I am shopping for a new laptop and I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for a good one. Thanks!!

Many types and many good ones out here, if I was you I would stay away from Note pads....I have one and its ok,,,but lacks that whole big complete size, you just are use to using...

Acer is good and their prices are decent. You can get a nice laptop for around $600.

A lot is going to depend on what you are wanting to do with it.

If you are going to be doing anything processor intensive, then you'll be looking at a good chunk of money.

Brands really don't make a whole lot of difference except for price. As long as you can get the processor power and RAM that you are going to need for what you are doing.

Don't even think of getting a Toshiba satellite with Windows 7 !! To date there isn't much in the way of updates and support for Windows 7. Every now and again you lose the built-in camera and config free utillities.

I have an Asus that I got at Newegg.com about 2 years ago. It's been great. It was really easy to throw in extra RAM and put in a faster, larger capacity HD. It wasn't preloaded with a bunch of crap that I didn't need and had backup disks as well as a back-up partition.

The problem that I have with HP, Gateway and such is that they usually want you to be dependent on them for support. My sister had a Gateway, got into a pickle, was not given backup disks with the laptop and had to spend $150 to get the laptop back to its state when it came from the factory. If you want to pop the hood on the sucker yourself you are breaking warranty and most of their components are proprietary.

don't get an acer look up acer complaints i have one less than one year old

I have an Aspire 6930, best computer I ever had.

Depends what you are going to use it for?
Do you want something small?, Medium, or large screen mobile desktop?
I am Microsoft certified, A+ Certified... That said..

You will get exactly the same thing from Compaq, HP, Dell, Acer, Gateway, Emachine, Apple, Toshiba, Sony, IBM, and Fuji.

They all use the same intel processor, or the same AMD processor. Dell has better support, as i have worked with them all.. IBM might be the worst.. Apple has the best support overall but they are really expensive and all you are getting is the same machine as the rest with white plastic.. "does white plastic cost that much to make?"

I own a 12 year old Dell laptop, which still works, has never been fixed, and yes the battery still works..
I also have an HP laptop 5 years old, the LCD is dead, the expansion port sucks, it causes the machine to die randomly due to a grounding issue, and the battery is shot.. HP to me is crap, but then i wont buy anything from a company who fired all of their US based employee's before Xmas to save on build costs this year..
I also have toshiba, which was the cheapest new machine i ever bought, at 650 bucks.. Its fast quiet and small...
Ultimately i would try to get anything you can with windows XP on it.. windows 7 sucks.. Windows vista is horrible.. If you can get XP you can save alot of money, since you wont need more then 2gb of ram or anything screeming fast for a video card..

If you get 7 or Vista be prepared to shell out over a grand for anything that will boot a year from now.. without having to do 6 month rebuilds..

Windows 7 sucks..
All windows 7 is, is windows server 2k8 without the server part added on to it, which fyi you can take your windows vista machine and make it windows 7 as they are identical as for your core OS.. Its a scam as Microsoft rushed it out, and they didn't wait for hardware costs to come down.. I run a Toshiba, and have had vista, 7, xp, 2k, 98se, and Linux on it, hell it runs Apple OSX if you want it too. The issue is that the satellite did not come with the X1270 ATI card, until late last year, which will not support DirectX11 drivers correctly, which Guess what, neither will the HP, Dell, or Gateways of the same age.. They make Cracked software from the vendors to allow you to run 7 without the visuals, which you can run on your toshiba too.. You can get the drivers on HP, Dell, or compaq's website.. As for the camera not working every now and then, well thats another issue, Nothing to do with Toshiba, it is actually an issue with windows 7. Windows 7 firewall will block the unsigned drivers from any provider....
Go to your security settings in the firewall and allow the camera to work..

Im a Microsoft Certified Engineer
And i HATE windows 7

LOL ReadyF0rM0re,

2 Hilarious - I have it on good authority (very good), that even the reason 2000 (recall 2k was a "new" OS, lol) and xp is closed source, is because it is simply Linux without the cool kernel algorithms (that's why it frags out), and if they let the code out, then their patents are waste...of course they are going to have problems with 7 and such...

And if anyone is concerned with security, just look who windows hired to help them secure their OS - Type into Google: NSA and Windows 7 security, LOL.

Of course Vista (recall Vista was a "new" OS) is not good, and 7 (recall 7 was a "new" OS)is even more not good. If anyone wants it to look pretty and function, then Linux has some decent options, even now though, the gov. is deep into the Linux distros - it's sad you know.


Here is a pretty good one, but no escaping the big brother factor (haaa hmmm, I mean, not being able to be the only one using your pc factor), unless your way Wiley Deep Anti-Hacker...

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=11007940 (comparable with others costing twice the price)

sony alltheway!

last I knew there were still problems with mac based and linux/unix based support for hardware and software. Has it got better? I would not recommend telling her to get a mac if she has pc, can a mac work with her current setup and file system and the vice. Macs are pricey as the guy above said and that is one reason I rear away from macintosh.

I have a Toshiba, and it's a little over a year old and I haven't had any problems with it. (:

I have a Toshiba too with Windows 7 installed on it and it's been working fine for me. The trick is not to download those updates for it since one of them has the black screen of death.