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-   -   Suggest good 'cheap' laptop please... (https://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=674479)

mofugly13 01-09-2013 5:45 AM

Suggest good 'cheap' laptop please...
 
My lady's laptop, Sony Vaio, will not boot up anymore. It's time to get her a new one. She will need it for school. Can I get suggestions on a good, cheap laptop? It will be used, like I said, for school and internet browsing. It doesn't need any bells and whistles for gaming or watching movies. A CD drive and SD card port and USB socket would suffice. What brands should I be looking at for quality/reliability? I am really broke right now, but she's going to need a laptop ASAP for the coming semester. Thanks guys.

p7m8jg 01-09-2013 5:56 AM

Craigslist has a few.

Staples and Amazon also. If its just word processing and web/internet, just about any model will do.

sandman21 01-09-2013 6:17 AM

Slickdeals net

They have list many deals on laptops.

I like Asus and Toshiba, they have been good brands to me

wicked liquid 01-09-2013 6:25 AM

Not to disagree with anyone on the luck that they have had with the lower end laptops, but from my experience the less you pay, the shorter it lives. I am a big Dell fan. About 5years ago my mom, my now wife, and I all went out and bought new laptops on the same day. I bought my first Dell(about $450), my mom wanted to save money so she bought a Toshiba(about $350), and my wife, who wasnt concerned with the cost because I was paying for it, went with the HP(about $650). My mom had a good 18 months with hers before replacement, my wife made it to about 2 years before needing replacement, and my Dell, well 5 years later and here I am still pounding away on the keys. Hope this helps.

paul0660 01-09-2013 8:14 AM

Toshiba, Acer, and HP (Compaq) are the ones I have, 10, 2, and 5 years old respectively. I don't think the guts differ much. There is one out there for $300 otd, you have to look around.

Oh yeah, remanufactured is ok.

knerona 01-09-2013 8:16 AM

Why not figure out what's wrong with the Sony?

Lenovo is a very reputable brand, they have some decent lower end laptops for under $300 if you look around.

+1 on Slickdeals.

Isn't this the 2nd laptop thread in a few weeks, all dying Sonys?

*edit*

Here it is.. some cgn'ers posted some links to some deals as well
http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/s...ghlight=laptop

NikePenguin 01-13-2013 4:00 PM

Costco usually has good deals on Dell laptops especially when MS Office is included (which is usually a must for school).

db42 01-13-2013 4:23 PM

Check blinq.com
That's where I buy most of my electronics.

naskdn 01-13-2013 4:38 PM

You can try Chromebook, very portable, inexpensive
Samsung Chromebook, Acer Chromebook all have great deals

naskdn 01-13-2013 4:41 PM

Like Samsung Chromebook, it features below:
11.6’’ (1366x768) display
0.7 inches thin – 2.42 lbs / 1.1 kg
Over 6.5 hours of battery 1
Samsung Exynos 5 Dual Processor
100 GB Google Drive Cloud Storage2 with 16GB Solid State Drive
Built-in dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n
VGA Camera
1x USB 3.0, 1x USB 2.0
HDMI Port
Bluetooth 3.0™ Compatible
More check here

naskdn 01-13-2013 4:50 PM

Get the newest price in your local shop, i think the price is ok for your requirement

paul0660 01-13-2013 4:54 PM

I actually like the fact that spammers are taking the time use four keystrokes:


Quote:

Originally Posted by naskdn (Post 10201070)
Like Samsung Chromebook, it features below:
11.6’’ (1366x768) display
0.7 inches thin – 2.42 lbs / 1.1 kg
Over 6.5 hours of battery 1
Samsung Exynos 5 Dual Processor
100 GB Google Drive Cloud Storage2 with 16GB Solid State Drive
Built-in dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n
VGA Camera
1x USB 3.0, 1x USB 2.0
HDMI Port
Bluetooth 3.0™ Compatible
More check here


Petra 01-13-2013 6:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by knerona (Post 10156048)
Why not figure out what's wrong with the Sony?

Lenovo is a very reputable brand, they have some decent lower end laptops for under $300 if you look around.

I'll second this--if short on cash but up on laptop repair, then just fix the Sony (unless parts cost would exceed that of a new laptop). Otherwise, Lenovo generally makes solid products and even makes service information available for them.

darkking45 01-13-2013 6:48 PM

Try Asus, they have several sizes, economical and very reliable, I purchased my Asus 4 years ago for school, plus web browsing like now. It doesn’t come with MS, but your girlfriend should be able to get a great students deal, usually 50 -60% off.

SDPatriot 01-13-2013 6:50 PM

Acer and Toshiba, I've dropped these laptops HARD multiple times and they're still going strong.

orchard 01-16-2013 8:24 AM

Buy a used laptop from a shop. Lots of people have to have the fastest/latest/etc.
Backup the drive to a network device on a regular basis.

My three laptops are all over 5 years old, and for web browsing and office type software, they all are much faster than my ability to type.

Typical failures are hard drive, screen, and power connector. I'd skip buying one from a student...

StupidMoFo 01-17-2013 2:51 PM

asus k55n is really nice and under $400 dollars from best buy. I bought my girlfriend one and she loves it! Able to play hd 1080, good battery life, nice screen, and hdmi out. She uses it for school when she wants more power than her little eee pc netbook

yellowsulphur 01-17-2013 6:56 PM

Microsoft offers 60 day trials for Office 2013 and 90 day trials for office 2010.

hermosabeach 01-17-2013 8:00 PM

Costco has some decent deals

This site
http://www.gotapex.com/
Posts coupon codes for different manufacturers.

So you get the code, go to HP or Dells site to place the order

ZombieZoo 01-17-2013 8:28 PM

be wary of legal store sold "reconditioned".

I got one and it turned out to have some legal but 'unregistered' Windows on it.

Scratch that, it was "unregistared" box as far as H-P was concerned. Like it was leased from H-P at some point or some weirdness.

Long story short, I couldn't hook up with H-P for updates and drivers, etc, so when I wanted to wipe it clean and start fresh I was SOL.

If I had found a junker in a dumpster, it would be able to link up with H-P no prob, etc.


I've had OK luck with lower end H-P/Compaq, but I don't like the mess of ads.

Best thing would be a semi "bootleg" from some shady guy on CL with a "fresh clean install" of windows and office(no extra charge and no extra junk).


If your GF is a chick(lol), consider a "notebook", since they are much lighter and have great batt life and are cheaper and no one uses CD drive anymore anyways. Only down side for me is they can't out put to big monitor and my eyes at super duper anymore.

Most chicks I know really like the "notebooks", due to small size and weight.


I will end up going to BestBuy because when she blows, she blows and I can't wait for custom mail order, BUT:

all my nerd friends say BB is the WORST place to buy and you can order a 'custom' for much cheaper with better stuff and no extra garbage...just takes 10 days.

68Drop 01-17-2013 8:33 PM

I just went to best buy and bought a 15.6 inch asus laptop. I am not completely sure of all the specifics. Its got 500gb hard drive. AMD processor. I just get on the net, do banking, and powerpoints, word documents, etc. Works great.

socalres 01-19-2013 11:54 AM

the dell outlet store has some surprisingly good deals I've found

http://www.dell.com/us/dfh/p/laptops...n&s=dfh&~ck=mn

wpage 01-20-2013 10:28 AM

Acer...

clsA 01-20-2013 11:31 AM

ZombieZoo the small laptops with no optical drives are called Netbooks not notebooks
The Acer one is a good example of a netbook. To me a netbook is a waste of time with the current Tablet market. An Asus transformer pad and keyboard are around the same price and much better.
To the original poster, Have you considered a Refurbished Lenovo? Newegg has some great deals under $350 -->> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...me=Refurbished

And here's a couple from Tigerdirect (tax Free ? ) --> http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...Price%3BPrice5
Good luck !!

walterwhite 01-26-2013 2:26 AM

I agree somewhat with the post regarding low end price and how long it may or may not last. Not from personal experience but mainly from reading different forums. Cheaper means cheaper components.

Personally we have had

2 - IBM Thinkpads, T61 6+yrs $1700, T60 5+yrs $1000, old one moved out with my son, the other I have and just upgraded the HD & put in new battery.

1 - Toshiba Satellite $800 4+yrs
1 - HP Pavillion $860 3+yrs
1 - HP Envy $699 I just bought in Nov 12 for my wife.

These brands / models have all worked great for our family. I would recommend going to Fry's, Best Buy, Costco, checkout all the models. One of things I look for is how sturdy is the chassis? Our latest purchase, most make/models the keyboard was so flexible and with little pressure would flex a lot, the HP envy model we chose didn't flex. Same applies to around the screen and the outside case. So far all the models we have chose use Intel cpus.

All the above labtops are running strong. My thinkpad son just retired his for a newer gamer laptop. I use the other thinkpad for browsing the internet/email/some video and minor work. The Toshiba is my daughter's she used in college and now as a full time teacher. The HP Pavillion is my other son's he uses it for school, video, and browsing/email.

The most recent HP Envy we bought from Costco, this is the first laptop we have had any issues with, the mouse pad drops out occasionally, so she uses a wireless mouse.

The prices listed are the normal retail price, we purchased all of the laptops at either sale pricing or deep discounts. Point is SHOP! I bought my T60 Thinkpad on ebay / grey market NIB with full warranty and saved about $300. Finding that much savings today is hard.

One thing I have insisted on with our family, is don't move the laptop while it is starting up or shutting down. Yeah laptop HDrives are suppose to have movement sensors, but during power-up & shut-down is the most dangerous time for a hard drive, so far we haven't had a drive failure.

omnitravis 01-26-2013 7:14 AM

Ill vouch for Toshiba, and I have a lenovo/IBM that has lasted through 2 years or less than optimal care, with very dusty, smoke filled conditions. It is still running strong.

When you do some research, customer care/service might be one of your points. Forget it. They all have terrible customer service, mostly based out of the US. Last one I personally had to deal with was Acer, and they were surprisingly not that bad. But I shouldn't have had to call them in the first place, so they stay where they are in my book.

Look on newegg.com
I would never buy a computer from a shop such as best buy. They dont know anything about computers, you would get very lucky to find one of their employees that can even turn on a computer. Lots of good websites though. Newegg, Tigerdirect, buy.com, gets some really good prices too.

ejhc11 01-26-2013 10:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darkking45 (Post 10202269)
Try Asus, they have several sizes, economical and very reliable, I purchased my Asus 4 years ago for school, plus web browsing like now. It doesn’t come with MS, but your girlfriend should be able to get a great students deal, usually 50 -60% off.

+1

Most of my 800 posts Calgun have been done on my 2nd gen cheapy Asus eeePC laptop. Just got my 80 year dad this at BestBuy, I think its small, decent in power and has a touchscreen which I think is a requirement for Win8.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+1...&skuId=6835267

high_revs 01-26-2013 10:15 AM

i'd say asus also.

mofu,
the thing to keep in mind is that your vaio probably has an older OS. usually, newer OS benefits from more RAM. i'd buy more ram if you can afterward. i bought a cheapie laptop too (like $350, AMD processor) and only had like 3GB ram i think. a little too slow for my taste but works well enough for the inlaws. that's one thing to think about - how the old vaio would've performed vs. a new one.

i'd probably avoid the windows8 unless you're lady can learn new OS'es easily or you'll have to teach her (and maybe teach yourself).

how do you mean the old one is not booting up. not even to the bios? or it just won't go to windows. if the latter, i'd just reformat and put a fresh copy. vaio should've given you either a disk for the original setup, or put it in a partition in your original hard drive (unless you replaced it and didn't put back the partition).


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