<p>hey guys, hoping some of you could help me out here because I'm really confused. I wanted something light (under 6 pounds), within a 1000 dollars, and need a laptop for nothing more than general purpose and college use. </p>
<p>What would you'll suggest to be the BEST laptop currently available with matching specs? Do you'll know about some really nice deals out there right now? </p>
<p>hoping any of you could help me out pick up something good. Thanks</p>
<p>dell .</p>
<p>dont get a dell, the recall just proves how crappy they are, eve a gateway beats it lol</p>
<p>The batteries being recalled were made by Sony and were used on many different brands of laptops. Dell is just the company that decided to do the right thing by recalling millions of batteries in an effort to protect the consumer.</p>
<p>Obviously, this doesn't apply to every dell, and it certainly doesn't describe dells in general, but personally, I've encountered a string of bad dells that turned me off from dell. So when I looked for a laptop for college, I went with HP, not the most technically advanced or up-to-date component, but pretty cheap and mostly reliable. </p>
<p>PS: Although HP does have it's own share of snafus in my book.</p>
<p>Dell's deals aren't worth the money IMO. There's no way they could afford to offer those kinds of discount coupons if the computers weren't made that cheaply in the first place.</p>
<p>You can get a pretty nice HP for under $900.</p>
<p>Please OP, listen to these people. Dell's are crap. My Dell PC was sluggish within a year with regular use. My HP notebook, with even MORE intensive use, is running easily at 98% of original condition.</p>
<p>HP's email support is good and they have some pretty good deals (all 3 of the HP laptops purchased in my family were purchased during a no-payments-for-12-months offer and we got free printers.)</p>
<p>I agree, can't go wrong with HP. Just bought one from Staples and it's awesome, it was under $1000 and about 5.3 lbs. Great battery, very quick, and an overall good laptop.</p>
<p>to put in a good word for HP, they just offered to replace my entire notebook casing because my trackpad buttons are peeling. If I could be without my computer that long I'd have them do it. </p>
<p>You can definitely get more than enough for your basic needs for under $1000 from HP.</p>
<p>Thanks guys, appreciate it. </p>
<p>Could you'll recommend specific models in HP that you'll are really happy with? How good is Toshiba? They're offering a 25% discount on certain laptop models that you custom. Anybody know of any other really good sales?</p>
<p>If you are a Costco member, try getting HP notebooks through them, it's even cheaper than OEM and they offer 6 months full refund, no questions asked. I bought a fully loaded dv5000t for around $1500, obviously it's heavier and more expensive than what you are looking for. You can also try looking at 14 or 14.1 inch screens. HP has ready-to-ship models for those starts at around $1050 (pretty good configs) or you can customize them. Idk, about toshiba but that sounds like a pretty good deal if the starting prices aren't very high.</p>
<p>Dell is great. It's it they had quality problems years ago, but now its computers are cheap, but not junk. Because Dell owns a larger share of the market, people report problems will Dell more often.</p>
<p>Go with Dell. You get a lot for the price. The reason that theyre so cheap isnt because of the parts. They can afford to sell them for so cheap because you order direct from them.</p>
<p>Dell is great! My Dell Inspiron 8000 has been working fine for the last five years, best bang for the buck as well.</p>
<p>Dell isn't cheap...even with a discount coupon of a couple hundred dollars, their systems are still about $200 to $300 more than a similarly configured system from some other manufacturers...the only difference is their customer service and technical support...which you shouldn't need if you are really getting the quality that you should be getting.</p>
<p>dell customer support, despite the fact that they call it award winning, hasn't won any awards recently and is pretty well known for being just as sucky as any other company.</p>
<p>I really think dell just makes cheap, crappy computers, and since they're so cheap, they just replace them when they screw up instead of making better systems to begin with.</p>
<p>id get a hp those are really nice right now. 14'' screen i think its the dv2000t that i liked the best.
for a welll rounded machine id shoot for at least these specs.</p>
<p>1gig of ram
60g + hard drive
core duo (the laptop does get hot on the bottom because theyre so powerful though)
128mb video card</p>
<p>hope that helps.</p>
<p>What does "general purpose and college use" mean? Word processing and internet? If you add games in, obviously that's going to kick your specs out of order.</p>
<p>For the record, I'm typing this on a three year old Compaq Presario. I bought it for a bit less than $900. It's not the best computer in the world, not by far, but it is more than capable of word processing, surfing the internet, things of that nature. The only real problem comes when I try to play games, since I have the most abysmal shared memory card in existence.</p>
<p>Specs:
AMD XP-M (I think that's like 1.7GHz?)
40 GB HD <-- definitely get something larger than that, particularly if you listen to music; I think I would be safe with a 60, but the next computer I buy will be 100+
512MB RAM <-- this suits the purpose of the computer just fine, but more RAM is always nice
Video card from hell -- seriously, anything on the market is better than this, it's abysmally small AND shared (I think it's 64mb)</p>
<p>The point of this post is that you do not need to purchase a brand new model of computer to get a general functioning machine, and you could save yourself a lot of money by going for an older (refurbished, used, or factory-in-box that never got sold) model. If you do that, try a search on Amazon.com.</p>
<p>If you decide to go for something newer/a little more advanced, I agree with the recommendations for HP/Compaq. My friend and I both have older laptops from them (my friend has an HP) and we are absolutely BRUTAL with them. (For example, I carry mine around by the screen sometimes. Expensive electronics? Psh. Just toys.) Mine had its first problem earlier this year (note that: two years after purchase; make sure to get an extended warranty) with the A/C adapter port (the peg actually managed to snap off the motherboard, warranting a motherboard replacement -- I did not have a warranty, and so had to pay $300 to fix that). </p>
<p>The customer service is pretty average. Lucky for me I never actually needed to call them for anything until this past year.</p>
<p>Customized Compaq Presario V2000Z: just under $900, weighs a little over 5 pounds</p>
<p>AMD Turion-64 ML-34 (1.8 GHz)
14" screen
1GB RAM
80GB 5400rpm HD
DVD+/-RW w Double Layer (and add $50 and you can get the LightScribe thing)
b/g wireless card
Microsoft Office (which has Word, Excel; add PowerPoint for $160)</p>
<p>The total price on that one is $878.99. Then you can add in your warranties, which are always the expensive part, but are well worth it because you don't want your one year limited to expire and find yourself needing to shell out another $900 when you could've gone with an extra $100 at the purchase price time.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Acer is relatively unknown in the US, but they make great computers. You could get an Acer with great specs for less than a 1000.</p>
<p>I am working on a Dell right now and I hate it. I guess it depends on the individual computer, but mine crashes ALL the time. It is basically impossible to upgrade. It runs slow. And the customer service is terrible. And they're not even that cheap if you want one that is at all useful. My sister has an HP and she and I both love it. </p>
<p>I think it says a lot about Dell that their spokesman got fired for ODing.</p>