Looking for a good Laptop

[KataMaStEr]

I will be starting college soon and I???m looking for a fairly good laptop. I will be working mainly with AutoCAD and some other animation program I can???t recall. So I need something that can handle that without going down on me. As of now I???m leaning toward the Pentium M series of processors. I???m an AMD guy but for laptops that seems to be the best option for performance and battery life. This would be my first laptops. Any opinions welcome.

 

[PreMier]

G4 Powerbook.

 

[maniclion]

What's wrong with it "going down" on you? is that an upgrade cause none of my laptops came with that option.

 

[aggies1ut]

Powerbook is good, but I would go for a PC because Autocad and other engineering type programs are predominantly PC based. My ex had an Imac with the PC conversion feature, but the programs ran much slower and later converted to a Dell because of this.

 

[KataMaStEr]

As much as I hate to say it I definitely want Windows on the machine.

 

[KataMaStEr]

What's wrong with it "going down" on you? is that an upgrade cause none of my laptops came with that option.

I had the feeling someone was going to say something like that

 

[Arnold]

best deal is probably gonna be a Dell.

 

[fantasma62]

best deal is probably gonna be a Dell.

Ditto that.....

 

[Stickboy]

Yeah, Dell would be your best bet.

Here's a link to a high rated model:

Dell Laptop

 

[aggies1ut]

And make sure you customize.

 

[LAM]

there are a lot of good notebooks out there. it really depends on how much you want to spend.

Dell, Gateway, etc. all make great laptops but for less money you can get an eMachine at Best Buy for probably $300-400 less...

 

[cappo5150]

I like the Dell D600.

 

[Spottieottie]

I heard emachines haven't been making laptops for too long so they're not the greatest. If you have the money, you should go for a toshiba.

 

[Arnold]

when it comes to a laptop I would not buy an "e-machine", I would stick with a high quality name brand like Dell.

 

[pmech]

And yes go with a 600 models, 400's are caca poo

 

[KataMaStEr]

Yeah e-machines are out of the question. I want too get a good deal with whatever I go for but nothing too cheaply made. What???s cheap now gets expensive tomorrow in repair bills. I???m considering a Dell. Also another one I???m considering is one made by Acer, not a lot of people know about that brand but IMO they make quality computers. My first computer was an Acer six years ago and never had any problems with it. It seems like the Acer beats the Dell as far as price with the same components. I can get an Acer with Intel Pentium M 1.5GHz/ Windows XP Pro/ 512MB DDR333 SDRAM/ ATI Mobility Radeon 9700, 64MB DDR/ 60GB/ DVD+/-RW/ 56K Modem, 10/100 LAN, 802.11b/g WLAN/ 3x USB2.0, 1x IEEE1394, VGA, Parallel, Audio Ports, FIR, S-video TV out, 4-in-1 card reader and with a 5 hour battery life for the price of $1300 that???s not a bad deal if you ask me. If you guys see any other reliable name brand with those stats or better able to compete in price with Acer feel free to post. My budget for a laptop is <$1700 I believe I can get something good without going over 2k. I still got another week to do some more research on this before I buy

BTW for those of you who don???t know an Intel Pentium M 1.5 GHz can compete with an Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz. So don???t let the GHz fool you there, and most impressive is that battery life for a Pentium M. It basically doubles that of a P4 with same or even better performance in some cases.

 

[LAM]

when it comes to a laptop I would not buy an "e-machine", I would stick with a high quality name brand like Dell.

that's what most people think. benchmark testing has proven otherwise. the only thing that truely matters in a PC or laptop is the performance and compatibiltiy of the CPU and the chipset. everything else is irrelavant, peripherals etc to the overall performance of the machine.

this is why clone PC's will and have always outperformed name brand PC's as they do not have the limitations set by proprietary hardware that is used by IBM, Sony, Dell, Gateway, Compaq and HP...

Personally I would buy an Acer or Asus notebook long before any that I mentioned above.

 

[cmason2004]

Im going to college in the fall as well, and I just got my laptop. I looked around forever.

I ended up finding a nice Hp on the hp website. Whatever you decide to get, check the company website, they seem to like to get rid of some stuff for pretty cheap, probably last years products or something.

 

[cappo5150]

my first computer was an Acer also.

 

[kvyd]

I just bought a dell. I think gateway has better prices. But i got the dell

 

[Vieope]

I thought that you were looking for a lapdance.
Friday night, sorry.

 

[MtnBikerChk]

I was going to buy a laptop a few months ago (didn't happen) but I asked around and I had a lot of votes for the IBM Thinkpads. I was leaning that way after I did some reading on my own.

My second choice would be the Dell.