Laptop recommendations, please.

[Charlie]

The key to buying a dell is to go through their refurb site. I've picked up three of their laptops that way, never had any issues with them, and you can usually snag machines at 60% of their new retail. The only way you can tell these are "refurb" are by the sticker on the bottom.

-Charlie

[rwh11385]

The key to buying a dell is to go through their refurb site. I've picked up three of their laptops that way, never had any issues with them, and you can usually snag machines at 60% of their new retail. The only way you can tell these are "refurb" are by the sticker on the bottom.

-Charlie

:up:

thanks for the help. I'm about to pick up my Dell laptop for next year.

I hate to sound stupid, but what site did you use? I'm coming up with several sites for refurb dells, but don't know what one is trustworthy.

And what about upgrading to more memory, other things. Could you order the parts from them and have a computer pal install them? Because I need to upgrade them for the schools recommended items.

[Rob]

yeah, you can order parts from them, but they'll be way expensive. other places on the net sell memory and stuff for much cheaper, i dont remember any of the sights off hand though

[rwh11385]

yeah, you can order parts from them, but they'll be way expensive. other places on the net sell memory and stuff for much cheaper, i dont remember any of the sights off hand though

Alright, I got plenty of friends who are going up to Purdue with me that have taken apart and build their own computers. They could help find cheap good shit.

edit: Chris, I think I found the offical Dell refurb site. Is it http://www1.us.dell.com/ ?

Damn, no Inspiron 1100 or whatever - the cheap ones. I need $600 or less.

[Brew]

Nice info guys. Thanks.

[bimmerphile]

www.memoryx.com for memory


or www.crucial.com


awesome stuff, cheap prices.

[Tara 318is]

My oppinion:

I just bought a Toshiba Satellite A45-S151. Like it a lot. Decent battery life (2.5 hours I think), bright clear screen with no burnt pixels, and its relatively light. I bought it purely for writing papers and 'net surfing while at school, so I didn't want to blow a whole wad of cash on a powerhouse laptop. In short, it fits my needs and didn't lighten my pocket that much.

Yea, a friend of mine has a Satellite and he loves it. Mine is a few years old and it's not as bad as kris says. I use it for mainly surfing the web and typing up papers....it serves that purpose pretty well.

[jweb]

I just bought my Dell laptop off of the refurb site a few minutes ago. It should be here in 3-5 days. I'll let you know how it turns out.

[MattE30]

Just to bring this thread back up....

I am going to school for engineering this fall and have been looking at laptops. I want something thin and light; no more than 7lbs (in the 5 lb range would be great). I want something that can handle some computer games (the new splinter cell :P ) and I need something that can handle all the CAD programs I will be running. On that note, what type of graphics cartd would be best? 128mb? A G4 iBook would be nice, but I don't want to run virtual pc, and i've heard AutoCAD does not work on macs. Processor wise, I have been looking at Centrinos because of their good battery life and wireless capabilities. Wait there's more! I want something that can handle picture and movie editing as well (what laptops can i get firewire with besides apple?) I have been looking at the Dell 600m, 8900, and the IBM T series. Any other suggestions?

I'm thinking at least 40GB hard drive, 512MB ram, and 1.4Ghz centrino processor

[jweb]

I got my refurbished Dell Inspiron 9100 today and I love it. I got it with
dvd-r/cd -r, 1gb ram, 3.0 ghz HT Pentium 4, UXGA screen 1920 x 1200 resolution, 60 gb hard drive and a wireless card. All for $1700 and like Charlie said, the only way to tell its refurbished is the sticker on the bottom. There is not a scratch or mark anywhere on this thing.

[Brew]

Just ordered a Dell Latitude D600 through the refurbished site.
Specs are as follows:
Dell Latitude D600 Notebook: Pentium® M Processor 1.6GHz with 14.1in SXGA+ Display, Integrated NIC/Modem

Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional

512 MB DDR SDRAM (2 DIMMs)

No Floppy Drive

40 GB EIDE Hard Drive (5400 RPM)

14 inch SXGA+ Notebook Screen

Internal Modem

TRUEMOBILE 1400 802.11A/B/G MPCI

24X CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive



The total with shipping ($55!) came to about $1600, compared to a brand new equivelant at about $2100. Pretty good deal, I think.

[Z3Jonathan]

Just to bring this thread back up....

I am going to school for engineering this fall and have been looking at laptops. I want something thin and light; no more than 7lbs (in the 5 lb range would be great). I want something that can handle some computer games (the new splinter cell :P ) and I need something that can handle all the CAD programs I will be running. On that note, what type of graphics cartd would be best? 128mb? A G4 iBook would be nice, but I don't want to run virtual pc, and i've heard AutoCAD does not work on macs. Processor wise, I have been looking at Centrinos because of their good battery life and wireless capabilities. Wait there's more! I want something that can handle picture and movie editing as well (what laptops can i get firewire with besides apple?) I have been looking at the Dell 600m, 8900, and the IBM T series. Any other suggestions?

I'm thinking at least 40GB hard drive, 512MB ram, and 1.4Ghz centrino processor

Try and find one with an actual video card, and not one that shares with the system RAM. Can be hard to find on most retailer/commercial notebooks, but many of the Dell, some HP, and most Alienware laptops will have standalone video cards. My new Toshiba dedicates 32 MB of system memory to video. It does better than I expected with gaming, but it does start lagging on intense games, or high resolutions.

Also, might as well look for a 60 GB hard drive, and if you can afford it, 1 GB of ram would be nice. My buddy bought an HP laptop with I think a 3.0 GHz P4, 128 MB video card, and 1 GB of RAM. Runs PRO/E like a champ.

Even AutoCAD 2000 will run pretty well on a "slow" computer. My old PIII 450 MHz desktop with 192 MB of RAM and a 32 MB video card will run AutoCAD 2000 with no problem. I haven't tried newer versions of AutoCAD. I suppose with intense 3D solid models, it might bog down, but AutoCAD blows for that kinda stuff anyways...

Jonathan