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Im buying myself a laptop for college and need help deciding between two. My uses for it are basic: typing, internet, and iTunes.


This one with Windows XP:

http://www.officedepot.com/ddSKU.do?level=SK&id=618545&Nr=200000&N=265454%204294952338&Ne=10275&An=browse

Its a Toshiba Tecra A8-EZ8511X - Celeron M 430 1.73 GHz - 15.4" TFT for 699.99.


Or this one with Vista:

A The Dell Inspiron bundle offered through my college for 799.99

Dell Inspiron E1501
Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007
Symantec Norton Antivirus 2007


I have never used Vista and don't know if its worth going with choice number two. The bundle is a good deal as Im getting it for much less than it would cost retail.

So what do you folks think?

ETA - Link is being difficult

I'll do graffiti,
If you sing to me in French.

Not exactly enough information, but based on initial offerings, I'd opt for the dEll. It's got more RAM, newer, better processor options, and that included office is the kicker. Office pro is something rediculous like 400 bucks. The dEll offers better graphics as well. Vista isn't all that great, it's like what microshaft did with windows 98/me. It's a basic polish, not an entirely new system.

I don't know that much about computers, but my brother used to work at a computer store (he builds his own computers and stuff) and he said that Dells were among the brands most frequently brought in for repairs, and that the Japanese brands like Toshiba and Sony tended to be the most reliable when it came to not having major problems.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Ive heard both good and bad reviews about Dells. My father, a web and software designer, has had toshibas and dells and loves both.

I'll do graffiti,
If you sing to me in French.

if it weren't for the office package included with the dell, i would say to go for the toshiba. vista is garbage and is due for replacement in a little over a year and a half. and i have to say i do work on computers for a living and the toshiba satellite is the best laptop on the market. the dell inspiron line is hit or miss whether or not you get a working model. i've had some that ended up being replaced within a few months of purchase and others that have worked for years. but with office included it's hard to turn down, even with vista pre-installed.

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"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman

Most people I've talked to would say toshiba satellites come 2nd to dell laptops due to heat sink and power issues. Many of the toshiba models are at the top for power issues. In fact I have 2 broken ones right now. One ended up frying the motherboard and the other just isn't getting a good connection and won't start except on battery. There are plans all over the net for how to rewire the power connection on toshiba satellites to be external instead of connecting directly to the board because of how many problems they have. Also several models(A25 for example) have issues with the heat sink clogging and overheating nearby parts to the point of softening the solder and causing parts to lose connection. You have to go through and clean out the heat sink and resolder everything. Done it twice on mine.

While I do still think toshibas are one of the best laptops out there I'd go with dell first considering all the issues I've had and the number of people I've come across with the same issues. Unless you can't find a model with win xp. Vista has issues and won't run alot of programs yet so I'd choose a slightly lower quality laptop over the best if it's running vista. You should be able to find a dell laptop with win xp if you go to their website. My sister just got one and her boyfriend was picking one out. Plus I just helped my mom setup a new dell desktop that came with xp so it's still an option you just have to look a little harder.

I also would stay as far away from compaq and hp brands as possible. I had a couple of those and wouldn't take one for free.

toshiba or sony.



vistas going out? huh have to talk with my buddy at ms. i hadnt heard about a new version replacing it yet.

any ideas what the new one is called moondog?

Fish tanks are an expensive addiction

Unless you're a die hard Windows fan, you can actually get by very well using OpenOffice by Sun Microsystems. It is free and can save to windows formats for everything like Word, Xl, or Power Point. I personally prefer Open Office because of the price and you don't have to worry about the annoying constant windows verifying the validity of your software stuff. I had one version installed of MS Office before, something went wrong, i have no idea where, and it became such a problem i just uninstalled it completely. With Open Office at least, If anything acts funny with the program, you can easily remove the whole thing and reinstall it. The only thing is that you have to go into preferences if you want it to Automatically save all of your files in windows format extensions instead of the open office extensions.

If you are truly only going for typing, net, and music, I think what you need to take into account is just hard drive size and speed. If you ever think you'll want to use the laptop for other things like gaming though, or anything that needs strong graphics or something, it'd be better to get a good one to start with since laptops are a lot harder to upgrade individual components than desktops.

When my dad was looking for laptops, he was trying to decide by weight because well, he's getting along in his years and can't carry a 10lb monster around like I do. We found that the Toshibas generally fit in well with the low weight, which may be important if you have to carry the laptop around often. Believe me, if I didn't need a powerful computer, I wouldn't want to drag an extra 10lbs around on my shoulder all the time. I guess that affects things too. What's your major???

The pottery that growls!

Right now I'm Pharmacy, but I don't know how long Ill do that.

Thanks for all the info. Ill deffinately take it into consideration. The good thing about having a dad in computer biz and a university that is really one the ball with technology is that if anything goes wrong, there is someone to fix it

I'll do graffiti,
If you sing to me in French.

monkeyboy, they are giving it the revolutionary name of windows 7

supposedly its tentative release date is "sometime in late 2009" but MS being MS, we can probably expect to see it released by 2015...

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"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman

looks like a call is in need to my boy at MS lol.

2010? knowing how they work on releases. i say 2012

Fish tanks are an expensive addiction

im just gonna say that i have a dell inspiron 1501 with windows vista and it is quite slow i think that if it was running on windows xp it would be alot faster

hi
woot woot woot woot woot woot

The problems with dell's especially with vista is the fact that they use shared memory between their grpahics and their RAM. So it may tell you you have 1 GB or 512 of ram but infact you have alot less.

Thanks for your input as always, Shane
http://thetanklog.blogspot.com/ - [ Thanks to ScottF ]
http://www.natureaquariumclubofutah.com/main.html

that's true of a lot of onboard video graphics, not just dell

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"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman

and not just vista. its any OS that is like that. which is one of the reasons i dont use laptops.

Fish tanks are an expensive addiction

laptops have their uses. Mine is a desktop replacement since I take alot of photos on location so I need it for on the road editing.

if it were anything major i'd be using a desktop. But with that being said my laptop (HP) had a dedicated graphics card

I bought a Dell Inspiron over 3 yrs ago, still going strong, enver had an issue... I love my Dell, that's all I buy now....

I don't know much about computers, but my parents just got my sister a Dell Latitude D830.

I think the problem with Inspirons is that they don't last very long. My parents got an Inspiron a couple years back and within two years that thing was crawling to do anything. I don't know if we mistreated the computer or something but it doesn't work very well at all at this time.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

My Dell Inspiron is about 4.5 now and haven't had any trouble... except that it's kind of outdated already but that happens with all computers.

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Technically the life of a computer is actually 3 years. As far as the laptop with the slowness i bet if you clear out all temp files, cookies, run the defragmenter, clear off all known toolbars and little pieces of software, run Spybot Search & Destroy & Adaware 2007 several times to clear out the spyware and malware. Your laptop will speed up. Or you could just to a reinstall.

Shane

Thanks for your input as always, Shane
http://thetanklog.blogspot.com/ - [ Thanks to ScottF ]
http://www.natureaquariumclubofutah.com/main.html