Do you love your laptop?

[Deborah M.]

Please tell me if you love your laptop. I am going to buy one for a friend who's been very good to me. Not sure what to get! One thing is it needs to have the numeric keyboard on the side if possible and be on the lighter side. She is not a court reporter, just uses it for games and Word and email, maybe to watch a movie. I would like to keep it from $500-$700.  The easier to use, the better.  Thanks!

[Mary Jo Cochran]

Don't spend more money than necessary.  It's like that TV commercial where the robber comes in and they just hand them their money.  I spent $230 for my Dell 410.  It's lightweight, and has all the basics.  She can install her own Word software or download the online version for free (if you want I will get the name). It even holds my DigitalCat software.

I went to TigerDirect.com.

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

Maybe get her an Acer.  I know you can get a pretty light one for around 500.  What a nice friend, Deborah!! 

If I had to get another computer, I'd probably get an Acer.  I have a Acer net book now and it's a little workhorse.  I finally am super happy with my Toshiba with W7, but I bought it for this job.  I'm sure she doesn't need anything quite this powerful.  Good luck with your decision.

[Quyen]

Costco or costco.com has lots of great laptop options for under $700, and they have a good return policy, no restocking fee that many companies charge for returns.

My mom, sister and I all have the same 11" Acer from Costco. It was a special for $250. I use it as one of my loaner laptops, but we all love it. My mom uses the 17" Acer as a desktop; she got that from Costco too.

[Deborah M.]

Well, I went with a Lenovo Ideapad they had at Costco.  I could have gotten something cheaper somewhere else, but you can't beat Costco's customer service and two-year warranty.  She's had her last laptop 12 years, so you can imagine what she's used to!  This one looks really nice.  I'm sure she'll have it to the "end," LOL.   (She's 70.)  Thanks for all the suggestions! 

[Tami Bruni]

I just bought a new laptop.  It's a Lenovo.  It's amazing.  Lightweight.  Looks great.  Here's a little FYI:  the internal mic in this laptop is amazing.  I don't even need an external mic.  It picks up everything.  I couldn't be happier.  Came with Windows 7, lots  15.6 inch screen, lots of memory and fast fast fast.  I paid $550 at Best Buys a couple weeks ago.  Good luck!

[Glen Warner]

Hi, Deborah.

I have a MacBook Pro, but that's way out of your price range ...!

On the other hand, I recently picked up a refurbished IBM ThinkPad for $140:  Pentium M @ 1.86GHz, 1GB RAM, 40GB hard drive, CDRW/DVD-ROM drive, 802.11G wireless internet, running Windows XP Pro.

It gets the job done.

On (yet an) other hand, my ex-gf sent me an e-mail asking about buying a PC for her daughter (19), primarily for games.  I initially recommended a MacBook Pro, but one of the games she wants to play is Windows only, so I mad a few recommendations, and specifically wrote, "pretty much ANYTHING BUT an HP" (consumer complaints and forum chatter being my guide for that).  Grandma chimed in with, "Oh, Glen doesn't know what he's talking about!  He just likes Macs!"

She bought an HP.

Three weeks later, it's having problems.

Six weeks later, it's being shipped back to China.

Oh, well.

[Mary Jo Cochran]

I was working with a teacher a few weeks ago.  She had recently  bought a Toshiba with Windows 7.  I guess it crashed.  She tried the call center support.  She said it is based in India and she could barely understand the guy.  She said that's one of the problems with Toshiba, they have offshore support mainly so people get fustrated and give up (so she said).  She ended up having the School  Technical Support Team (schools have lots and lots of computers) take a look at the laptop.  The Windows 7 had crashed.