| | What laptop do YOU recommend?Page 2 of 2 (1, 2) | should i return my new gateway nv series laptop that i bought a week ago thru Home shopping network on cable? i am not computer literate but notices when i use my wireless mouse that i purchased separately my router red light (internet) flashes and then i cannot get back on the internet. this morning i have been on the net for almost 45 minutes without using this wireless mouse without the internet cutting off or belkin red light flashing.
the people at bestbuy told me to get a HP but the gateways are cuter and i have a 2 year warranty, alot of software. but, there is no manual (i do not want to have to look everything up online). i have not done by back up yet, there's no recovery disc with this computer.
my pc is needed strictly for college tests, essays, internet .....no gaming . but, i do want to watch tv/download from netflix.
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| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 8/17/2009 1:02:25 PM | | It's not the laptop it's between your router and something that is interfering with the wireless connection, which sounds to me like it’s your wireless mouse causing it. Because you stated when you aren't using the wireless mouse everything works, but as soon as you use it your router cuts off. So for some reason your wireless mouse is causing interference with your wireless router’s connection. | |
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- don
| | Joined: 4/23/2009
Msg: 27 | |
| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 8/17/2009 8:06:18 PM | Try changing the channel on your router:
Channel 01 : 2.412 GHz
Channel 02 : 2.417 GHz
Channel 03 : 2.422 GHz
Channel 04 : 2.427 GHz
Channel 05 : 2.432 GHz
Channel 06 : 2.437 GHz
Channel 07 : 2.442 GHz
Channel 08 : 2.447 GHz
Channel 09 : 2.452 GHz
Channel 10 : 2.457 GHz
Channel 11 : 2.462 GHz
edit:
to do this, you will probably need to log onto the web interface for configuring your router as Administrator, Admin, or root.
Possible Default IP & username for belkin:
Belkin 192.168.2.1 admin
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| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 8/18/2009 12:47:41 AM | The current HP DV series esp. with AMD CPUs are junk.
Stay away from Toshiba, Acer, Gateway, EMachines as they all have the same manufacturer. Trouble unless you treat them very carefully.
T or R series from Lenovo are the best. Pricey but they hold up.
Dell Latitudes are second best, Dell Inspirons are a crap shoot. AMD powered Inspirons are pretty bad.
I know because I manage a shop that services hundreds if not more laptops a year.
I own a Lenovo T60 and it has never missed a beat.
I also own one of those little Sony laptops. Not sure of the model number, it's in Maine right now. My housemate takes it everywhere she travels and loves it. It cost $2,800. Cheaper Sonys are junk as well as reported to me by my techs.
Bottom line. You get what you pay for.
$600 is not going to get you a system that meets your requirements. | |
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| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 8/18/2009 5:19:58 AM | | AMD CPU’s are junk? Really....... Seems like they get pretty high reviews from top hardware review sites like Toms Hardware, enthusiast and computer users alike for their affordability and performance. I wouldn't classify that as being junk. AMD CPU's are pretty good CPU’s overall. I mean, the CPU's you are comparing on those laptops are mostly budget AMD CPU's what do you expect from them high performance and great battery life? That be like me saying Intel processors are junk for anything demanding by basing their whole entire lineup off of their Celeron processors. | |
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Edsta
| | Joined: 7/19/2008
Msg: 30 | |
| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 8/18/2009 11:07:29 AM | This Dell Latitude would be an excellent choice for just under $600:
http://www.techbargains.com/news_displayItem.cfm/174714
Just make sure you get the voucher for the Win7 upgrade. | |
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| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 8/18/2009 8:00:22 PM |
Gateway has a AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core, 4 gb of ram for only $500!
Please please please forget about Gateway. They're junk. At $500 you get what you paid for. | |
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| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 8/18/2009 8:51:37 PM | | Yep I completely agree. Gateway has gone way downhill in quality in 10 years. They used to be solid pc's up until the early 2000's, that's when their quality started going completely down the tubes. Soo bad infact they went from a solid number 3 in pc companies behind HP and IBM in the mid 90's, to number 5 by the mid 2000's up until they got bought out by Acer in 2006. But Acer's quality isn't that far behind Gateway's either . Def two pc companies I would avoid buying namebrand pc's from. | |
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| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 8/26/2009 9:41:52 PM | I bought a Lenovo a few months back. ( In 2005 Lenovo completed their acquisition of IBM's Personal Computing Division)
Very pleased with it, AND the telephone support I spoke with was an american english speaker. | |
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| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 8/26/2009 10:19:53 PM |
I bought a Lenovo a few months back. ( In 2005 Lenovo completed their acquisition of IBM's Personal Computing Division)
I agree I hear nothing but good things about them. Personally I prefer macbook pro :P | |
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| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 8/26/2009 11:28:01 PM | For reviews (editor and user) and specs, go to
www.cnet.com
I won't buy anything digital/electronic w/o checking there first.
Great site, very informative.
Better than the outsourced tech support Gateway and Acer owners have
to contend with. | |
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| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 8/27/2009 7:48:03 AM | deltadallas--
I would like to contact re the computer u bought because of where you purchased, but your settings wont allow. I used to work there. Feel free to contact me. | |
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| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 8/28/2009 1:58:26 PM | | Mine is a Dell Inspiron 1525-n; it has decent specs and can easily do what you're looking for. The only problem is that there have been a lot of hardware problems with this model, and I had to take mine in twice for repairs. It was $500, but with the warranty it came out to something like $800 (I got a two year warranty -and as you can see it saved my ass!). | |
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| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 8/31/2009 4:25:10 PM | I lust after ASUS and Alien but end up with Toshiba.
I treat laptops as disposable machines, I prefer not to spend much money on them. These things make lousy high power desktop replacements.
My 2 year old desktop beats any laptiop you can buy. q6600, 6gb, 2TB, 24 inch flatscreen all 5.9s good for Photoshop, video conversions and games.
Cost about the same as a good high end laptop.
Don't get them wet. | |
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| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 8/31/2009 5:00:36 PM | I lust after macs but can't afford the $1,000 above what I paid that they would have cost me!  | |
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Edsta
| | Joined: 7/19/2008
Msg: 41 | |
| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 8/31/2009 7:25:49 PM | ^ Well, I used to be a Mac guy in college, had a Mac Classic with a whopping 16MB of RAM at the time, thought it was the sh*t.
Sometime in my mid 20s I switched to PCs for work-related reasons and have never looked back. About 3 years ago I had a job that required me to use a "top-of-the-line" iMac with a dual core Intel proc, and I loathed it with a passion: annoyingly cutesy interface but about the same speed as my 4 year old P4 desktop, got the spinning wheel of death every once in a while just like a Windows 98 machine...argh! Horrible spongy keyboard and they don't even give you a decent 2-button mouse for Chrissakes, wtf?
So nowadays I tend to think of Macs as the Bose of computers: overhyped, overpriced, underperforming but seductively pretty little packages, mainly designed for people who are too stupid to use a real computer and/or who just need something to make them feel special.  | |
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pfif
| | Joined: 6/11/2012
Msg: 44 | |
| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 7/4/2012 5:33:53 PM | I picked up a Dell Inspiron N5050 for about three hundred, off their
'Dell Outlet' -- I'm happy with the price/performance. Build quality
isn't stellar -- I loved my Lenovo's (IBM) when they were current, but
wanted a budget machine this time around. I've dvorak'd the keyboard
on the N5050 -- all the keycaps were uniform, so no mods were required
beyond pry n' swap 'em. | |
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| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 7/5/2012 3:37:47 AM | Wow lots of great input.
The entire computer selling game is very difficult if you don't have allot of computer hardware knowledge because the MHZ / GHZ and all that is normally just a bunch of boo hoo garbage.
So, regardless of name one first question if you are not a hardware guru is WARRANTY. Read the fine line on it. Being a 20 year veteran I don't really care about the warranty but the average user should it the most important insurance in that low cost LAPTOP you bought. Why..............................?
Well the average shop time should be between $50.00 - 75.00/hr. If you mess up your computer or get a virus how much downtime and tech time, and your time is it going to cost to fix it? A good warrenty cannot get you around downtime, but fixing the monster could save you hundreds. Remember that.
How do these companies make money. Well check your system is it load with tons of crap. Norton, trail this and that. Do you have more than say 6 icons by the clock, some could be hidden under Win 7.
Well, all this free and trail stuff is called advertising, and if you don't think your computer has tons of links and customer services holes. Think again..........how do you get a $1000.00 computer for $500.00?
OK, now the computer itself.
Big screen over 17" for starts.
Make sure your system is using newer standard like UEFI BIOS. Just ask the rep if he doesn't know then he is an AIRHEAD. This standard is almost essential for windows 8.
Hey did you know you can get Windows 8 for $15.00 more if you buy a computer right now.
OK, your laptop needs to have USB 3.0
To play games you need either Nvidea or AMD graphic chipset. Intel Graphic chip totally sucks.
Built in webcam is normally standard
Good WIFI and it should be "N" standard. B/G backward compatiable.
4GB ram is great, minimum of 2GB
SSD hard-drive if possible but at these prices probably not. SSD is faster, quieter because it basically solid state memory so no moving parts.
Intel 7 CPU is the fastest also EXTREMELY pricy.
AMD is making some serious movement in the APU market and if you get a system with one APU 6 is great and great video with it.
For brands. Well, Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, and what use to be IBM Lenorva or something like that.
Could look at Apple too.
Good luck.......... WARRANTY WARRANTY WARRANTY.... Should have 3 year coverage all parts and labor. | |
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| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 7/6/2012 12:20:32 PM | lenovo is a great suggestion but slightly pricy. it's the apple of the pc world, well apple is that apple of the pc world since they use pc hardware these days but lenovo is like the apple of the windows world i guess... but better quality :) they are absolutely the laptop i'd chose but you might not find what you need in your price range... asus would be my next suggestion. it's been so long since i've used a dell or hp or toshiba i can't give an opinion on them other than the headache i still remember of removing the "free" stuff they included because of how much some of it affected performance and absolutely annoyed the user with popups to upgrade the software they never asked for in the first place, this is the major drawback of a shelf bought windows system, advertising! it's one reason i refuse to buy a computer off the shelf. there isn't much out there that's modern that wont serve your needs but there are products on the shelves that are obsolete so beware.
the ssd suggestion above is a good one but you can upgrade to that later, it's really gonna push the system out of the price range and at a cost of storage. i dont know how much storage you need but high capacity ssd's are very expensive. focus more on ram and graphics because in some cases those can't be upgraded. wireless n is also a plus but can be added with a usb dongle. i don't know why you would "need" usb 3.0 but if it doesn't have usb 3.0 you have to wonder if you are actually getting a modern machine. it's a good sign that you're not buying something that has been obsolete for months and still sits on the shelves because the clock speed is quick so they can pass it off as "fast"
to get all the modern up to date stuff like usb 3.0, bluetooth, wireless n, good graphics and ram, then you will have to make a compromise somewhere especially if you want some kind of optical drive(dvd/blueray). either screen size or cpu clock speed, i'd compromise clock speed. the 1.6-1.65ghz amd apu are fine processors, this way you also avoid heat issues and get good battery life. honestly the peripherals do most of the work that makes a system "feel" fast so you wont notice a drawback of a 1.6 ghz cpu. system response has a lot to do with file system performance (this is where ssd's are nice) and in some cases graphics rendering and multimedia encoding and decoding. this stuff is done by specialized componants on the cpu or peripheral chips and this is something that a "fast" cpu that is out of date could never make up for. the advancements in hardware codecs and graphics processors are why you can watch blueray quality movies and play 3d games with xbox like graphics on new cell phones. the speed of the internet connection is important for this too but depending on your internet provider you might never take advantage of wireless n. infact my cell phone connection is faster than my cable ip.. :( | |
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| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 7/6/2012 2:58:16 PM |
it's been so long since i've used a dell or hp or toshiba i can't give an opinion on them other than the headache i still remember of removing the "free" stuff they included because of how much some of it affected performance and absolutely annoyed the user with popups to upgrade the software they never asked for in the first place, this is the major drawback of a shelf bought windows system, advertising!
This is why Windows has started working with the OEM's to create not only spec based categories but performance based ones as they are tired of seeing their product criticized in the marketplace due to PC manufactures fight for market share via the lowest pc price point they can get.
Also why Microsoft will be releasing the "Surface" as well.
What laptop do YOU recommend?
The Ultra book category is full of some sweet systems.
Samsung Series 9 is my fav. | |
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deltch
| | Joined: 6/28/2012
Msg: 48 | |
| What laptop do YOU recommend?
Posted: 7/7/2012 2:47:51 AM | | Buy Lenovo for laptops, but if you REALLY want to use a computer for gaming, buy a desktop or build one. It would be better to build one because you can get a better computer in the end for less money. | |
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D_Rokk
| | Joined: 11/17/2007
Msg: 49 | |
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