Laptop??

[Dick n Marie]

I,ll be hitting the road soon and am going to purchase a new laptop. I,m looking at the Dell 6000 but would like to get some feedback on other P.C's to.Technical support also.

[Glenn and Lorraine]

Like so many things in life laptops come down to personal preference. Our fist lap top was an HP. This is now Lorraine's. My new one is a Toshiba Satellite M35X-S309. It does everything the HP did and a bit lot more. Would I recommend it over a Dell 6000. Not sure as I know nothing about Dell except for what I have heard and even that is a mixed bag. But than again I get the same mixed bag about the Toshiba or any other brand.

If I have learned one thing from the Internet it is that whatever product an individual is using at the particular time the question is asked that product by default becomes the best. Rarely will you find a Dodge owner tell you a Chevy or Ford is the better and it's no different when it comes to 'puters.

Take everything that you are about to read about Laptops with a grain of salt and in the end I would suggest you go with your first train of thought and buy the Dell 6000.

[Parrothead]

I totally agree with Glenn. If you stay with the major brands and do some comparisons, you won't go wrong. Technology changes constantly and what was good or bad a few years ago is not the case today. I buy Dell's for my school district because we get good pricing (but it is the educational price) and great delivery time. They have been very reliable. My first laptop (10+ years ago) was a Tosiba and in those days they had a power problem. I'm sure they have improved greatly but it soured me on that brand. I have had several Compaqs (desk and lap) and they also have been very good. I have a Sony desktop and absolutely love it. It is the multi media version because I want to put home movies on DVD. I have several friends who have Sony laptops that rave about them. But then 2 of my daughters have gone to Macs and love them. Shows you how little influence parents have sometimes.

[CountryGuy]

Dick n Marie,

You have the greatest resource at your fingertips, your current computer and search engines on the internet. When Al was shopping for my latest laptop he did ALL his research on the internet, he searched notebook user groups, store sites for pricing. There are also "reviews" on line. Al studied the notebook user groups the most, and felt that just like here (MOC) that reading what people who really were using the computers were the best indication of what to expect, good and bad.

http://www.notebookreview.com/forums/default.asp

Try that, He says they talk about Dell there, as well as a BUNCH of other kinds.

Good luck in your shopping and future RVING

Carol

[sreigle]

I agree pretty much with all of the above. My career was in computers and I did a lot of application development time on pc's, both professionally (some) and personally (a lot since 1980 plus prior to that in a Navy experiment). We happen to right now have four laptops in this Montana. Vicki's is a Toshiba. It is two years old and has had no problems. I don't personally like the feel of the Toshiba keyboard but Vicki likes it. There's that personal preference thing again. I had a Sony that is almost three years old but the monitor is dying so it has become the occasional game machine until it finally dies for good. The truck has an HP that has been used almost exclusively with the GPS and as a backup machine in case our primary machine dies. That one is 2 1/2 years old. I like it a lot. I'm currently using an HP that I really really like a lot. I like the keyboard on the Sony and on the HP's, too.

All that said, in my opinion the Dell is probably the best quality machine on the mass market right now. But that's purely my opinion. But the HP and Toshiba are up there close enough that, with all else equal, price became the final factor when I was buying this one.

After all that, all I've said is the name brands are all pretty darn good so find the one that meets all your criteria and it ought to do you just fine. Again, just my opinion. If you're going to be using the laptop in rv parks I'd make sure it has builtin wi-fi and it meets the 802.11g (as opposed to the 802.11b) standard. We have machines with each and each does a fine job but the 'g' standard connects at a higher speed in most situations.

[ronstan]

I don't know anything about other computers. I have three Dells One desktop and two laptops. One Laptop is and older one and the other is only a little over a year old. It is and inspiron 5100. A lot depends on what you are going to do with it. Burn c/ds Digital Pictures or just surf the INTERNET. Make sure you get enough hard drive. You will get a lot of advice here.

[FredG]

The last couple of laptops that we've owned are Sagers. We've been really happy with the current one, which has a 17 inch screen, 3 GHz P4 (desktop chip) and a full size keyboard with numeric keypad (it's the one we used at the rally to display pictures). Sager markets more to the enthusiast crowd and use the same manufacturing plant as Alienware and VooDoo (but are a lot cheaper). Sager's website is http://sagernotebooks.com

One thing to look at is how much battery life do you need. If you are almost always plugged in, then I would not be concerned with battery life or finding a laptop with a small size. Both of these increase the cost of a laptop.

Just as an FYI, there are only a handful of laptop manufacturing plants...I believe the last count was 6 big OEM manufacturers with only the high end IBM, Apple, and Sony laptops made on their own. Every other brand is using one of the OEM laptop manufacturers to build the laptop. So, if you see 2 laptops that look very similar but have a different brand name on them, chances are they were built in the same plant.

So, I would recommend basing your brand decision on the quality of support. Then look at the feature set. You can also check out online reviews at Amazon, epinions.com, etc.

Hope this helps,
Fred

[snowbunny]

If you are set on a Windows based laptop I would recommend Dell. We have Dells, Compaqs, IBMs and a few Toshibas at the school where I am in charge of hardware support. Over a few years we have had the best luck with Dells. However, if you are open to the suggestion, Apple iBooks and Powerbooks have by far the best track record in terms of reliability, customer support and user satisfaction according to Consumers Reports. I'm like a kid in a candy store at work and can use whatever I want and I use an iBook most of the time although I have a Dell that I use for GPS in our truck.

[315RLS]

quote:Originally posted by Dick n Marie

I,ll be hitting the road soon and am going to purchase a new laptop. I,m looking at the Dell 6000 but would like to get some feedback on other P.C's to.Technical support also.

For quality and durability I'd go for an IBM over all the others. You may pay a few dollars more but you get what you pay for.

[FredG]

quote:Originally posted by 315RLS

For quality and durability I'd go for an IBM over all the others. You may pay a few dollars more but you get what you pay for.

I do like IBM laptops, they have had great support and because of the size of IBM, they can provide support overseas. The only thing I'm worried about is the fact that IBM just sold their PC division to a Chinese company, about a month ago. They'll be in a handover period for close to a year, but who knows what will happen after that.

Fred

[315RLS]

[quote]quote:Originally posted by FredG

Originally posted by 315RLS

I do like IBM laptops, they have had great support and because of the size of IBM, they can provide support overseas. The only thing I'm worried about is the fact that IBM just sold their PC division to a Chinese company, about a month ago. They'll be in a handover period for close to a year, but who knows what will happen after that.

Fred

Fred, the agreement with Leveno is they will be building these for IBM for the next 5 years, the CEO of Leveno Steve Ward was IBM's head of its PC division, Leveno has moved its headquarters into Armonk, NY with IBM, and IBM had retained its sales force for the sale of PCs. IBM hasn't been building these for years anyway (neither does Dell ot HP), they been outsourced to Sanmina and others, its the design and quality of the machine and service that differentiates it for me. Much of what IBM has done is to take the cost of this marginal margin business off its books.

[Montana_70]

OK! I must put a word in for my little Apple G4 Powerbook with the Panther operating system. Built-in AirPort Extreme, Ethernet, and Bluetooth. One sweet machine.