boarder04
04-19-2005, 02:53 AM
hey, so i am having a horrible time of figuring out which brand and model of laptop to buy... I have been looking and researching all sorts of brands but it's really hard to find something that fits all aspects of what i need....and then find a good review about it.
i know that in these forums, there a few people who will recommend only Toshiba, IBM, and ACER. These companies seem to be the ones that I know least about. I know that IBM is probalby out of the question because they are so expensive, and for some reason, i just can't seem to fit a Toshiba to fit my needs. Acer is a company that is hard to research for me. They have like a gazillion different models, and they don't really tell you much about the model in the summary, so i find myself going over and over looking at the specs of them, and it just gets really hard. i'm not even sure if i really found what i was looking for yet...
so basically, i am just asking for some help from experienced people that can just help point me to some specific models that would fit my needs in whatever company they might be.
my needs...
this laptop will be mainly used for school, so with that said, I would prefer something that is lightweight and that has a good battery life. this is why i was looking at the Fujitsu's, because they fit both of those categories. i am also a gamer, but it is not a very high priority on my list. i also video edit a lot using adobe premier pro, but again, i can live without this capability in a laptop. one thing that i do want is a good size hard drive with a good rpm speed. i was thinking something around an 80gig would probably suit my needs. as far as memory, i don't want any less than 512, 1gig would be nice. i also want the option of burning cd's, so a dvd/cd-rw combo is what i have been looking at. burning dvd's isn't important right now to me. one thing that is really hard to research is battery life, heat, screen quality, and noise. basically as far as batter life, i was hoping to get something at least 3 hours on the main battery because I will be taking this to class often. also, i want something that isn't going to be extremely noisy and won't get too hot. for screen, basically something with high res will do me fine, as long as their aren't too much complaints about it.
i have noticed that dell isn't exactly the most popular word in the dictionary around here. the only one that i was looking at was the inspirion 6000, but i started to realize that i think it's a bit big for what i want, and i don't know how battery life is on it. i then started looking at sony's and ibm's, but quickly veered away because i realized that to get what i wanted would probably cost me way too much. correct me if i'm wrong though. i then started to do some research on fujitsu, because i heard good things about their weight and battery life, but i don't really hear that much people talk about them, so i don't know... i know that there are some people here that like toshiba, but i can't seem to find anything that fits what i want. i've also known someone that got a toshiba and i remember that they didn't like it too much. their first complaint is that toshiba had put a bunch of stupid programs and stuff on it that bogged it up and were totally useless. this is one thing that i really don't want. i know that i could always just reformat, but i've heard that the way they put their recovery cd's and what not together, you basically have to restore everything unless i had my own xp cd, which i don't. also, i don't necessarily need xp pro because i can get it at the university where i'm going for like less than 20 bucks (oh ya!). the same goes for microsoft office. after toshiba i started to look at acer, which really seems like a good company with "way too many choices without a good easy way to browse them". one thing that i also heard about their new laptops is that the rounded keyboard is junk and makes it really hard to avoid bumping other buttons, which is a real bummer. but as far as the models i looked at, they seemed very nice.
oh ya.....price. i don't want to spend over 1800 if i can help it. i know this is hard when looking for smaller laptops, but i hope to try my hardest.
i know that their are other brands out their besides the ones that i mentioned, but i hope to not have to go outside this realm of known brand names.
any help would be greatly appreciated.......i know that this got really long, but if by any chance someone has some really great suggestions for me that would be really great. and please, i would love for people to just discuss these different brands and laptops, because that would be helpful for me
thanx a bunch!
i know that in these forums, there a few people who will recommend only Toshiba, IBM, and ACER. These companies seem to be the ones that I know least about. I know that IBM is probalby out of the question because they are so expensive, and for some reason, i just can't seem to fit a Toshiba to fit my needs. Acer is a company that is hard to research for me. They have like a gazillion different models, and they don't really tell you much about the model in the summary, so i find myself going over and over looking at the specs of them, and it just gets really hard. i'm not even sure if i really found what i was looking for yet...
so basically, i am just asking for some help from experienced people that can just help point me to some specific models that would fit my needs in whatever company they might be.
my needs...
this laptop will be mainly used for school, so with that said, I would prefer something that is lightweight and that has a good battery life. this is why i was looking at the Fujitsu's, because they fit both of those categories. i am also a gamer, but it is not a very high priority on my list. i also video edit a lot using adobe premier pro, but again, i can live without this capability in a laptop. one thing that i do want is a good size hard drive with a good rpm speed. i was thinking something around an 80gig would probably suit my needs. as far as memory, i don't want any less than 512, 1gig would be nice. i also want the option of burning cd's, so a dvd/cd-rw combo is what i have been looking at. burning dvd's isn't important right now to me. one thing that is really hard to research is battery life, heat, screen quality, and noise. basically as far as batter life, i was hoping to get something at least 3 hours on the main battery because I will be taking this to class often. also, i want something that isn't going to be extremely noisy and won't get too hot. for screen, basically something with high res will do me fine, as long as their aren't too much complaints about it.
i have noticed that dell isn't exactly the most popular word in the dictionary around here. the only one that i was looking at was the inspirion 6000, but i started to realize that i think it's a bit big for what i want, and i don't know how battery life is on it. i then started looking at sony's and ibm's, but quickly veered away because i realized that to get what i wanted would probably cost me way too much. correct me if i'm wrong though. i then started to do some research on fujitsu, because i heard good things about their weight and battery life, but i don't really hear that much people talk about them, so i don't know... i know that there are some people here that like toshiba, but i can't seem to find anything that fits what i want. i've also known someone that got a toshiba and i remember that they didn't like it too much. their first complaint is that toshiba had put a bunch of stupid programs and stuff on it that bogged it up and were totally useless. this is one thing that i really don't want. i know that i could always just reformat, but i've heard that the way they put their recovery cd's and what not together, you basically have to restore everything unless i had my own xp cd, which i don't. also, i don't necessarily need xp pro because i can get it at the university where i'm going for like less than 20 bucks (oh ya!). the same goes for microsoft office. after toshiba i started to look at acer, which really seems like a good company with "way too many choices without a good easy way to browse them". one thing that i also heard about their new laptops is that the rounded keyboard is junk and makes it really hard to avoid bumping other buttons, which is a real bummer. but as far as the models i looked at, they seemed very nice.
oh ya.....price. i don't want to spend over 1800 if i can help it. i know this is hard when looking for smaller laptops, but i hope to try my hardest.
i know that their are other brands out their besides the ones that i mentioned, but i hope to not have to go outside this realm of known brand names.
any help would be greatly appreciated.......i know that this got really long, but if by any chance someone has some really great suggestions for me that would be really great. and please, i would love for people to just discuss these different brands and laptops, because that would be helpful for me
thanx a bunch!