<p>Hey everyone-</p>
<p>My PC which I've had for about 5 years is circling the drain right now, and I was already planning on buying a laptop for Duke, but seeing as I need one now I was wondering what kind I should buy for Duke. As of now I'm leaning towards getting a VAIO laptop but I'm not 100% sure yet. Any advice?</p>
<p>Well you have several options:</p>
<p>1) Buy one from Duke. Duke's offerings are mainly just Dells, Apples, and Lenovo Thinkpads. They are not the latest and greatest but you can get pretty good specs. They are also not particularly cheap either, but you do get Office and a 3 year hardware warranty with every Duke machine. The 3 year warranties are pretty good considering it's pretty much onsite (OIT help desk), but you can probably get something similar from the OEMs themselves. </p>
<p>2) Buy one yourself from a major manufacturer such as HP, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Apple, Lenovo, Gateway, Acer, ASUS, etc.</p>
<p>Personally, I would suggest buying a machine from Lenovo's outlet website. They sell machines (many are top-spec) that people custom ordered but returned for whatever reason (don't like them, didn't get what they wanted, etc). Lenovo then refurbishes them (they were practically new anyway) and then sells them deeply discounted (I'd say around 20-30% off). I recently bought an X61 from them and loved it.</p>
<p>Here's the website:</p>
<p>Lenovo</a> Outlet</p>
<p>i have an x61 as well... its GREAT</p>
<p>i have a vaio... it's okay.... but if you had another choice that's better... go with that</p>
<p>Edit to what I said before:</p>
<p>If you are buying from Lenovo outlet, be sure to get a machine with a 3-year warranty. (for example this one except maybe with better specs ThinkPad</a> T60: CA2008URU Lenovo Outlet)</p>
<p>To bsbllallstr8: I agree 100% :)</p>