Uh

[sat8997]

So here

[MMandM]

I purchased a couple of Dell Inspiron lap tops. One for home and one for the office. I've had them both for three years now and haven't had a problem with either.

 

Here is a link to their site.

 

http://www.dell.com/content/products/categ...;l=en&s=dhs

[shadowgod]

No offense to dell or Mark but... all the dells I have ever owned seemed to be .. well... problematic. Form screens going out to the CPU over heating and various buttons on the keyboard popping off and that was all in the first year.

 

As for XP, I'm afraid that you are going to have to do without on that front unless you happen upon an electronics store that still has stock pre-loaded with XP over vista. Expect to pay extra for word. but the good news here is if she waits until she starts school in the fall to get Word she'll get it at the student price. I assume by word you mean MS Office, there is a student edition of the new office 2007 package. I suggest you visit the office website: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/suites/FX101674081033.aspx You could also try looking around for the previous version but I'm not sure how much luck you will have there.

 

as for the laptops, there are plenty out there that start from around 479.00 and going up from there. I do however suggest staying away from the lower end processors. (Celeron. & Sempron.)

 

With Vista you wont want anything under 1gig of RAM The hard drive size, I'd go big there, as big as you can get within your budget constraints. why? because those things fill up faster then you can imagine.

 

Other then that is the keyboard feel, IS she going to be doing allot of numerical entry? If she is I suggest a "full size" keyboard it will have a separate ten-key on the side.

 

Hope that helps if you have any other questions don't be afraid to shout!

 

Steve

[rknapp]

The real problem with Dells is that some are are dung, and some are godlike. My Inspiron 9300 (equivalent of the M1710 now I believe... the best laptop that Dell builds besides their XPS line) has not had many troubles. There are three that I can list; the hard drive, the SD reader, and two of the rear USB ports. The hard drive is my fault since I thought 40 GB would be enough, but it isn't. Not by a LONG SHOT. If I was you, I would look into getting her a 60 GB or 80 GB hard drive, and if the need arises you can get her a much larger mobile hard drive for relatively cheap at tigerdirect.com for christmas or for her birthday. Or, she can buy it herself depending on her financial situation. The SD reader I have found to be a common problem on Dell laptops, but if you get her a budget system then it is not likely that she will have one. Nor will she actually use it unless she uses memory cards in her cell phone and her digital camera for picture and music transfer (I have one for my phone for storing pictures from the camera in the phone and for custom ringtones, but I use a USB cable to get pictures from my digital camera onto my computer hard drive). The USB ports not working was a weird incident in that they work magically now, with no troubles whatsoever, so I wouldn't be concerned with that. I think maybe it was operating system related and vanished when I restarted the system. This computer will be two years in age somewhere near the end of August 2007.

 

My advice, give Dell and Hewlett Packard some serious consideration, as those are both good manufacturers. STAY AWAY FROM COMPAQ, GATEWAY, AND SONY VAIO. I have heard nothing but bad things and have had nothing but bad experience with those systems. I can't comment on Toshiba, or Acer.

 

Additionally, besides looking at corporate websites for laptop information, also consider independant online retailers such as NewEgg.com and TigerDirect.com. NewEgg has always been good to me, and Tiger Direct enabled me to acquire some nice equipment for my desktop to rebuild it from the ground up for less than $500. I have another $130+ to blow on memory, but the only thing I did not purchase for the upgrade was a case, so that's a pretty damn good deal if you ask me, considering the high-end componants that I bought.

 

Finally, you will have difficulty in finding a system preloaded with Windows XP (BTW, avoid Home Edition at all costs; my desktop has windows 2000 and my laptop has XP Media Center Edition 2005, against my will) since Vista has quickly become the proprietary standard. Having said that, I would do a LOT of research on Vista before committing to it. The reason being is that many applications that you and I use on XP and 2000 are not compatible yet with Vista. In fact, the last I heard is that iTunes is still having many problems with Vista. Having said that, I would aim for getting Vista, since it will benefit you and her in the near future, but wait until ALL of the programs that she cannot live without are compatible (iTunes, Photoshop, AIM, MSN, YIM, Acrobat Reader, and so on). Also, getting Vista will lead to the necessity of a large hard drive, a lot of memory, a fast processor, and a decent optical drive. TigerDirect.com can help you with that, as can the Dell and HP corporate websites when you are building the system. I believe Dell has several barebone systems available for customization that are Vista-ready from the get go. I imagine HP does as well.

 

I hope that helps, and good luck!

[Camy]

Lenovo is still shipping XP based Laptops, and apparently they are very good. I'd avoid vista like the plague....

[rec]

Sharon,

 

I've been using an HP laptop with an AMD 64 processor and 1GB of memory for the past two years--with great satisfaction.

 

I notice from a Fry's ad that there are two better and cheaper (alas) HP laptops for $999. The one that I think is marginally better has an AMD64X2 processor, 2GB of memory, a 160 GB hard drive, built in wireless, a DVD read/write drive, a 15.4" screen and Windows Vista Home Premium.

 

The other has the same price and has a slightly better Intel Centrino Duo Core processor, has 1GB less of memory, but it has Windows Vista Business, which may be a bit overkill on the operating system.

 

Both these machines would be excellent purchases, and with the Student Version of Office 2007, would last a long time. I would go with the first because of the extra memory. The processor speeds are ample for just about anything.

 

I don't know if there's a Fry's in your area, but the prices and models would be indicative of other places (where you might bargain), or you could order through frys.com.

 

rec

[Razor]

Careful with Dells... if you get one, splurge on that accidental damage warranty!!! Get it for as long as you can, and don't worry about the money being wasted; she'll use it. Mine's had the screen go out twice because of flexing, which is strange because I don't think I'm overly rough on it. A key stopped working, and I have strange issues with my CD/DVD drive.

 

I'm not gonna say that Dells absolutely blow. I like my Dell, it's much better than a lot of other computers, and for the price at that time it was a pretty good deal. Shop around, though, and be brutal with the questions. Never turn down a warranty, ever.

 

Be careful about what sort of viruscan software and whatnot they put on your compy. I've had McAfee since I got this puppy, and as much as people badmouth it, I've only gotten a virus once, and it got rid of it immediately. I really like the privacy service so I can decide which cookies to allow and which to reject; if I don't know the website is safe, then I just reject the cookies. I can always go back later and unblock that site so that it will allow cookies. They also have some sort of new site reviewer thing, and if you go to a site that they've found unsafe material on, it pops up and tells you that the site may cause you problems. In that case, I definitely block cookies and try not to click around too much.

 

As for Norton... I absolutely hate that POS. When I had it on the old comp, I'd get viruses like a kid gets candy on Halloween, and then it would be unable to remove them for some reason. I'd have to manually find the program, delete it, repair my registry... it was a hassle beyond hassles.

 

I'm positive someone in here with a lot of technical know how can advise you on what's currently considered the best software. I'm big on that, since the fastest way to ruin a good computer is to let it get cluttered with spyware, adware, and viruses enough to slow it to a crawl.

 

And yes, everything I've heard implies that Vista is the devil incarnate.

[x Trevor x]

I would definatly suggest going with an Emachines. I've had this one for two years my bf gave it to me and hes had it longer then that and it works great. You can go to circut city thats where this one came from and get one right at a thousand well aleast a desktop I am not sure how much an Emachines lap top will cost. It comes with a wordpad program thats pretty good and free but if you feel you need to purchase one then go ahead. Hope you have some luck!

[sat8997]

Thanks for the information. I still haven't figured out what to buy, but I've got a better idea of what not to buy.

 

Sharon

[Drewbie]

Could also use open office, it's free

[colinian]

My daughter graduates in about six weeks. Then she’s off to college at the end of the summer. Her graduation present will be a laptop.

Sharon,

 

I'm still a HS senior. I got a laptop for Christmas, my folks said since I'd be going to college in the fall I should have the computer set up and ready to take with me. I've done that, especially the "take with me" part. I take it with me to HS almost every day and use it in Study Hall and some of my classes. I got a Sony VAIO VGN-TX770P Laptop. The best thing about it is that it weighs 2.3 lbs, so taking it with me is easy.

 

My advice is get her a lightweight laptop. If your daughter is going to take the laptop to class with her, along with her books and whatever else she carries, weight is going to be a very big deal. The 6.6 pounds or more that most low-priced laptops weigh might not sound like much until you have to carry it around campus all day.

 

Colin

[rknapp]

Weight truly is an issue. My laptop (the one I'm typing on now) has a 17" screen. It's light when you pick it up, but carrying it the 2000 feet from my apartment to my car, and from my car in the commuter parking lot to the upstairs quiet study rooms in the library makes it feel a lot more heavy. It's like a guy I work with once said, "These vacuums really aren't heavy, but when you carry it around the parking lot while the customer finds her car, they get heavy." But, as long as she has either a simple laptop carrying case with a shoulder strap, or a back pack that has a laptop compartment (I LOVE MINE, made by High Sierra), then weight will only be an issue if she carries it around for more than five minutes.

 

 

Someone mentioned anti-virus programs. AVOID MCAFEE LIKE THE PLAGUE. It does NOTHING but piss me the hell off. I've tried countless times to delete the f**ker but it adamently REFUSES to go away. I've tried deleting, add/remove programs, etc. I was able to turn it off for the most part so that it stop telling to avoid certain websites that did not need to be avoided... which it did for nearly every website I visited. For anti-virus, you want to get a program called AVG. It's made by a company called Grisoft, and the free version can be downloaded at free.grisoft.com. They tell you that the free version doesn't update as often as the paid premium version, but mine updates daily. It's wonderful and I've had ZERO virus' since installing AVG on both of my computers.

[Andy]

I've been warned off of Dells because of screen flexing problems (as razor reported) and warned off of HP (by an employee of HP) for almost the same reason. And their (fullsize) PC's aren't that great if you're ever considering manually upgrading components. (which I do...)

 

The IBM Thinkpads are apparently okay, but.. expensive. VAIO get a good write up.

 

I've played around on Gateways a few times as well, they seem reasonable.

 

On the subject of virus scanners. I use AVG free, like rknapp, but I've also got a trial copy of their anti-spyware program (previously Ewido) and even now the trial period is over I use it to system scan and pickup all the evil nasties. So I'd reccomend that as well. (I'm going to get a full version for uni)

 

I've had both McAfee and Norton at various times. They were easy to remove... but then again I do a complete re-install about once a year. So I just nuked them off of the harddrive.

 

As drew said, Openoffice is good, if a bit slow on load up (I don't have any versions of windows office newer than about 2000 so I can't comment on its load up time in relation to openoffice) its got all the stuff that office does AFAIK, but can save in file types compatible with practically any system, even much older versions of word.. back to 6.0 IIRC. And it is free. Which is always good

 

Big harddrives are good. Very good.

 

Core 2 Duo equipped laptops are good, they draw less power than equivalent AMD processors, giving you more battery life, and they'll also stay cooler, which is also very good.

 

What is she going to be studying at College? if she's going to be spending alot of time infront of the laptop, I'd not reccomend the smaller screened ones, but the larger the screen, the heavier it'll be.

 

*stops rambling*

[Graeme]

I can't suggest laptops -- the only ones I've ever had have been supplied by work and they have all been fine (Dell's, FYI), but I'm not fussy. I don't try to make them to EVERYTHING -- just what I want to normally do.

 

As for software, I use OpenOffice at home (www.openoffice.org) rather than MS Office, and it's big commercial brother, StarOffice, at work. There are differences to MS Word, and some MS Word templates don't come out properly in OpenOffice writer, BUT for almost all purposes it is just as good... and a lot cheaper (ie. free ). It also has features that MS Word doesn't have (such as the ability to export to PDF format, and the HTML pages it produces are a lot better than MS Words).

 

My antivirus at home is AVG, as has been suggested above. It is reliable and appears effective. It is also free

 

My firewall at home is the free version of zonealarm (www.zonealarm.com). It took a little while for it to get used to what programs I wanted to allow to connect to the internet, but once that is done, it does its job well.

 

Other software would depend on what it is to do, but the above is a good start. Since all of them are free, your daughter can trial them and you only need to buy additional software if she doesn't like them or if they don't do what is needed.

[MMandM]

No offense to dell or Mark but... all the dells I have ever owned seemed to be .. well... problematic. Form screens going out to the CPU over heating.

 

I can admit I do have that problem with one of the Dell laptops I have. The one I have at home I have to place a small book under it so it doesn