[tamiloo]

I have a favor...I have the greats pc but I'm looking for a laptop for my daughter. She is 23 and hopefully going back to school this fall. I have never owned a laptop but she will need one for school.

She has been looking at a HP - Pavilion Laptop with Intel® Centrino® Processor Technology. The price is under 700. Give me your opinions...what would any of you suggest?

[Peter B]

My daughter has had a good run with Sony laptops, but these may be above your price point.
I heard a comment last night from a consumer item test group, who said that laptops have a better reliability record than desktop PCs, but only for brand names.
The cheapies had a bad rep.
Once again, the more you pay the better, providing it is a well known name.
Extended warranty is worth looking into.
My newish desktop came with 2Y warranty, and both hard drives failed with 2 months to go. The DVD burner then failed too. Just in time.
You might get some info off the web, but that will be mainly whingers. ask as many retailers what they suggest, and why.
Ask why they don't recommend the others they sell.
With a bit of cunning, you may glean something.
But then in my experience the sales people know less than I do about what I'm looking at buying.
I research a lot.

[Koala77]

I recently bought a Dell laptop with the advice of one of our NT members and I love it.

My daughter however, loves Macs. She's only ever had Macs, but then she has more money than I do.

I'll not advise you Tamiloo, because I'm just a novice, but I am happy with the Dell I recently bought. When you order a Dell, you can just go through a check list and tick off what you want in a laptop/desktop, and they build it to what you want.

I'm sure other brands would do the same, but I don't have any experience with other companies.

[tamiloo]

She bought the laptop today...thanks for you suggestions...she was glad to have the input!

[Grizabella]

I haven't read all the posts yet but I have an IBM Thinkpad and it's just a little workhorse. One of the problems people have with laptops is over-heating but this one never does. It does tend to get warmer if I watch movies or something like that, but just for normal use, it can be on and in use for most of a 24 hour period and never get more than warm. I really am impressed. My son told me it's because these are designed for business use so they need to stand up to lots of use. I think this would be excellent for a college student.

Ooops, I see she got one already. Oh well, maybe this information will be helpful for her for a future laptop.

[ConsiderThis]

Hi, I bought the Toshiba laptop I have now from dbuys online, and it's been great and they were great. I had to have the first one that arrived replaced because there was a large area of bad pixels.

I'm going to have to get a new computer soon due to having made a bad mistake with this one, and I'm looking at them online at Wal*Mart. They have Toshibas, which are really good, and the prices seem to be very good.

I have to compare them to the ones at dbuy and get used to what I need again... but you might want to look at Wal*Mart.

[Dejibo]

its rare that i reccomend buying the extended warranty, but with laptops its ALWAYS a good thing. They get carted around, and exposed to heat/cold, bumps and so on. I hope you got the warranty.

The HP does a pretty good job, and is a pretty good price. I dont think she will be disappointed.

[tamiloo]

I do appreciate all the input...she did get the HP and I think it has two years on the warranty. We just have to put in a router on my internet connection so she can use it here in the house.

I'm sure when her boyfriend gets home in a few weeks he will get her a dish...he is coming home from active duty after two years in Iraq and he is done with his five years as a Staff Sargent...just a little Mom bragging...thanks again.

[sjp_fanatic]

Originally Posted by tamiloo

I do appreciate all the input...she did get the HP and I think it has two years on the warranty. We just have to put in a router on my internet connection so she can use it here in the house.

I'm sure when her boyfriend gets home in a few weeks he will get her a dish...he is coming home from active duty after two years in Iraq and he is done with his five years as a Staff Sargent...just a little Mom bragging...thanks again.

It wasn't the HP pavillion DV6000 series, was it, if it is, RETURN IT. It has a run of bad luck. I might be going on motherboard number three. I lost my wireless the wireless switch altogether. You might be headed for trouble.

Just a fair warning.