_dani]

I doubt this laptops batteries would last longer than 90 minutes. Pentium 4 + laptop = plug it in.

 

[Toolmantb]

I've found that IBM Thinkpad R series like the R50e are pretty reasonably price at a bit over $1000. Only thing the R50e was really missing was a S-video out, and I can't live without that.

I've also found out that my father-in-law gets a discount at IBM.com so "Dude I'm getting a IBM" R52 18595RU with a couple upgrades for under $1000. Man that Ultra-drive bay is cool.

 

[Slickone]

Originally posted by: mikeford
If money was tight I would pick up a 2 or so year old Thinkpad for $200 to $300. No heavy graphics games, but maybe that is a plus for a school laptop.

I'd like to have a 2 year old laptop of any kind for $200 or so.

Do I want one with the cursor button in the middle of the KB, or the touch pad?

 

[Slickone]

Originally posted by: numatrix
gateway laptop quality sucks. had the pleasant experience of having to repair 3 of them the past couple of years. just poorly assembled. - tft does not stay up, drives dying, screws falling off....looks great new, falls apart shortly after.

You repaired them yourself?

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: dabuddha

Originally posted by: travlen

Originally posted by: dumpydooby
Just wait until Oct 19th.

Dell will have their $750 off $1500 laptops by then. I'm expecting the Inspiron 9100 to be $750.

Perhaps you mean the Inspiron 9300?

Anyone have any idea if the 600M is ever going to be replaced? 600M seems like a great compromise for size/weight in a laptop but it doesn't get good reviews.

The rumor is that they're bringing out a 14.1" widescreen replacement for the 600m by the end of this year.

I've setup a couple of 600M's and I think they're a great laptop for the money as long as you get the high-res screen. I much prefer my T42 but it's nearly double the price of a 600m.