Laptops

[fearlesss]

what is agood laptop these days? if it matters I am going to be taking some programming classses that I will be using this for

[steph78]

I'm on my 3rd Dell, I have never had a problem with any of them. The only problem I had with the one i am using now is that the battery went bad after about two years of daily use, but we ordered a new one and it's good to go again. I like that you can customize your computer when you order from the website so you get exactly what hard drive/memory/software/components you want (although they have some pre-packaged configurations at varying price levels if you don't want to specify every last thing yourself), and you can usually find some pretty sweet coupon codes online that cut the price by 10-20%. They will often even let you stack coupons for bigger discounts.

[AsianGeek]

dells are probably the biggest bang for the buck right now. First figure out how much you want to spend. Compare the dells and the hp's.

[old_school_soul]

what is agood laptop these days? if it matters I am going to be taking some programming classses that I will be using this for

What language are you learning?

[fearlesss]

What language are you learning?
c++ and others

[stevenb]

I heard Toshibas are solid and reliable.

[vivo]

lenovo's are the most sturdy, reliable I believe of the major brands.
not sure if it matters for programming specifically.
use the codes here for a discount:
http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=0&t=923848

if the codes ever don't work just do a search for lenovo cpp in the slickdeals forum.

[fearlesss]

since I am buy a new computer. Which OS XP or Vista? If Vista 32 or 64 bit?

[E11e]

Dell's business strategy is to have low reliability (very cheap) parts but to have great customer service to replace those cheap parts when they break. Dell's desktops are great, but their laptops...... most of my friends and myself have had bad experiences. Dell laptops are good bang for your buck, as long as you don't mind having stuff break pretty often and having your laptop down for a week at a time while the new part is being sent. They're good about sending someone out to replace stuff or shipping it to you, but your computer is still down! It was really frustrating in school when you depended on your laptop for everything. Almost everyone I know with a Dell laptop had to have their hard drive replaced (myself included). I also had to get a new graphics card. That being said, if you go with Dell, definitely get the 3 or more year warranty!!!!! I see it as a required part of the laptop purchase with Dell. They do have some pretty sweet screens on their laptops these days though.

My experience with Toshibas are absolutely not good, and I wouldn't recommend their laptops. Just bad.

After 4 years with Dell laptops, I decided to go with a IBM (Lenovo). They cost a little more and are more basic looking but I've been very happy with it for the last 2 years. Absolutely nothing has broken or gone wrong. It just does exactly what its supposed to pretty flawlessly. My husband has had his IBM laptop for 6 years (!!) and hasn't had one problem. He only just recently formatted the hard drive because it was getting cluttered. They're a little more expensive, but I would recommend them. Some people say since IBM has gone to Lenovo their quality has gone down some recently, but I haven't looked into that at all.

I've had some friends also have good luck with Sonys. But I don't know much of anything about them. They look pretty! lol

Anyway, this is just my 2 cents from experiences in engineering school. My friends and I were all very demanding laptop users. Lol, surprised I didn't sleep with mine.

[KCboy]

everyone I know swears by mac laptops

[vivo]

since I am buy a new computer. Which OS XP or Vista? If Vista 32 or 64 bit?
a better place to ask this would be hardforum.com.
anyway just to reiterate lenovo is sturdy and reliable. I believe it has a great rep amongst the business community. don't know about the os.
anyway try hardforum. people ask abou t laptops all the time and it's a computer geek forum you could probably do a thread search. lenovo's aren't much for looks but they came out with a consumer line as opposed to the business line which is ok looks wise.