Getting a laptop for a friend

[timmay586]

A friend of mine who knows nothing about computers asked me to help him buy a laptop. I could easily build him a desktop, but I don't know anything about what OEMs are good to buy from, etc. Dell seems to be a popular choice, is there a reason for that? Anyway he says he'd like to keep it under $800 but I don't think that's reasonable since he wants >5 hrs of battery life and wants to be able to play games on it. I looked at Dell and here are some core components, I think this should be able to run Vista well:

CPU: Core Duo 1.6GHz
Memory: 1GB
Hard drive: 60GB
Graphics: Radeon x1400

We're getting it tonight, so any advice you could give me (quickly) would be great. Does anyone know of any good deals from Dell or anywhere else that they'd recommend me buying from? Thanks!

 

[fbrdphreak]

>5 hours and under $800? Unlikely. With Core Duo and a discrete GPU, you're going to need probably 70-80 Whr battery.

Dell's your best shot I'd say.

 

[Rockinacoustic]

I agree with fbrdphreak, Dell is your best best for that price range. However, a baseline core duo notebook starts at $800 from them. The only way you'll get a decent gaming notebook in that price range is if you opt to a core solo model, which isn't worth it in my opinion.

See if your friend can reconsider a desktop, which will give you alot more for his money. However, if he still want's a notebook, either tell him he wont be able to do much in the way of gaming, or he will have to up the ante on his financing. I recently purchased a well configured Inspiron e1505 for a little over $1,000 becuase I saved about $250 thanks to an online coupon for 20% off my purchase (just google "dell coupon").

As for battery life, over 5 hours will be hard to come by with your friends desires. Understand that there's essentially an inverse relationship between gaming capabilities and battery life in most notebooks. The more powerful the video card, the less battery life your notebook will yield. A smaller screen will be less power hungry as well so don't go higher than a 15.4'' model. Good luck with your purchase!

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
>5 hours and under $800? Unlikely. With Core Duo and a discrete GPU, you're going to need probably 70-80 Whr battery.

Dell's your best shot I'd say.

Agreed and Dell isn't the best but it's the right choice considering their budget.

Definitely get the 9 cell battery.

Check SlickDeals, xpbargains, spoofee, gotapex and FatWallet for deals on Dell laptops.

 

[Aarondeep]

Your friend have a costco membership?
I specced out a laptop for a buddy of mine with a geforceGO 7200, CoreDuo, and 12 cell battery for about 980 - 50$ MIR

The model is a new HP DV2000T
There is also a mobile X2 called the DV2000Z and he could save some money (Id get the duo tho)

Not bad prices and return policy @ costco =)

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[corkyg]

Echo the Costco bit - there are some really good buys there. BTW - I would elevate the HDD to at least 80 GB. Also, there are some pretty good "back to school" specials this week at Office Depot.