Topic: Laptop Reviews and Opinions wanted!!!!! NEEEDED!!!

[CTENG in KS]

OK people, my laptop fried itself last night. D-E-A-D dead!  Time for a new one.  It was a 2 1/2 year old Toshiba which I liked except for the AC plug that came loose from the motherboard and ultimately was its undoing.  This apparently was an issue with all Toshibas for a while that they have since fixed.

I went over to Best Buy to see what was what and they are pushing Gateways pretty hard.  They have one on sale that has by far the best price for the MOST stuff I have found.  Anyone know about Gateways?  When I bought my Toshiba the Gateways were getting terrible reviews, but the salesman claimed they have made huge improvements in reliability and quality.  The intarweb seems to say they are decent, but suffer from short battery life.

What other brands are looking good these days? 

Thanks! 

[Geno]

I would never buy a gateway, service is crap.  What do you use your laptop for?  You looking for something cheap? something with some power?

For our admins/power users we use Sony Vaio's.  Great picture quality with a lot of features but can be a little pricey.  We have 67 Vaio's and we have had issues with 3.

For our normal everyday users we use Dell's.  You have a lot of different options here and you can get great deals.  Phone service is not that bad but if you use the online support system it is a lot faster and you can get next day service if you have hardware issues.  We have 292 Dell's and we have received 6 with bad batteries.

[CTENG in KS [OP]]

My usage is home stuff, truck pics, internet, email, etc.  I am just looking for something pretty basic, $1000 is my ceiling...the Gateway is on sale for $699 right now and I can't put together a comperable Dell for that kind of price.  That is the issue, will the Gateway serve my needs as a pretty basic machine, or should I buy a lesser equipped Dell/Sony.  I would grab a Sony no problem, but the price range is just too high for a personal use machine.

[Geno]

What are the specs on the Gateway you are looking at?

[CTENG in KS [OP]]

1.66 GHz dual core Centrino
100 G HD
100 Gig SDRAM
15.4 widescreen
Windows XP
All the std slots and connections
Slot to upgrade RAM
on sale $699

[CTENG in KS [OP]]

The comperable Dell through their website at $716 has 60 G HD and 512 meg SDRAM.

[Geno]

I am not a Gateway fan but that's not a bad deal, sound's like it would fit your need's well.

[CTENG in KS [OP]]

My only requirement is that the components are decent and the thing won't fall apart on me.  It isn't a good price if it won't be reliable.

[blackdiamond]

My next notebook will be a Sony Vaio.  My desktop is essentially flawless.

Check out www.pcworld.com

[Geno]

My only requirement is that the components are decent and the thing won't fall apart on me.  It isn't a good price if it won't be reliable.

Check the warranty (should be atleast a year) and you can get the Best Buy exchange warranty but it will cost you a little more money.  You can also extend your warranty through Gateway.

[Matty]

My next notebook will be a Sony Vaio.  My desktop is essentially flawless.

Check out www.pcworld.com

 I got a Sony Vaio for school, and my dad usess one at work (which is mainly why we bought mine, he liked his so much).  I havent had one problem with it yet,and i love the size, pretty thin, nice sized screen, cant beat it for the money. I couldnt justify going out and spending an arm and a leg like my friends buying mac book pros (even though its good).  Vaio is a good choice though.

[BLACKDOG]

My dad just bought a new gateway PC, and when he was talking to the salesguy, he said that Gateway revamped pretty much their entire supply system, eliminating a lot of their durability problems.  (got rid of the shoddy suppliers)  if this is true or not, but he said that covered PCs and Laptops.

What you're looking at sounds like a deal

[abnormaltoy]

You ought to check out buy.com or you can check tons of stores at once pricewatch.com

[CTENG in KS [OP]]

OK, I bought one...

I got the last one Circuit City had:
Toshiba Satellite
1.4 Celeron M
512 SDRAM
80 Gig HD
DVD Rom/CD-RW
15.4 widescreen

$499!!!

Question:
The old laptop has pictures and stuff that haden't been backed up.  The HD should be OK.  Is there any cable that will externally connect an ATA hard drive to the new laptop so I can pull everything in?

[Rockdiver]

You can put the hard drive in an external hard drive case and recover that way

[CTENG in KS [OP]]

WHere would I get one of these cases?
They expensive?

[Rockdiver]

I took an old external case apart & I bought one online I will look for ya

[CTENG in KS [OP]]

Kool, thank you!

[Rockdiver]

Tiger direct  .com Is where we ordered from