Maximum PC

Hello all!

I am thinking about a $350-$450 Laptop/netbook for my daughter. Why so cheap? Because I am not sure how long it will live with a 14yr old girl and her absentmindedness.

She writes a lot so it will need to run MS Office 2010, and like many teenage girls she is on maybe 4-10 websites at the same time chatting with 50K other teenage girls. I would like it to be able to play movies (if it doesn't have a DVD player that is fine, it can play off a USB drive with VLC).

I have been looking at HP's with 300ish GB HD (size isn't important), 3-4 GB RAM. I'd like a AMD E-450 CPU (I read somewhere they are a good cpu for cheap laptops). Not sure.

HELP! I haven't bought a laptop in years

Hello there,

This one laptop I found with your specific CPU is pretty decent (750gb HDD, 4Gb RAM and the AMD E-450). It even comes with a dvd player and a good enough video card to play movies and vlc is a good choice to play videos.

Here is the link to the laptop :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834230241
now I suggest to look at other sites like tigerdirect and microcenter or ncix to see if they have it for even less.

If you want a cheaper laptop, you can sacrifice your hard drive space for this laptop:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834246310
The CPU, ram and video card are all the same with the two laptops, only smaller Hard drive capacity with the second. Hope this helps and of course look around those other sites, you may even find better laptops out there in the price range.

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/ ... ntel-n5040
Dells are generally reliable, but their service sucks. Still, this seems to be a pretty good deal. It uses an i3 processor, if you don't mind Intel, and has 4 gb of RAM and a 500GB hard drive.

Now I have to go.

^have you even owned a dell? don't be spamming crap again.

I've owned about a dozen in the last 10 years and their service is decent. Although, most of my stuff was high end business laptops and desktops that had their own CS lines for small business. But even then, their home CS isn't bad, just have to know how to play the CS shell game correctly. If you know how to trouble shoot and know what the problem is (hardware wise), their tech will come out and replace it on the spot within a day; provided its under warranty.

Dude, I'm writing this on a Dell.
In my experience with this and other Dells, they are generally reliable systems, but when something goes wrong, the Dell CS is horrible. It's usually simpler to fix it yourself.

Dell CS isn't horrible, you gotta know how to play the CS game. While you may spend almost an extra 10 mins compared to most other OEM builders to reach the same conclusion, their online tech support with their text chat system (similar to that like newegg and others) works great. You get faster response times and don't have to talk with an Indian or Canadian with a fake American accent. When my lcd died on my laptop, I just texted them, told them what I did to test it, 5 mins later they sent me an email reminder of the chat and had a tech support to come out the next day to replace it.

And even if you do a normal phone CS, you just gotta know how to speak the CS lingo to move the process/scripting along. Sometimes you get lucky with a competent operator named Chuck or Bob, or you get stuck with Lucy who should be in accounting and not in IT help desk support.

Also, I have the upper hand now since I know a few friends who are local Dell techs (hired contractors btw) who can order me parts, side stepping the whole CS process; provided its under warranty still.

The last 20something times I got stuck with Lucy. :p

If you don't know how to troubleshoot and/or don't have a sms-compatible phone (like a landline) then you're screwed. Same for getting refunds.

http://xkcd.com/806/
Oh how I wish this was true...

Back on topic, the i3 is more powerful, but the E-450 systems should probably get longer battery life. The E-450 is a netbook processor, designed for power efficiancy. The i3 is a full notebook processor, designed for the step above netbooks.

You're not screwed... you just have to follow directions and invest more time if you are completely computer illiterate. Even then, those types of demographics are more willing to spend money for other people to deal with CS because they don't know how to deal with CS at all. They'd rather go to geek squad and have them call CS or deal with it themselves.

As for battery life, again... there's tons of more variables to consider than just the cpu alone. And yes, you can't compare the i3 to the AMD e series cpu... did you forget the atom processors that defined the netbook category? That's what compares directly with the AMD e series fusion apu's, but atom's are a lot more power efficient and runs about the same performance.

You are saying what I was trying to say (and thought I had included ) in my previous post in that last paragraph.

As for the first paragraph, have you ever had to deal with someone who was wondering where the "any" key on the keyboard was and why the spacebar works just as well?

http://slickdeals.net/f/3956568-HP-G7-1 ... -Rebate-FS

http://slickdeals.net/f/3971356-HP-Pavi ... e-Shipping

http://slickdeals.net/f/3968352-Lenovo- ... d-Card-330

http://slickdeals.net/f/3968774-Aspire- ... B-M-249-99

I would never buy an AMD laptop. HP is ok unless you need to work on it, then they are f*****g terrible and a lot of them have cooling issues.

Also dell has fantastic support as long as you use the chat on their website and say you work in IT for so and so company and you ran so and so test and have seen this a million times. And you actually need to know what is broken.

Well, a lot of laptops have cooling issues. After all, you don't have room for a Prolimatech Armageddon in there, or the weight room for a liquid cooling loop.

No I mean like they have fans with no intake slots. And then they get hot and no longer output video. I have seen about 20 HPs die since 2008 they are mostly the "gaming" ones though, although there have been exceptions.

I thought that happened to all gaming laptops, like all those broken Alienwares and XPSes.

Not on the scale that I have seen. I haven't seen a single dell die the way HPs do and it isn't just one model of HP it is all the consumer grade stuff that spans multiple model years. They have terrible heat transfer, at least dell and alienware try and so far have been successful. The only XPS I know of that had issues was my coworkers who used to be a bestbuy employee, so I'm pretty sure it was his fault since it wasn't the graphics card but the motherboard that died. If you are getting professional grade (small/large business) laptops then I would consider HP but for consumer grade dell is hard to beat.

Anyway another option for OP would be to go to dell outlet small business and get something from there that is either refurb, cancelled order, or scratch and dent (which is a lie the look perfect except for the box) and most of those come with next business day warranties but they might cost more. http://www.dell.com/us/dfb/p/laptops You can get a newer Vostro 1540 with 3 year next business day for $400.

LOL thank you all for the input.

btw ... back in the day (being about 10 yrs ago) I used to work at a large company in IT. I don't know how they handled it but without taking any classes or tests or whatever, HP would let us order their parts and service their laptops under warrantee. Same with Dell and IBM and Siemens (worst laptops ever crapped out.)
Anyway, I've replaced many boards, LCD's, and keyboards some salesperson pounded on with a remote in a hotel room because she was frustrated at PowerPoint.
I like dell the most and have had the least problems with them over the years. I have a Dell C600 upstairs my wife plays DVD's on the bed side table. It's 10-12 yrs old and I've had Win2K, Ubuntu and XP on it at different times (XP currently).

I forgot about slickdeals, I'll watch them more now.

Thank you again, I'm not sure what I will go for just yet but I have a lot more info now to make a choice. Those I5's look nice and in my range or close to it.

lol @ nog too...

Yeah, I've had a few HP laptops die on me within 18 months of use; always after that damn 1 year warranty. heh Their Envy series laptops are pretty nice, but damn for the price, I'd shop else where.

And my old Dell XPS 17 latop has been one touch SOB. Has survived a dozen drops, almost 6 years of abuse and two motorcycle accidents of where I low side at 65mph and tumbled 75+ feet with the laptop in the backpack and the other was a slow high side of where I flew about 8 feet in the air before landing on my hip (and the corner of the laptop). Funny enough, the 2nd one, after I rolled around for a split second, I actually landed on my feet once my momentum came to a halt. The two cars who saw and stopped to help thought it was pretty unbelievable and I just walked it off, picked up the bike and rode away in 5 mins. I crash with style, my pc's can't say the same... (cept for the xps).

Both happened within a week of each other, blame it on the AMA GP racing tire I was running; not heating up to temp with normal road conditions. It was definitely funny going to the hospital twice. The 2nd time, they thought I was there to see the first xray results, they laughed when I said... no no, need another xray for another motorcycle "incident".


And yes, keep an eye on slickdeals. Saw a nice i3 15" laptop for $350 not too long ago, I think it was Acer or Asus. Does size matter?

Every now and then, you run across a really reliable laptop or support guy (no pun intended. Honest.). It's all about the rate of incidence. I've had a Toshiba that lasted all of a year, to three days after the warranty expired. I also have a Toshiba inherited from my uncle that has been running about as long as I have. Over all, Toshibas are pretty reliable.
Dell service has a pretty bad track record, but as Jbaz can attest, it has the occasional good guy in there.
Not all Dell designs had heat problems. My Inspiron 6000 does, but the C602 I got for Grandpa doesn't. Likewise, not all HPs have heat problems. The only difference is a lot more of them do than Dell.

I have dealt with dell support for 4 years now with multiple issues relating to laptops, and have never had an issue with support itself. Of course it has always been with business grade components that had a NBD policy on them so it could be different staff. I can't say the same for HP support which I have also worked with, they are a lot less helpful and the process of getting something fixed always seems like a run around in which I have to convince them that I know what I am talking about. Acer has pretty decent support with an online chat. Asus is kind of terrible though, email only and if you send something back they don't give you an ETA or an update. You also have to pay for shipping, while dell sends a tech to your house with the NBD support option.

^And yes, Business CS is completely different than Home/Consumer CS. Much much better support. Specially if you have a business account with them, you will get your own personal support tech for your account. If you have any issues, you call your dude; he knows whats up.

Just to make it clear. When I do call Dell home CS, it does take longer than any other CS I call. It can average 20+mins for a simple solution with at least 3 or 4 reconnects. That's why I only call Dell when its an absolute necessity, but since they rolled out their chat service a year or two ago, I never had to call again.

Asus CS is just as bad or even worse, but thank god their products are actually nice. Their email system takes days or even a week to get back to you, even after you submit a proper support ticket and their phone server is even longer than Dell. I got reconnected 7 times with my asus laptop when I had a firmware issue (was a wide spread issue with the gpu/lcd poor dithering) that lasted 48 mins and didn't get an answer. They just said to email them a support ticket and they'll get back to me. Took them over 8 days to get back to me, but they did fix the problem with a new firmware roll out.

And yes, Toshiba is a good company. Their CS is much better than Dell or Asus, but I haven't had one of their laptops or called their CS in 5 years. But I do like their products, abit on the expensive side compared to other similar products.

Lenovo is on the top of my list (quite a bit biased since I have friends who work there as engineers) as I like their business class laptops. Solid design and quality products, but I do hate that damn red mouse nipple. I have never met anyone besides salespeople who actually use that damn thing. Their CS is top notch.


And as for Apple? God... For a grade A from most consumer reports reviews, they always seem like lousy service to me. Close to Dell/Asus bad IMHO. Every time I call, it takes forever to get a live operator on the phone; usually ends up with me dicking around with the voice recording system (always ends with disconnects 2 or 3 times first) before finally getting a live person. And they never could help me, always have to reconnect to some "genius" who can't tell me the solution and always advise me to go to an Apple Store for support. Only to get to the Apple Store and they say I have to call the store to make an appointment with the local "genius" for the selected problem. And even then, they still couldn't answer my question or hardware issue (for a particular gpu issue, I had to go to mac connection for support... and they figured it out in 10 mins! LOL)

One time, a co-worker bought a new imac 24" (years ago) and had an agreement with IT that he would take care of it as it was a small business and the only apple product the company had. 1 month later, it had a bad ram module. But he took it to apple THREE TIMES, before they figured what was wrong. They even shipped it back to apple for repair to figure this out. He was down for over a week and had to go back to "shitty" PC... HAHA, I made so much fun of him during that week "how's your apple doing there chief? oh wait... its not white..."

They also took over 2 hours on the phone to finally talk to a technician at Apple to give me a quote for a keyboard replacement on a late gen Macbook Pro that didn't have apple care protection. I kept getting the "you should have gotten the apple care protection plan when you bought the laptop. would you like to send it in for repair and then get the apple care protection plan?"... then they just ignore your question on how much its going to cost. grrr


... opps sorry for long rant. lol CS does touch a "touchy" topic for me.

Apple service is worse than Dell and Asus combined. Their "Genius"es have a lower understanding of tech than most of my friends. Even the one who isn't all that good at computers knows how to diagnose a problem with a device (Try a different one that you know works. Sheesh, my mom knows how to do that!), a procedure the Apple Geniuses had no clue about ("Try rebooting. Hmm, that didn't work... Don't do whatever it is that makes this problem appear." "DUDE, IT'S THE BLUETOOTH MODULE. THE KEYBOARD DOESN'T CONNECT BECAUSE IT'S THE FRAKKING BLUETOOTH MODULE! I'M NOT GONNA STOP TYPING!").

It was actually a bit better under Steve Jobs. At least he cared about quality. Now, it's like there's no quality control on the support people.