Computer Geek Advice, Please: Laptop Edition.

[Jester]

So, I've been thinking of getting an e-reader, like a Kindle or the like.

"Jester, a Kindle is great, but it's NOT a laptop."

I know, I know. I'm getting there. So, the more I thought about getting the e-reader (probably the Kindle), the more I started to think how cool it would be to get an iPad instead.

"Dude, seriously, as cool as the iPad is, it's not a laptop either."

I KNOW. I'm GETTING there. Anyway, the more I thought about the iPad, the more I thought, well hell, why not just go all out and get a laptop or notebook computer.

"Oooooh, now we get it."

Told you I was getting there!

So, I need advice on which one to get. Let me tell you what I want in a laptop/notebook computer.

I talk online, in forums like this, facebook, and various instant messengers.
I store photos.
I watch videos.
I write and store documents, though lately it's been more recipes than anything.

My current desktop is old (I think it actually has vacuum tubes) and is very much Not Portable. I absolutely hate when I travel and don't have access to something on my computer, whether it's a file I have, or I just want to check my email, or I need to find some info out using my amazing google fu skills.
I figure any laptop/notebook worth its salt will be able to be configured with an e-reading program, so I can still get and store books.
When I cook with new recipes, it would be fun to be able to just bring my computer into the kitchen with me. Especially if I am cooking in someone else's kitchen. Saves on my printing out the recipe, too....especially since my printer is shot (another story entirely) and not all online recipes are printer-friendly.
If/when I ever actually get an iPod, it would be a great way to store and transfer music from my CD's through the laptop and to the iPod. Also, since just about all of the laptops seem to be wireless-enabled, I would be able to surf/chat from wherever I was, is something else I want to be able to do.

Finally, I want it to be portable without being one of those mini-books, as it may end up becoming my main computer, and may spend some serious time on my desktop. So I don't want a really huge one, nor a really tiny one.

I am NOT much of a gamer, so I wouldn't need my new toy computer to be as NASA-like as my roommate's setup.

The guy in Radio Shack today--

"Radio Shack? Really, Jester? REALLY?"

Now hold on. I live on a small tropical island. While we have most of the cool stuff larger places have, shopping can be difficult, and we ARE 120 miles from the nearest major U.S. metropolitan area. I can shop online, of course, but there's no reason not to do some physical reconnaissance as well.

In any case, I went to three places today to check out computers. The first was a computer shop that has been in this one shopping complex for a while. I had never been there, and that became painfully obvious to me when I walked up to the door and realized that they were closed....permanently. The other two were Office Max and Radio Shack. And these were my ONLY options in this town.

"Okay, well then, sorry about that."

No problem. The Office Max staff seemed only semi-knowledgeable to this computer-stupid Jester. The Radio Shack guy actually seemed to know his stuff, and actually, the last few times I've been in the Shack for whatever, the staff was always very helpful AND informative.

The RS guy recommended Acer and Toshiba, and advised staying away from HP. They had all three brands in there. He also advised making sure whatever I got had an Intel processor, and that a 4GB model is better than a 3GB model. I am computer-stupid, and I told him that, so I had no problem with him telling me what seems obvious....and is obvious, other than the fact that I didn't know if I even NEEDED that much memory. Hell, I wasn't even sure how much memory that WAS. As I said....computer stupid. I have the Days of Thunder syndrome when it comes to computers: I know how to drive them, but not how to build or fix them, or how exactly they even work.

"So, what do you want from us?"


Ah, see, this is the part where you chime in and, using my above criteria, point me in the right direction for my next computer. My budget is pretty simple....I'd like to pay around $400-600, but can go up to $1,000 if it's necessary, though I'd definitely like to keep it below that.


Guide me.

[ArcticChicken]

I have an Acer Aspire 6930, from a cursory glance it looks like the don't make that particular model anymore, but it is two years old, so I didn't imagine they would. This one looks like it will do what you want, and be within your budget. It's got a pretty big screen, so watching movies isn't going to be a problem.

You might want to get an external hard drive if you're going put a lot of movies on it, those things start to take up space surprisingly quickly.

My Aspire hasn't given me any problems so far, I broke the power adapter once, but that was me being clumsy, not any problem with the adapter. It was still within warranty, and it was no hassle to get it replaced.

[Minneyar]

Disclaimer: I've been building computers for fun for a long time. I've got four computers I regularly use here at home (not counting my wife's, which I also built) and four more at work that I'm in charge of. Many years ago I did computer repair as a job, but eventually I escaped, and now I'm a software engineer.

Anyway, for $600 you can get yourself a pretty nice laptop nowadays. Not quite a high-class gaming machine, but certainly capable of doing everything you need and playing some games on the side, too.

There are a few things to think about, though:

How big a screen do you want? 15" and 17" are pretty common for laptops, but you can find them larger or smaller. Netbooks are usually around 10". It's natural to immediately think that bigger is better if you've never owned a laptop before, but larger screens have disadvantages; a big one is that larger laptops will be heavier, which may or may not be a big deal depending on how much you intend to walk around with it. A 17" laptop is a pain to lug around if you do a lot of moving. Larger screens will also drain more battery power, so a smaller one will last longer; a lot of 17" laptops will only have a 2.5 to 3 hour battery life, while it's not uncommon for 10" netbooks to last 8 hours. If you plan on sitting at home with it a lot, you can always get a big external monitor and plug it in. You can probably get a good 21" or 22" LCD monitor for between $100 and $150 nowadays, anyway -- or, if you decide to replace your current desktop, just re-use your existing monitor.

The processor brand doesn't really matter much; every self-proclaimed computer nerd will have an opinion as to whether Intel or AMD is better, but at the end of the day they'll both do the job. If by "watching videos" you mean playing stuff on Youtube and watching DVDs, pretty much anything that's currently on the market will be fast enough; if you're playing HD video, though, such as h.264 video files or streaming movies from Netflix, you'll want something more powerful.

Now, one thing to watch out for on laptops is their video cards. More affordable laptops will probably use integrated Intel video chipsets, which are perfectly acceptable for most applications, but will probably not even be capable of playing the latest and greatest games. You'll want to get a gaming laptop with an ATI or Nvidia chipset for that, and they tend to be a fair amount more expensive, not to mention heavier and hotter.

As far as RAM goes, just make sure that whatever you get has at least 2 GB. That's good enough for doing anything that's not terribly memory-intensive, like gaming or editing stuff in Photoshop. More than that is just gravy.

Also, any idea how much hard drive space you're looking for? How large is your current computer's drive, and how comfortable are you with it? The low-end for most laptops nowadays is around 250 GB, which is probably sufficient for most users, but I'd recommend at least 500 GB if you plan on downloading movies or games. When buying a laptop, you'll probably notice that most laptop drives are labeled as either being 5400 rpm or 7200 rpm. 7200 rpm drives will read & write files much faster but also burn through battery life more quickly. A 5400 rpm drive is usually good enough, but it's something to keep in mind.

Either way, getting a spare external hard drive is a good idea, and use it to back up your files regularly. In addition to regular hardware failures, keep in mind that portable electronic devices can get lost or stolen, and losing years worth of data is even worse than being out a few hundred dollars for hardware.

Anyway, now that you've got a few more things to think about, let me say that I'm a fan of Apple's hardware. ;-) But their laptops are pretty pricey and probably more than you're interested in paying. As far as Windows computers go, I like Dells. I've worked on a lot of different brands of computers, and in general I've found their hardware to be the most reliable and their tech support is better than most others. Acer and Toshiba are also decent brands, though, and I second avoiding HP. Most of my injuries that have been inflicted by computer cases were due to HPs...

With all that said, based on what you're looking for, I recommend taking a look at Dell's Inspiron line: http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-laptops?~ck=anav
I think their 15R model would do what you want pretty well, and you can customize the order in various ways if you want to tweak the system's parameters.

By the way, another piece of advice I have is to not pay for Norton or McAfee anti-virus.
Most computer vendors will try to get you to buy one of those with your computer. They're junk. Avast is better and it's free.

Whew. Hopefully that helped to clear things up a little bit, or at least give you a better idea of what kind of questions you want to ask. ;-) By the way, there's an old joke that has some truth to it: "You know what the difference between a car salesman and a computer salesmen is? The car salesman knows he's lying to you."

[jnd4rusty]

Hey Thanks Jester for asking this question as I am also going to be purchasing a laptop in about 3 weeks. I was looking at Office Max online and the top rated laptop is a Toshiba Satelite L655-55083 Laptop, Intel Pentium Processor P6100, 320GB hard drive, 4GB system memory, 15.6 inch HD TruBrite LCD display for only 449.99. That is the one I will probably get, Office Depot also has a HP that is top rated (I don't have the info because the website is not up at the moment), that one was for about 590.00. Hope that helps a bit, good luck! I am computer illiterate so I am going to rely on ratings and whatever the gang here has to say.

[teh_blumchenkinder]

Videos= space
If you plan on having videos and high quality pictures on your hard drive, you need space. Externals can get crazy, but can be worth it. From what I hear, you get what you pay for in most cases with external hard drives.
Documents, however, do not take up a lot of space. Editing programs are your choice, usually people just get Windows Office, but there's so much more out there (for free even!) that work just as well, 'specially if you don't do freaky fancy stuff like PowerPoint or excel sheets... okay the free program I have does those too and can convert all over the place! Huh. BTW, MacroFail=O_O$$ (min 149~ USD). Yipes.
Other than that, processing speed means quick downloads and fast action on your computer, so the bigger the better, it seems to me.
Make sure you back up your computer every three to six months. I need to do mine.
You can buy peripherals like a mouse, to plug in via the usb ports, if you dont' like the pad thingy laptops have-- lord knows I hate those...
Again, I know only a little, and thus, I am dangerous. PH34RRM3E3~
(go me with my skinny amount of info. best of luck Jester)

[Mytical]

If you are not planning to play many graphic intense games, a straight 'out of the box' acer will be good.

Here is a decently priced one http://www.google.com/products/catal...=0CKUBEPMCMAA#

Here is a dell that you can somewhat customize that starts out at 399.

http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-15...piron-15-n5030

I would agree with the no HP thing. HP was once one of the premier names, but seems to have suffered problems lately.

[Chromatix]

A choice between Acer and Toshiba isn't too bad. The RS guy is right - they're both better than HP.

Here are your priorities:

1) A big hard disk. You'll need it for videos. You should be able to get 500GB quite easily.

2) A discrete graphics chipset - if it says either ATI (or AMD Vision) or Nvidia on it, that's fine. The Intel graphics system doesn't reliably do high-definition full-screen video very well. Since you don't have games as a priority, you don't need to be more specific than that, but any ATI/Nvidia chip will do better than Intel at that too.

3) A decent keyboard. You will actually need to sit down and try it out. Many laptops come with bad keyboards, either in mechanism, or in layout, or in build quality. While you're at it, you might also notice some things about the screen.

4) A large battery. If you can afford it, consider even going for one that sticks out behind the hinge. If you want your laptop for portability, this will make it more useful in that direction, even if it does get a little bit heavier.

You won't need a very powerful CPU or lots of RAM. In fact, a slower CPU and less RAM might help your battery last longer.

[Taboo]

I'm admittedly a Mac user, but for the sort of use you're looking for, you really don't want one.

Just to reiterate some points again:
If you have any intention of using it while it's sitting on your lap, go with the lower RPM (5400). It won't get as hot when you run it and the battery will last longer; they're cheaper anyway and as long as you're not playing games or using graphics programs, you shouldn't be able to tell any difference. I would also agree with avoiding HP. I have a nice HP monitor but their computers have been a bit iffy of late.

For graphics card, memory, etc, you will be fine with lower end unless you do decide to run some games. Honestly, if there are any games you want to run on it or would consider running, I would look them up and check the minimum requirements. Is it worth it to you to pay the extra for more memory, better graphics, etc to be able to run them? If so, you now know your minimum system requirements, and if not, you can save some money.

I'm kind of fond of the Nvidia graphics cards, for whatever that's worth.

[Minneyar]

Here's a handy web site when you're shopping for hard drives: http://forre.st/storage

It's automatically updated daily from newegg.com and generates charts that show hard drive space vs their GB/$ value. Basically, the higher something's GB/$ value is, the better a deal it is. External hard drives are listed at the bottom as "Encoslures."

By the way, I pretty much always buy my computers and parts from Newegg, Amazon, or straight from the manufacturer. Sometimes I'll go to Best Buy if there's an emergency... I don't go to Office Max unless I want to be reminded what prices were like in the 90's. (at least, the Office Maxes around here are stupidly overpriced) I haven't been to a Radio Shack since they stopped carrying much hobbyist electrician supplies and started focusing on cell phone & computer retail. But keep the "car salesman" analogy in mind. The salesman there only cares about selling you a computer, regardless of whether it's the one that's right for you or not.

On another note, Chromatix is right about the choice of CPU affecting battery life, but it's a tricky situation. A CPU will drain the battery faster when it's doing more -- but if the CPU gets the job done faster, then it won't be operating as long, so it won't spend as long draining the battery. They usually come out about even in the end. There are particular CPU models that are designed to be particularly efficient, such as Intel's Atom line, but you'll usually only find them in netbooks. RAM, on the other hand, hardly affects battery life at all. Keep in mind that when a computer goes into sleep mode, it shuts off power to almost every system component except the RAM, and most laptops can survive in sleep mode for a few days at a time.

[protege]

Jester, I just bought a laptop. With my ancient (8 years old ) desktop nearing the end of its life, and with Best Buy offering 18-months of no interest/payments, why not? I found a nice Samsung R780 (17.5" screen, 2.53GHz, 4GB RAM, etc.) on sale for less than $700. Of course, throwing Office on it added to the cost. So far, it's been about 2 weeks since purchase, and I'm still kicking myself for not doing it sooner

I should mention that the one I got had to ordered from a warehouse--the R780 wasn't in stock at the time. Oh, and battery life can be drastically shortened if you have the screen's brightness all the way up...and spend several hours playing KOTOR

[Jester]

Anyway, for $600 you can get yourself a pretty nice laptop nowadays. Not quite a high-class gaming machine, but certainly capable of doing everything you need and playing some games on the side, too.

I am definitely not a gamer. Minesweeper is my usual game of choice. The most complex game on my computer is Airport Madness. WoW? Not for me. Not my thing.

How big a screen do you want? 15" and 17" are pretty common for laptops, but you can find them larger or smaller. Netbooks are usually around 10". It's natural to immediately think that bigger is better if you've never owned a laptop before, but larger screens have disadvantages; a big one is that larger laptops will be heavier, which may or may not be a big deal depending on how much you intend to walk around with it.

The 15" models look about right to me. 17" looks too big, 10" is too tiny. I am not going to haul it around all the time, but I am going to enjoy the ability to bring it with me if I so choose. For the most part, it would stay in my house. The idea of being able to take it with me when I travel is one of the big selling points of a laptop. Average day to day, though, I won't be carrying it all around creation. For travel, I plan on getting one of those backpack carrying cases, so I can use the case for more than just the laptop, and so that it is not as obvious that it is a laptop. (Yes, I am open to suggestions for this, too.) I am no dummy. I know I am a klutz. The first thing I buy when I get a new cell phone is a protective case, because I KNOW I will drop the damn thing. So a carrying case is not an option to me, but a necessity.

a lot of 17" laptops will only have a 2.5 to 3 hour battery life, while it's not uncommon for 10" netbooks to last 8 hours. If you plan on sitting at home with it a lot, you can always get a big external monitor and plug it in. You can probably get a good 21" or 22" LCD monitor for between $100 and $150 nowadays, anyway -- or, if you decide to replace your current desktop, just re-use your existing monitor.

Most of the laptops I have been looking at advertise a 3.5 hour battery life, which in my mind is about right. Any traveling I do with the computer will be with the backpack, and thus the power cord....I am the type that would try to plug it in everywhere. I plug my phone in religiously at night, even if I haven't used it all during the day. As for the external monitor, I figure a 15" screen would be fine. I could always use my current monitor as an external, but I have trouble imagining typing on a laptop and looking at a different screen, though of course I am adaptable, so who knows? I know I wouldn't need to buy an LCD monitor or anything.

If by "watching videos" you mean playing stuff on Youtube and watching DVDs, pretty much anything that's currently on the market will be fast enough; if you're playing HD video, though, such as h.264 video files or streaming movies from Netflix, you'll want something more powerful.

Mostly youtube videos and stuff like that, with the occasional downloaded movie thrown in....DVDs I watch on my flat screen TV.

Now, one thing to watch out for on laptops is their video cards. More affordable laptops will probably use integrated Intel video chipsets, which are perfectly acceptable for most applications, but will probably not even be capable of playing the latest and greatest games.

Not a priority, as I am not a gamer.

As far as RAM goes, just make sure that whatever you get has at least 2 GB. That's good enough for doing anything that's not terribly memory-intensive, like gaming or editing stuff in Photoshop. More than that is just gravy.

I edit stuff in photoshop, but don't game, as I've said. Most of the laptops I've seen are 3 or 4 GB.

Also, any idea how much hard drive space you're looking for? How large is your current computer's drive, and how comfortable are you with it?

No idea, no idea, and not really sure. As I said...I'm a computer idiot.

Either way, getting a spare external hard drive is a good idea, and use it to back up your files regularly.

While I don't back up my files on my current computer, I also don't go anywhere with it, obviously. I do plan on backing up my laptop's computer, either on an external drive or on the hard drive for my desktop.

I second avoiding HP.

Interesting side note: the Radio Shack guy said to avoid HP laptops, but highly recommend HP printers. While this seems counterintuitive to most people, it made perfect sense to me, as they are different products. Good analogy: Black & Decker make great power tools, but lousy kitchen appliances.

By the way, another piece of advice I have is to not pay for Norton or McAfee anti-virus.
Most computer vendors will try to get you to buy one of those with your computer. They're junk. Avast is better and it's free.

The RS guy pointed out that I wouldn't need to pay for Norton anyway, as I get free anti-virus through my Comcast account. (We get our cable and internet from Comcast.)

Videos= space
If you plan on having videos and high quality pictures on your hard drive, you need space. Externals can get crazy, but can be worth it. From what I hear, you get what you pay for in most cases with external hard drives.

The vast majority of videos I would be watching I would not be saving. Just streaming.

...if you don't do freaky fancy stuff like PowerPoint or excel sheets...

I have never used PowerPoint, and generally speaking, I rarely us Excel. I think I have two saved excel sheets in my computer, one of them being merely a database of my books.

You can buy peripherals like a mouse, to plug in via the usb ports, if you dont' like the pad thingy laptops have-- lord knows I hate those...

A protective case and external mouse are my first two purchases for my future laptop. I despise those pad mice.

3) A decent keyboard. You will actually need to sit down and try it out.

Since a very large portion of my computer usage involves typing, I have already thought of this, and have rejected some laptops simply for their keyboard. I have to be able to type on it comfortably and at my usual ridiculous clip, and if I can't do that, I am not buying the laptop, period.

Many laptops come with bad keyboards, either in mechanism, or in layout, or in build quality.

I understand how I can check out layout by trying out the keyboard, but how do I know if a particular laptop has bad mechanisms or build quality in their keyboards?

4) A large battery. If you can afford it, consider even going for one that sticks out behind the hinge. If you want your laptop for portability, this will make it more useful in that direction, even if it does get a little bit heavier.

I was thinking, as I stated above, that I didn't think I really needed extra battery life. But as I was typing this, I thought of my upcoming trip to Phoenix. In airports and at bars I can plug in, of course, but on a long flight, if I want to use the laptop as an e-reader, a 3.5 hour battery life won't cut it. So, if I find the laptop I want but the battery life isn't there, is it possible to up the battery life with an add-on? And how much do those cost, ballpark-wise?

If you have any intention of using it while it's sitting on your lap....

Rarely if ever. I am not comfortable typing on something on my lap in general, and I am enough of a klutz where that would just not be a good idea for me to be doing on a regular basis anyway.

[Jester]

So far, it's been about 2 weeks since purchase, and I'm still kicking myself for not doing it sooner.

While I could have gotten my laptop yesterday on sale, a sale which ended yesterday, I am bound and determined to not rush into this due to sales or similar incentives. Whatever I buy has to last me a while, and be reliable, and be something I like and can use. So I'd rather take a little time and maybe spend some more money and make the RIGHT choice, if you follow me.

[Minneyar]

If you feel like shopping around for a different laptop case than whatever the seller offers you, I highly recommend Brenthaven: http://www.brenthaven.com/PC-Cases

They're a little bit pricy, but the quality is fantastic and they all have lifetime warranties. I've had three of their cases and used them all for several years with no problems.

Laptop sellers are always having sales for some reason or another -- if one just ended, don't worry, there will be another soon. If you decide to buy online, try using Google to find coupons for whatever you're buying. I've gotten hundreds of dollars off of Dell product thanks to coupons I found.

[Jester]

I have no doubt those cases are great, but I would really prefer one of the backpack-style ones, preferably one with lots of extra cargo capacity, so I can use it as a backpack, too. Make sense? Cool. Suggestions?

[Der Cute]

Jester, you can just use a plain backpack.

Go to a computer store such as Best Buy or others, and actually stand there and type on the keyboard.

One thing I dislike about laptops is their keyboards are so cramped compared to desktop keyboards. Even with my tiny hands, it's annoying.
So you need to find a chassis that feels good to you. It might be the 17" would be better. It's up to you.

Nowadays there is a physical toggle switch on the front left corner of the laptop for wireless (either front left corner or right front corner) DO NOT DROP AND BUST THAT CORNER. That is the only way to get your wireless on or off. Once the toggle switch is bork, you're in trouble.

Make sure the laptop has Wireless protocols such as A/B/G and N if you can, Bluetooth and usb ports that are not on top of each other like this sign::: = when they sit that way, the thickness of the usb stick will interfere wit the other port...you'll only be able to use 1. You should have about 4 to 6 usb ports.

Is there a slot..PCIMCA (i think iirc)...on the left or right side, about as wide as a credit card and 1cm thick? You can put wireless air cards in there - if your carrier is ATT or Verizon, you could use that instead of a wired connection (meant for road warriors, but it's an option).

DVD slot should be a DVD reader and burner. You might want to upgrade to BluRay due to the migration of media towards that format.

Again, put as much $$ as you can towards a computer purchase, as it is meant to last you more than a year. About 4 or 5...if you push it. The hardware and usage will change, and it's a PITA to swap parts in laptops.

Make sure there is a spot to get to the RAM, and there is good ventilation for the machine. Where's the fan? Where's the slots for air? Does the machine have little rubber feet? What about a docking station at home?

Chromatix is correct about batteries. If you don't want the larger battery, you may want to look on line to see what yours would cost to replace it.

Get yourself a can of compressed air. Dust your baby monthly- food crumbs in keyboard, dust and fuzz in the air slots, etc. Your puter will thank you.