Laptop Recommendations?

[Ashley]

I am looking at a new laptop. I need one that will work for school. I wont go with Toshiba, so any other brand I am open to. I am not buying it but rather its a graduation gift so must be $500 or under.

 

[Mona]

I have had cheap "Acers" andf have not had any problems with them at all. They are a GREAT buy...or at least they have been money well spent for me! I have owned 3 Acer laptops in the past, and now have a desktop model. Have liked all of them!

 

[Boss Mare]

My HP lasted 7 yrs and would still be working if I didn't get angry and slam it / breaking the wires. My vote is HP..... Then Dell they have financing options.

 

[Ashley]

Im not buying it but I do have a limit.

 

[ohmt]

Well, my Acer drives crazy because it is SO slow. It's like dealing with dial up for me, but I think that's because I use Macs at school all the time. Hard to go back to the Acer after a mac. But, it was only $300 and it has lasted me almost 5 years now. Longer than my boyfriend's HP lasted him (2 years)

 

[Ashley]

I was looking at the acers. My toshiba is bearly making it two years. the batter crapped out about 6 months ago and freezes constantly

 

[SampleMM]

Go with a Mac.........They last forever and ever. I have been using my Macbook Pro for years as well as my two kids and husband and it's still going strong.

 

[Sterling]

I agree I'm all for the Macs....but I don't think you can get one for under $500.00.

 

[Jill]

I'm sorry you are not having good luck with Toshiba. That's what I always buy for myself and staff and have had great luck over many years. A couple of duds, but over all, I will not complain and will buy more.

 

[Ashley]

My toshiba started to go to pot with in a year. Not a fan at all.

 

[kristen_tg]

Cheapest Mac is about $1,000, so not even close to within budget.

I have 2 of these:

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834215057

You can't get that EXACT one anymore, but you can get the current model. Mine travels around the country with me on business. Doesn't weight anything, fits nicely on a seatback tray, doesn't get hot, sips battery juice and has tolerated being dropped.

You don't say exactly what you need it to do at school- at the < $500 pricepoint you're not going to get really good graphics or a powerful CPU, but unless you're doing graphics design/art/compiling/video encoding you won't really notice except when it's installing or updating. $500 just doesn't go too far in the world of laptops.

You can improve performance on these low-end laptops by investing $20-$30 into buying more memory. On those Acers it takes about 2 minutes to install RAM and is less complicated then changing some AA batteries (YouTube it. I swear.) Most of them ship with 2GB, but will support 8GB, and you can buy the 8GB module for $30. It WILL improve things.

You can also get more out of them by replacing the HDD with an SSD or by removing the Windows operating system and replacing it with a streamlined, light-weight Linux distribution. David's Acer is still running W7 and while the memory upgrade helped, it still huffs and puffs. Mine got a custom, ultra-lightweight Sabayon (Linux) spin and if you didn't look at the model #s you'd swear we had two different laptops. Also remember that the less burden on the system the less battery power it needs to sip. Most people run screaming in terror at the proposition of Linux but I figured I'd mention it since it can radically change your entire experience with cheap hardware.

 

[Ashley]

Its a budget that I was given by the one buying it. My Toshiba I paid around 1200 for it, and let me tell you its worth less then what comes out of a horse. I mainly need it for research and papers. NOthing fancy.

 

[Boss Mare]

I have known many that own and even in the computer profession that own/recommend Toshiba.. However I know a couple that don't like the brand at all.

 

[Field-of-Dreams]

I have an older (2008?) HP and other than the fact Vista and AOL do NOT get along well, it's a pretty nice computer. It does tick me off- a lot - because sometimes when I try and sign on AOL it brain-farts and shuts down. Actually, many times. Drives me CRAZY! And Facebook and eBay freeze up pretty frequently. I think that's the dial-up, though. Or AOL.

For pictures and gaming it's pretty sweet.

 

[Davie]

I love my ASUS, had a problem with a battery early on, but that was the only problem. Changed it and no other problems. Just under $500

 

[Ashley]

Ended up getting a Dell Inspiron