Good, Cheap, Laptops

[Denchi]

My girlfriend is looking to buy a new laptop. Her old Dell that she used throughout college finally died, so she asked for my help to get her a new one.

Originally, I wanted her to get a solid laptop with a good warranty, like a Macbook with applecare. But she really doesn't have the budget for that, and so we looked at cheaper laptops and I was actually pleasantly surprised at the features you can get for around $500.

I used to be an overclocking/PC building nerd but I've been out of the game for a while. But i do know quite a lot more than her. Anyways, the main question I have is if brand really makes that big of a difference? I'm mostly just looking at components, not brand. The only exception to that is Compaq, I've always heard they're terrible. Or little-known brands like Acer. Also, does the AMD Turion 64 X2 do better than the Pentium Core 2 Duo? (which they still call a centrino, which is weird... because "Centrino's" were awful when they first came out if I recall correctly).

Most of the laptops vary just on Hard Drive space, Video Card, RAM, then Size and weight. My girlfriend doesn't need much... she wants the laptop for work this year then hopefully to last her through grad school. She doesn't do anything but internet + word processing.

Sorry, that's a lot of rambling lol. Any opinions about cheap laptops would be appreciated. Her budget is $500-$800

[netz]

Originally, I wanted her to get a solid laptop with a good warranty, like a Macbook with applecare. But she really doesn't have the budget for that, and so we looked at cheaper laptops and I was actually pleasantly surprised at the features you can get for around $500.

When I bought my MacBook Pro, the person selling it to me suggested the AppleCare plan because it has saved him at least $500 in repairs over the past year.

Made me wonder what I was in for, but fortunately nothing resulted from it. With that said, Apple construction just feels shitty. Only buy a Mac if you really want NeXTStep -- err, Mac OS X.

I used to be an overclocking/PC building nerd but I've been out of the game for a while. But i do know quite a lot more than her. Anyways, the main question I have is if brand really makes that big of a difference? I'm mostly just looking at components, not brand. The only exception to that is Compaq, I've always heard they're terrible. Or little-known brands like Acer. Also, does the AMD Turion 64 X2 do better than the Pentium Core 2 Duo? (which they still call a centrino, which is weird... because "Centrino's" were awful when they first came out if I recall correctly).

Centrino is Intel marketspeak for a laptop system using a mobile CPU, mobile chipset, and an Intel PRO/Wireless adapter. Some laptops are sold with desktop parts, and are thus not designated as an Intel Centrino. You might be thinking of Celeron, the low-cache version of a Pentium.

Most of the laptops vary just on Hard Drive space, Video Card, RAM, then Size and weight. My girlfriend doesn't need much... she wants the laptop for work this year then hopefully to last her through grad school. She doesn't do anything but internet + word processing.

Sorry, that's a lot of rambling lol. Any opinions about cheap laptops would be appreciated. Her budget is $500-$800

Evaluate whether an Asus Eee PC will do the trick for her or not.

By the way, this type of thread comes up every month.

[sekaran]

Look at an Lenovo IdeaPad S10?

I recall seeing it for like $330 after some coupons and discounts over at FatWallet.

[Azalee]

Take a look at the Tech Support forum.. There is a whole topic on Laptops.

[Denchi]

Well she ended up getting this one

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1213399955100

$699 got her
Intel Core 2 Duo @2.0GHZ
250GB 5200rpm HDD
4GB RAM
15.4" screen
Wireless N card
ATI Mobility HD2600 512MB

I think it was a steal......... I uninstalled all the crap-ware and it runs extremely fast and looks/feels very nice. Only qualm is the speakers kind of suck (but whatever.... laptop) and it came with Windows 64bit, so my gf might have more trouble with that than she wants. We might just downgrade her back to Vista 32bit.