laptops?
 

kids in highschool, wife on my back to puy a laptop etcccccc

local store walk in.....tables full of them

Dell, Acer, Toshy, Samsung, Sony ...the list goes on

whats the best brand? whats the best config?

ok here we go...

i5 2.5k, 8 meg ram, 1 Tbite, 15inch windows 8
not sure of the brand, but maybe a Dell?

then of course office 2010 plus some virus protection....maybe nortons but heard a bit of bad review on nortons, maybe try another brand

so we're talking around 1200 AUD for the above....

anyone want to add a comment, am i on the right track?

I've had the best luck with HP.

I pretty much always have a Dell through work and have had multiple hard drive failures as well as bad memory. Granted, Dell fixes the stuff for free if you buy their protection but it's a pain in the butt.

I've also had good luck with Toshiba, but those are usually bulkier than most.

I'd say spend no more than $500. Something like this would do the trick:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834256309

For windows laptop I always liked asus and lenovo a lot more than other brands. They were also the highests in reliability last I checked (a while ago so don't take my word on it).

I'd avoid HP and Toshiba, they were always coming back when I worked in an electronic store. (Some times ago mind you)

Couldn't agree with Zil anymore. ASUS and Lenovo all the way in our household. Been going two years strong on my ASUS laptop with no problems and running it w/o any anti-virus which is kinda risky since I watch so much pr0n and download a bunch of free music on it lol. and don't even get me started on HP. There customer service absolutely BLOWS chunks. We sent in our HP at least four or five times (ya thats how bad it is when you cant even remember how many times youve sent it in) under warranty ofcourse to get the broken wi-fi fixed up and each time they claimed to have fixed it but lo and behold the wi-fi came back still broken. It's pretty pathetic that they couldnt fix one single problem in the four or five times we sent it to them. ln there defense though, I dont think they actually even looked at it hoping we would forget about it eventually.

I like my Asus laptop. I have trouble free, Asus, motherboards in both my desktops.

I would try to get Win7. Win8 sounds awful.

You will get conflicting opinions about brands. One of the first posts in this thread recommended HP, but I've had three or four of them and they have all been lemons. Read reviews on each specific machine you are looking at. www.newegg.com is a great resource for reviews and probably has a much nicer inventory than your local big box store.

I have had a great experience with my Sony Vaio. That being said, I am studying for my A+ certification in school (computer maintain and upgrade kind of thing). I almost "upgraded" mine from Windows 7 to 8 the other day just so I could experience both for my class. Having a look around it, I really like 7 better. 8 is great for touch screen things like tablets and whatnot. But for using a mouse and clicking around, I find Windows 7 much more agreeable. So I put Windows 8 on my wife's computer (cuz she really doesn't care one way or the other and I'll be able to tool around on 8 when I feel like it as a learning experience) for my day to day use I'm not getting rid of 7.

The stats on the one you mentioned are fine, but you will NEVER EVER use a Tbite of memory. You could probably save quite a bit of money getting one with less than that. My backup drive for FOUR computers is a Tbite and I haven't even used up a 4th of it storing every single video, song, and file from all four of our computers. 400-600GB is more than plenty for most users.

Not to mention your kid(s) could get thumb drives for keeping up with songs and videos for dirt cheap anyway. And then that stuff wouldn't clog up the hard drive on the new one to begin with.

Good luck. It's a marketing BS blitz out there in computer land. They will try to convince you that you simply HAVE to have the latest operating system, the most hard drive capacity, etc.

Not trying to go against the flow (or change your mind if you already have it made up) but have you considered an Apple MacBook?

You can find a nice refurbished one from Apple for around $1,000 - $1,200.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/hom...macbook_pro/13

I may or may not work for a very large online retailer named after a very long river in the amazon rainforest. Asus, Lenovo, and Acer move more units thru here than anyone else. very few get returned.

good prices too.

The brands that seem to top the reliability charts are Asus, Acer, Lenovo, and Apple.

Agreed. I've never had anything BUT trouble with HP stuff. I'd personally avoid it like the plague! I think they are junk.

I had an Asus netbook that was great. I also had a few ThinkPads before they became Lenovo (they were IBM back in the day). They were all trouble free.

Yeah, HP is just terrible stuff. I like Acer and Dell. I wanted to like ASUS, but their customer service experience really soured me to the brand on a lappy I bought a few months ago...otherwise nice product...good design, substantial feel belying the slim profile....my daughter had an ASUS netbook that was stellar for the 3+ years she ran it until I got her a Samsung lappy to replace the aforementioned ASUS. The Samsung has been great too. Right price for the feature set too.

I feel like Samsung has been top notch in the electronics world the past couple of years and their laptop offering has intrigued me but I haven't heard enough about them to want to bite that bullet yet.

I had an HP desktop for 8 years now. the only problems I've ever had with it was things I've caused. but I have heard enough horror stories about HP to make me want to steer clear of another, I think mine may have just been a fluke.

Great luck with Lenovo and Apple in my case. My laptop at work is a Dell. It has been OK other than a hard drive crash -that can happen to any machine though as none of these guys make drives... Which also means thinking about a backup devcice/plan...

You should build a tower if at all possible, but if you're dead set on a laptop then I'd look at Asus, Lenovo, or Samsung, in that order. Not an Apple fan but I wouldn't be against using one if I needed to.

Well neener neener neener.

I have three HPs. One is a 7 year old XP hunk of iron, one is a 4 year old with Vista and both are still running pretty well. My daughter has a little Win 7 mini HP for school that she's had no problems with but it's only 1 1/2 years old.

High end - MacBook PRo. I love mine, but it cost $2,000.00 a few years ago but I love it.

Low end - Acer Aspire 5560-7402. I need it for my business software (based in MS Access). Cheap laptop, about $350.00 and works fine for my Windows needs. FWIW- I did install Parallels on my Mac to try and make things work, however it nearly made me homicidal with issues and constant upgrades.. Ugghhhh.

So, Acer is cheap and works fine. I got mine on Amazon.

Well here's a kink in the chain.

I've owned 3 HP laptops and one HP desktop. Each one has never given me any issue, and they would last a good 4-5 years before the need to replace them with something more up-to-date would arise. I can't recommend them enough.

Also, I wouldn't buy an Apple unless you like wasting money or will be exclusively using it for artsy types of application. A $1,000 PC will run just as well if not better than a $2,000 Mac. They have the same components and hardware, but with one you're paying more just to be chic.

Please stop dragging logic into the equation. ;)
Can we not have civil discourse without panties getting ruffled? ;)
I mean, in this thread alone, I have learned there are two actual HP owners who've owned product that didn't essplode, mission impossible style...didn't think it possible, but there it is! (totally joking around man)