Me is looking for a decent lap top in the range of 1200-1500USD. I know its kinda low, but you never know. :) I have looked at ebay. Any other ideas or anyone wanting to get rid of theres? ;)

I've got a Compaq 200MHz I'll gladly sell you for 1500USD... lol.

My friend bought one for the similar amount your willing to spend .... It's been back and forth from the repair shop more times than i can remember.

ok.. changed my mind :(

Kunal - That email you sent about programming a picture gallery .... How much would it cost me?. id mail you but for some reason i cant access my mail.

Just don't get a Toshiba..

Sony's are great..HPs are too.

Technics, I would rather discuss it off the board? can you sign for a free email service or something?

mkaufman --> Some one told me toshiba's are very good. Nothing beats Sony though :)

Hmmmmmmm. Where I am (with the dropping value of the Australian peso) you could probably get a relatively decent Celeron 400 with 14" TFT. That said, the freight charges will probably scare you off.........

Gateways are highly recommended - my Dad just got a new Gateway PIII 733 and I am as envious as hell. :(

eddie@oggi-oggi-oggi.co.uk - lol gotta love another.com

Technics --> Email me with details of the program, and ill get back to you abt the cost.

BC --> I dun think we have any support for gateways here in bombay :(

Oggi-oggi-oggi???? :eek:

ROFLMAO X 1000! :D

P.S. Eddie, don't tell me it's run by an Aussie... ROFLMAO

I always thought it was for New Zealand *duh @ Me*

(still ROFLMAO flailing my limbs on the floor from that e-mail of Eddie's - please excuse my weird sense of humor)

Kunal : bad luck... Toshibas are OK, but for some reason my Dad doesn't like them either - something about the screens or the keyboards. Don't know why....

You need to get out more lol :P.

Nah, I need some sleep. It's been a long day working at SitePoint - night.......

*curses the slow Alter.net router as he leaves to grab some shuteye...*

Our sales guys including me all have toshiba and have never had any problems, they seem to be very good.

Anybody got any experience with the Dell Inspiron laptops?

I'm thinking of dropping some serious change on a real fat 15" job...

Personally, my favorite "cheap" laptop is the IBM Thinkpad iSeries. I have an i1410 that I've used pretty much every day for two years, carrying it with me every day between home and the office. The iSeries laptops are much less expensive that the "regular" Thinkpads, but just about as bulletproof.

I also have a Sony Vaio that I take with me when I'm travelling out of town. I prefer it then because it's under four pounds, but of course the tradeoff is that the CD and floppy drive are external -- you have to carry them along if you want them. The Thinkpad has everything onboard. But the Sony looks so cool that it still attracts more attention in airports and on planes, so if that means anything to you...

I have a Thinkpad T20. It's great.

I have owned and recommend Dell, IBM, and Micron.

I owned a NEC and liked it but it was about 10 years ago.

I have owned and do not recommend Comapaq.

The Sonys always look cool to me, and I have talked to several people who like them.

In April, I purchased a refurbished Dell Inspiron 3700 from Dell's Factory Outlet site and got it at a very good price. The laptop is great and has a 14" screen. I'm very happy with it. Just wish it had more than the 64MB RAM and the 6.4GB hard drive, but for my second (and only portable) PC, it's been very good. I highly recommend them.

You can look up the current crop of refurbished Dell laptops at

http://www.dell.com/us/en/dfh/products/series_inspn_notebooks.htm

If you don't see what you want, call the phone number listed and ask. They often have other items in stock that are not listed yet on the webpage.

Sorry, Kunal, I don't see anything in your price range.

One word of warning - as I said, I got a refurbished laptop. When it arrived, it came with a bad Modem Card. When I called tech support, they still had my laptop listed under the previous owner and this led to a slight delay in getting me a new modem card. It all got worked out eventually, but it was annoying.

Regards,

Sean

spcover, sorry to hear that about Dell.

I've always had such great luck with this firm... if they start screwing up things like this, it could disorder the fundamental laws of the cosmos.

I will check Planck's Constant later today, and report back if it has changed.

How does this deal sound?
TOSHIBA SATELLITE CELERON-600 2250CDT 6.0GB/64MB/24X/12.1" TFT/K56/WIN98 $1,326.21

That might be about as good as you can get.........

I have a rather ancient now, Satellite 325CDS (P233) that has been running fine. Two things to note: One, I did NOT buy this because it was a 325CDS (Chicken Death Squad model?), and two, it is a Pentium ONE 233, so it isn't the quickest beast around.

I have a few friends who are using Dell 3700's and like them a lot. My brother has a Dell 7500 from work and it has worked great.

I am in the process of getting a Gateway 9300. Its not in your price range, but both Dell and Gateway have laptops that are. Based on the research that I did for the last few months, those two companies seem to be the best as far as value for the money and you can just call them and they can configure exactly what you need.

The only thing is that on the Dell the CD/Floppy/Zip drive are all modular so you need to shut down your pc to change from floppy to zip, for example. Where on the Gateway...the floppy and CD ROM are all built in. It comes with an external zip since they can't seem to make the zips small enough they say.

Dells and Gateways are always the pick of the crop in any price range. I don't think I can remember a review lineup where they weren't interchangable at Number 1 and 2. Fast solid machines, with little tech trouble and good support.

Acer is the black plague of laptops (and desktops for that matter). Nasty looks, features, quality, and reliabilty.

IBM are solid, but costly for the featured. I've seen far cheaper machines with the same stats, that run just as well... And Thinkpads are just about as ugly as they get! *lol*

Sony.... *yum* I'm a huge junkie for Sony products. Need a Vaio and am working on it. The color will match my Sony mobile phone. Use Sony video cameras, TV's, speakers, and even bought my fiance a Sony CD player for her truck last year. :)

Compaq, contrary to general opinion have always been good to me. Avoid the Presario models though. They have a different parts supplier and do it on the cheap I hear. The Armada range is nice. I use an Armada 1500c (366mhz PII 4 gig 96 meg RAM), and can run photoshop 5.02, Dreamweaver, Internet Explorer, and Outlook Express all at once will little loss of speed. On Win 98 that's a bit of a miracle given the RAM. This thing gets carted everywhere and all parts still work as well as the day I got it. Screen is firm, CDRom still opens just fine, drive/battery bays slide out just like new. Keyboard is still a-ok.

I do have one gripe about Toshiba... the keyboard. The satilite's at least are WAY too sensitive for me. I like a keyboard I can rest my fingers on, and needs a bit of a pounding (hence my addiction to the Compaq).

Greg Moore

Well, me has been looking around asking some more people and now I am leaning towards a Dell :). I guess, I have no choice but to spend a lil more dough on a decent one. :)

Thanx for the help :)

Yep, the dells are the best :)

Just go to http://www.dell.com and I believe you can custom build one and find out how much it'd cost :)

You know, when you boil things down piece by piece by piece, I haven't found the Dell's to be all that whacky on pricing. In that I've also had great luck with Dell desktop machines, I'm definitely leaning toward them for a laptop (probably a heavy-duty Inspiron -- ouch).

Another factor in favor of Dell is, that though you wait a bit to get it, they seem to offer about the best flexibility in specifying a machine.