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jds

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With my ancient HP Pavilion DV4000 laptop from work rapidly failing, I'm soon to be in the market for another. Not having kept up on things, I'm unsure about what to look for in a new one.

So, anybody want to share their recent experiences?

Here are my details:

  1. No mac, no linux. Don;t get me wrong, I love and use both, but I use Outlook and OneNote heavily, and my IT guy can't support non-m$ stuff easily, so this will be a M$ system
  2. I use mainly Outlook, Office (Word/Excel), MathCAD, OneNote, Firefox, and take a lot of photographs.
  3. No games
  4. I prefer a small form factor. Current laptop is 17", and it's WAY too big. Small is better.
  5. DVD drive required. I'd prefer not to have to juggle an external through the airport.
  6. Battery life: Longer=better.
  7. Budget: $1200-1500.

So, what does the collective wisdom of HBT suggest? The size of many netbooks really appeals to me. For in-office work, I rdesktop to the laptop from my kubuntu desktop machine, so a tiny screen and keyboard is not a problem, since I only use the laptop away from my desk 25% of the time or so.
 
With my ancient HP Pavilion DV4000 laptop from work rapidly failing, I'm soon to be in the market for another. Not having kept up on things, I'm unsure about what to look for in a new one.

So, anybody want to share their recent experiences?

Here are my details:

  1. No mac, no linux. Don;t get me wrong, I love and use both, but I use Outlook and OneNote heavily, and my IT guy can't support non-m$ stuff easily, so this will be a M$ system
  2. I use mainly Outlook, Office (Word/Excel), MathCAD, OneNote, Firefox, and take a lot of photographs.
  3. No games
  4. I prefer a small form factor. Current laptop is 17", and it's WAY too big. Small is better.
  5. DVD drive required. I'd prefer not to have to juggle an external through the airport.
  6. Battery life: Longer=better.
  7. Budget: $1200-1500.

So, what does the collective wisdom of HBT suggest? The size of many netbooks really appeals to me. For in-office work, I rdesktop to the laptop from my kubuntu desktop machine, so a tiny screen and keyboard is not a problem, since I only use the laptop away from my desk 25% of the time or so.

thats allot for that price. check out the lenovo x200 or x300
x200
 
I built my own from salvaged information kiosk parts...

box3.jpg


box2.jpg


box1.jpg


:D

To answer your question though, I really like the higher-end convertible tablet/laptops that Fujitsu makes: FUJITSU: Fujitsu America - LifeBook T2020 Notebook
 
Why no mac? It's not like you can't run windows on it....

Honestly, I'm leaning toward the HP TouchSmart series, because of the tablet features. However, I'm open to suggestions.

I guess I don't see the point of buying a mac just so my IT guy can nuke it in favor of Windows. Seems like less effort to buy something preinstalled. Furthermore, the last mac I bought was my wife's macBook, and I ended up having to replace the optical drive on it 18 months later. With AppleCare expired, apple wanted $400 to replace the optical drive. I did it for the cost of the drive, and an hour's aggravation.

Carbon111: Nice. Good luck getting it through a TSA checkpoint, though. Those guys confuse too easily for my taste.
 
I have HP DV6, and so far, very good...battery is very strong. Vista w/4 GB

Less than $700 @ Staples
 
I love my al macbook (I got the first gen 13" al one, which is now macbook pro).

Its small, light, solid, backlit keyboard is nice, screen is beautiful, bootcamp half the drive for windows if you must, and mac osx is well... just nice. Even apple bootcamp drivers for xp power management are better than any other laptop I have ever used. I boot my laptop once a month when updates come out. I run multiple OS's with vmware, I have office (entourage does suck), firefox, pretty much everything I need except Visio.

If I HAD to get a PC laptop, I would probably go with a thinkpad. Everything else just feels cheap.
 
Mine is an Alienware. 17" monitor full keyboard with 10 key 3.0ghz p4 with 2gb of ram. bought it before dualcores rocked us. Now I would probably buy dell. I just like how you can customize to what you want. I would go with a quadcore pentium and at 4gb of ram 8gb if you can afford it. only because you have to run Vista. that thing would rock you.
 
You won't like mine. It is small (10.5 x 7.5 x 1) light and fast. Twin drives, twin processors, built in wi-fi, mic, camera, ++

However, no disc drive. The only time I miss it is on a flight when I don't feel like reading.
 
A whole new line of laptops will be released with windows 7, win 7 is designed around touch screen machines.

I traded my powerful laptop in for an asus 1000he and would never go back. I have. 23 inch monitor and wireless keyboard mouse I hook up to if I need more productivity out of it, but for the most part it is great.

Any software installation I perform with an 8 gb flash drive.
 
for a grand one can purchase a stripped x200 from lenovo. the x200 is the smaller then the macbook air without the insane price tag and better performance. the x301 is a 13" with longer battery life. if i were to need to run osx id hackintosh it and save the money. oh how i miss my thinkpad tp600x with the titanium case. aluminum. bah. hahaha seriously if any of you mac guys/gals want to run osx great hack it. you can still buy the software and load it with some work arounds. hp and lenovo both came out and said any purchase of a computer now will be offered a free upgrade to windows 7 if thats a concern. and over all with what the OP is needing he doesnt need a speed demon. its the small and light weight that increses price as any of the 300 buck laptops would do him well but a netbook would be super slow with mathcad
 
Check out the Dell Vostro line. I'm REALLY hard on computers, purchased a Vostro 1500 roughly 2 1/2 years ago. Magnesium case, water resistant keyboard, big battery - still a manageable size. I've went through a DVD drive (dropped the computer with the drive open...) and two power adapters (all power adapters fear me - I kill them quickly). I paid roughly $1200 with a 5 year warranty that covers EVERYTHING (I.E. I can drop her down a flight of stairs and it's covered). I did a lot of searching and for me and my laptop abuse - the vostro was the ONLY computer that fit my needs and budget.

Now if you're nicer to laptops than I am you can do better for the price...
 
I picked up a Dell Studio XPS 16 a few months ago and LOVE it. If you can get the smaller version with the rgbLED 1080p LCD screen go for it! The color gamut on this thing is ridiculous, exceeds most desktop screens and for photo/video work you wont find better on a laptop. Just my .02 Good luck!
 
I'm a big Thinkpad/Lenovo fan. I have an HTPC for the TV, but other than that my primary at home is an older T42. I put it in a docking station and drive 3 big monitors with it when I need the extra real estate, but mostly I just use it solo. Always travels with me. Dependable and built well.

You can find the X60 and X61 tablets in your price range. If you look for one used probably a bit cheaper. Rugged, lightweight, and plenty speedy with dual core. Sounds like it would easily fit your useage. No need to drop the extra scratch to get this years latest and greatest.
 
The only thing that I like about the HP laptops is the built-in lightscribe burner, which you don't see on any non-HP laptops I'm aware of.

I vote for the Fujitsu.
 
I love Asus, this one in particular hits your price point: Newegg.com - ASUS N50 Series N50Vn-D1 NoteBook Intel Core 2 Duo T9550(2.66GHz) 15.4" Wide XGA 4GB Memory DDR2 800 320GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce 9650M GT - Laptops / Notebooks

- Good CPU speed w/ Dual Core, 4GB RAM, 320GB 7200rpm HD, 1GB Video 9650GT, Bluetooth, etc.

Not huge, not small, great features for the price. And I would say that if you're only taking it with you 25% of the time go for a larger laptop not a small one. You pay a premium for a small form factor, either in dollars or reduced performance. If a 15" screen is still too big, go for the 14" but I'd not go smaller or you'll sacrifice 75% of the time for something you do 25% of the time.

If you like to stick with the major players, the new Dell Latitude series are solid machines and have a nice look to them. Brushed aluminum in black is my choice, very professional and also makes for a nice solid feel. I've been using Latitudes for years at work and have been satisfied with them...but not overjoyed. I'd go for the e6400 or e6500 models with specs comparable to what is listed above.

Dell Latitude E6500 Product Details
 
Dude, I'm getting a Dell.

My IT guy keeps a preconfigured E5400 on the shelf as a backup for when laptops die, so that's the one for me. Core Duo, XP, 2 Gb, 7200 RPM HDD, 15.4" screen.

I would have liked something smaller, but it's a work laptop, and I need it up and running ASAP.
 
I've been on a Dell E4300 with a 120G solid state drive for the past few months. Damn speedy, plays VERY well with Linux, but it isn't holding up as well as my MacBook did. Sure miss multi-touch too...
 
jkarp, how do you like the SSD? got 128GB in mine and love it, so quiet, and quick! Averages 111MBs.

I have nothing against Macs, they are very good machines. However, they are EXPENSIVE. If you take the same amount of money that you are willing to spend on a Mac Book you will get far more computer for your buck going PC. People buy cheap PCs with cheap parts and wonder why they fall apart, then they spend big bucks on a Mac made with quality parts and have very few issues. It's all in the parts :)
 
oh and i forgot you wont need an IT guy with a mac...
MSoffice and all other will work on a mac too..

Sorry. Too many close-but-not-close-enough apps in our corporate stable, including the Intuit time tracker Outlook Plug-in, MAthCAD, and some specialty CFD apps that simply aren't compatible. We've played around with them, and they need special handling, which can't happen in an environment with 50 users across multiple locations and one overworked IT guy.

jds uses linux, macs, and Windows on a daily basis. It's a matter of picking the tool for the job, and this tool is a Windows laptop. Plus, I still need BeerSmith to run right...
 
jkarp, how do you like the SSD? got 128GB in mine and love it, so quiet, and quick! Averages 111MBs.

LOVE it. Big difference I notice is the computer just doesn't bog down as the load increases. One Firefox tab or 20, it runs exactly the same.

I dearly loved my MacBook, in fact it's still right here beside me as I've got to support Mac users too. I run Linux tho and there was just too much stuff that didn't work right with Linux on Mac HW.
 
I worked as a pc tech at a large electronics store and I have spent time with pretty much every product line from most common manufacturers, and from my experience with them I have a few opinions.

Avoid HP and Toshiba at all costs their build quality is awful, and they seem to have a much higher failure rate than other brands.

there are really only two brands that I would recommend (unless you get a really good deal on another one)

ACER: equal or better build quality than most competitors at a much lower price (this is what i have)

Lenovo: Absolutely outstanding build quality, the keyboards on these are years ahead of any other manufacturer (including apple) but they tend to be a little pricey (not as bad as apple however).

For your price range I would definatly get a lenovo, you will not regret it.
 
I run a 13'' macbook (black) with XP partitioned for virtual box in case I ever run into a compatibility issues (never happened yet, not sure the last time I booted into windows). the new MS office suite for mac is great. entourage(outlook), word, power point, excel. . . should be compatible across the board for the PC IT guy.

but they are expensive. . . reliable and quality built, but expensive. the HP's are pretty slick. if I were to get a PC that would probably be the route I would take.
 
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