Favorite laptop?

[Smittie61984]

Originally Posted by EpyonXero

Google gives me gigabytes of storage for free but the multi-billion dollar NMCI government contract gives me barely enough storage to hold a large PDF file.

That's becuase of the billions alloted for this program only $100,000 was actually used in the development of the program. The rest disappeared to dimensions not yet discovered.

I forgot to mentoin my fiance has a Sony Vio or something along those lines. I hate the feel of it becuase I'm used to Toshibas but it has been a great computer for her.

[Papa_Complex]

Originally Posted by fatbuckRTO

Have a low-end Dell Vostro from 2008 that's still going strong. It had some sort of weird problem with a pinstripe screen of death for a couple years, where if I left it on for 24 hours or more it would sometimes lock up and put pinstripes on my screen, but during those years I had the NMCI smartcard software loaded on it. Once I took that off and reformatted, I have had zero problems with the laptop.

NMCI destroys every computer component it touches.

I also have a Dell Inspiron that I got as a hand-me-down, it's from the 2008 / 2009 time-frame. I use it as my primary now because it's a little more powerful and a little more up-to-date (runs Vista, so I've caught up with the last decade). My wife recently sat on it accidentally during a road trip, for about 30 minutes. It was in a cheap Targus case. That laptop is still running fine.

We used Dell Latitudes in Kuwait and Iraq, where we worked in not-dust-tight-at-all-and-air-conditioned-sometimes tents. We cleaned them off at least once a week, and they ran fine for a year in the desert. They were at least two years old at the time, and they were still running fine at the end of the deployment.

Long story short, I recommend Dell.

I've used and serviced a pretty large number of notebooks, over the years. Dell were the first I actually liked. I've used a bunch of Dell Latitude units and rebuilt units from abused scraps left over from clients, and they've all worked well for me. I beat a small XPS unit to death over the course of 3 years by carrying it in my saddlebags, and now have a Dell Vostro. It was the best performance I could get, for a good price, while sticking with Dell.

[LeeNetworX]

Slice, in the price range you are looking at (No more than $700-800) you aren't going to find exactly what you are looking for - your list of requirements don't match up with the money you want to spend. You're going to have to spend more or be willing to live without some thing(s) on your wishlist.

[pauldun170]

Originally Posted by LeeNetworX

Slice, in the price range you are looking at (No more than $700-800) you aren't going to find exactly what you are looking for - your list of requirements don't match up with the money you want to spend. You're going to have to spend more or be willing to live without some thing(s) on your wishlist.

Glad someone finally said it.

[Homeslice]

Originally Posted by LeeNetworX

Slice, in the price range you are looking at (No more than $700-800) you aren't going to find exactly what you are looking for - your list of requirements don't match up with the money you want to spend. You're going to have to spend more or be willing to live without some thing(s) on your wishlist.

I won't be able to get a full SSD one, but there are several hybrids below that price.

And as for being thin & lightweight, that's not as much a priority as having an optical drive. As long as it's under 5 lbs that's fine with me.

Will probably go Newegg, but I'm also scouting Ebay to see if I can trust any of those sellers. Only advantage being some have Office already installed.

[Papa_Complex]

Originally Posted by LeeNetworX

Slice, in the price range you are looking at (No more than $700-800) you aren't going to find exactly what you are looking for - your list of requirements don't match up with the money you want to spend. You're going to have to spend more or be willing to live without some thing(s) on your wishlist.

Solid State Drive is a pipe dream and way too expensive at the moment, for not enough drive space. Otherwise, this should fit the requirements. The backlit keyboard is actually pretty useful. When I bought, I thought that it was just a stupid gimmick.

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/vostro-3460/fs

[pauldun170]

Homeslice,
Tells us what you need to do with it and we'll tell you exactly what to get.
We will even build in some free play so that you can fuss over "design and aesthetic" stuff.

[pauldun170]

Damnit
You caught me off guard with the quiet requirement.

[Gas Man]

For PC...

I know many people with horror stories about their HPs.

My wife's work Dell blows and has from day 2.

I have had 3 Toshiba's and they all are still in service. My dad has had a few and so has my brother. Great machines. My current one is also a Toshiba and works very well.

[Homeslice]

Scratch the Lenovo....it looks like a 1990's IBM, and according to notebookreview.....

This screen has poor color reproduction - colors look dull and unimaginative. Black levels aren't deep and appear slightly grayish. But the biggest problem especially for business users is the low resolution; 1366x768 doesn't cut it for multitasking between two windows and too much scrolling is required in web pages, documents - pretty much everywhere.