Help me buying a Laptop?

Question

I know nothing about computers aside from using them to do stuff like this. I'm thinking of getting a laptop for my son for christmas. What should I be looking for? Not too pricey, mainly to be used for word processing for homework and accessing the internet. Probably will be used for music and picture storage too. Can anyone give me any practical advice of memory size needed along with brand reccomendations? Like I say I'm a complete novice when it comes to knowing anything about appropriate specifications.

Answer 1

EVEREX XT5000T AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-50(1.60GHz) 17.0" Wide XGA+ 1GB 100GB Dual layer DVD Burner NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 NoteBook $699

Very vibrant 17" display. Dedicated Video Card. Dual HDD capable. Upgradeable CPU. Vista Home PREMIUM. Relative Clean Install. CHEAP.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=XT5000T&x=20&y=35

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16834280004

http://www.everex.com/products/xt5000t/xt5000t.htm

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1174232

Answer 2

a hp or gateway or dell would be fine, if its something for inter music storage etc i would recomend a laptop from those 3 brands with these recomendations

RAM - 512mb or 1gb

Processor - Intel Dual Core 1.6ghz

Wifi Compatability

80gb hard drive or higher

windows xp or vista

DVD±RW drive

15 inch screen laptop moniter

go to best buy look at the laptops and look for the ones on clearance with these recomendations anything below these recomendations is gonna be slow and gonna get older and hard to fix and sell later on i have gottan a laptop that cost 1,000 dollars on bestbuy for 400 on clearance so be on lookout, and any other site like circuit city and office depot is a ripoff and cost too much for there pc over there, just keep looking and youll find it theres clearance at best buy almost every 1 to 2 weeks with crazy clearances

Answer 3

2 GB RAM

160 GB harddisk

Those 2 are the important ones.

Also if u get Windows Vista. DO NOT get BASIC. Premium and upwards are better.

Try and check out the Dell Insipron range

Or the HP pavilion.

Answer 4

All I know is make sure they're either Dell, Toshiba, or Gateway, because Expra is too slow (not heard of) and has many glitches (so I've heard... Seen ratings like 1 and below) and Acer... well I've never really heard of Acer much, but the reviews aren't too great neither...



Read the reviews too... That's a to-do! Wal-Mart's aren't too varied... Try Best Buy or Dell.com... Dell has great ones for like $499 - $549...



And make sure they give the ability to burn CDs AND DVDs and check out the RAM and stuff like that... I guess 120 is good for one of the gigabyte things... Lol. 512 for the RAM or something with 'byte' at the end of it...



I'm 13 and my mom's buying me one around Christmas for word processing, burning, games, and the Internet of course... I'm the one who has to stay up until 12 in the morning to buy one online w/ her information written down from earlier in the day... Lol.



Otherwise, listen to them above... Lol.



~ khamani jonas (nick) ♥

Answer 5

Well if you want a new one, i would suggest, one that has at least 1gb ram and You can't go wrong with that spec, however prices will vary. Go for a good brand, ebay is a good place to look however if you do not want to use ebay then try www.ebuyer.co.uk great website for pc bits, if you want something rock soild and future proof then:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/126336

that is really good, however ebay has the same laptop at £100 less:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Acer-AS5633WLMi-C2DT5500-2-1024MB-RAM-160GB-15-4-WiFi_W0QQitemZ300163151707QQihZ020QQcategoryZ177QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Email me if you want some more help

Answer 6

To add to the last posting,I'd advise against Fujitsu Siemens as their after sales help is terrible and the laptops aren't much better. The power socket failed on mine at 10 months old and they refused to repair it under warranty. I learned from the repair guy this is a common problem on many laptops, particularly FS and is a design fault to save pennies on production.

Answer 7

well my parents recently bought me a laptop for my 18th but i got to pick it as i am studyin computing at college, you want a good graphics card if he plays a lot of games and a big hardrive bout 120g or bigger, try for 2g ram aswell mines is a fugitsu seimans amilo laptop but compaq or hp are doing good ones for low rices at the moment

Answer 8

well, this would all depend on how much you actually want to spend on a laptop and what sort of age your son is.



cant believe no one else has asked this yet and instead they write essays about laptop components!



feel free to email me for advice.

Answer 9

hi eka

when buying a laptop you need to look for certain specifications

1.processor....most processors are dual or quad core now and even the dual core laptops can be found for less than £500,go for the intel core 2 duo,s or the amd turion x 2 processors

2.memory(ram) never settle for less than 1gb ddr2 ram,however most laptops come with 1 to 2gb of ram and this is more than enough for most users,however if they come with just 512mb dont worry,laptop memory is very cheap at the moment(£15 for another so-dimm memory module)and its easy to upgrade

3.hard drive..look for at least 100gb hard drive,this is the most common amount of capacity in hard drives in laptops

4.graphics..important>allways make sure you get a laptop with the graphics that you need,as you cannot upgrade the graphics in a laptop like you can in a normal desktop p.c,for a good gaming graphics adapter the radeon x1300 or radeon x1600 are good and the geforce go 7300 are good for gaming and other tasks

5.operating system....windows vista is the latest os,and go for vista premium as this is the best of all vista versions,try to avoid vista basic as it lacks the 3d aero interface and the clean looks of the premium version,or if you wish,demand a copy of windows xp on the laptop,manufacturers will still put windows xp on your laptop if you ask them



this is a rough guide of what to look for in a laptop,and here is two recommended laptops,both with good specs and good value

1Acer Extensa 5513WLMI 15.4" 1.66GHz Core 2 Duo T5500 1.6 Laptop from http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Laptops/Acer+Extensa+5513WLMI+15.4%22+1.66GHz+Core+2+Duo+T5500+1.6+Laptop+?productId=28934

specifications....................................

56k fax modem ...Yes

Bluetooth ....No

Colour ....Silver/Black

Cpu type.... Intel Core 2 Duo T5500

Dimension..... (mm) 358 x 29.33 ~ 36 x 269 mm (WxHxD)

Graphics Intel ....GMA 950

Hard disk... 120 GB

Memory ...1GB (2x512MB)

Operating system ...MS Windows Vista Home Premium

Optical drive ...DVD Super Multi

Speakers... Yes

Weight... 2.77 kg

Wireless ...lan Yes

I/o 1 x 10/100 (LAN) / 1 x DC-In Jack / 1 x D-Sub / 1 x Line In / 1 x Line Out / 1 x Mic In / 1 x RJ11 / 1 x S-Video Out / 4 x USB 2.0/1.1

Cpu speed ...1.66 GHz

Screen size ...15.4" Wide

Resolution... 1280x800

Memory type... DDR2 533 / 667

Maximum memory capacity.. 4GB

2.ASUS X51R-AP076C Intel Celeron M-520 1.86GHz from http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Laptops/ASUS+X51R-AP076C+Intel+Celeron+M-520+1.86GHz+?productId=27804

specifications.......................................

Card reader 4 in 1 memory card slot (SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro)

Dimensions 36.5 x 26.4 x 3.55 cm (W x D x Hl)

Display 15.4” WXGA (1280*800) active matrix

Hard drive 80GB

Main memory 1GB DDR2 667 DRAM; support for 2 x SODIMM socket for expansion up to 2GB

Operating system Windows® Vista™ Home Basic

Optical drive DVD & CD ReWriter

Software Symantec Norton™ Internet Security 2006 ; Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0 ; NERO Express V6.0

Warranty 2-year limited global hardware warranty

Weight 2.8Kg

Processor & cache memory Intel® Celeron® M processor 520 1.86GHZ

Fax/modem/lan/wlan Intel® High Definition audio modem and 10/100 Base T PCI LAN on board Pass and support worldwide regulation IEEE 802.11b/g

Led status indicator Power / Suspend ; Battery Full / Charging / Low ; Storage access (ODD/HDD) ; WLAN enabling ;

Interface 1x VGA port (D sub 15pin) ; 4x USB 2.0 ports ; 2x Audio jack: Ear phone, Mic-in ; 1x RJ45 ; 1x RJ11 ; 1 x PCMCIA

Keyboard 19 mm full size 88key with MS-Windows function keys 2.5mm travel

hope this helps

good luck eka !