Help me buy a notebook computer...cheap

In My Humble Opinion
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Sorry for the double post - tried to stop it but it went through regardless. Could someone report the other so it gets locked? (I can’t - the button doesn’t appear for myself.)

Anyway, I’m in the market for a new notebook, but I don’t want to spend too much. Say $800 (less would be better). Use would be basic word processing and Internet surfing, with some business use on the side, but nothing speed or processor intensive. We do play MP3s, but no graphic editing. A DVD would be nice, and a CD burner is essential, but I don’t need a DVD burner. I’d like as much memory as possible (as I’ve always heard that more is better), but here’s where my ignorance comes in - should I really splurge for the 1 GB? Or will 512 KB do me just fine? As I said, I’m not looking for a gaming or performance machine.

Where’s good places to look? I’ve checked out the Dell outlet, and Dell itself, as well as the big box electronic merchants, newegg, and pricewatch. Anywhere else to go that’s got good deals?

I’ve had only Dells before, but I’m not tied to a specific brand (except Acer - no Acer). I’d really like an Alienware one, just for geek points, but not sure I like the price.

Point me in the right direction, guys. Any and all opinions, guidelines, what have you are welcome.

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You can get lots of good notebooks for $800 or less. You don’t really need more than 512mb RAM either although more is good but at the expense of battery life.

Here is a really nice refurbished one that sacrifices very little for $750. That looks like a really good deal to me.

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I’m just going to offer what advice I can, based on my own laptop-buying last year. I went for Dell in the end. I bought an Inspiron 510m - Pentium M 1.6; 15.4" screen, 40GB hard disk and 256MB of RAM. After almost a year of intensive use, I’ve noticed several things: I wish it was lighter, the hard disk was larger, and I had more memory. Apart from that, no complaints whatsoever. The wireless connectivity is excellent, it’s a pretty reliable, stable machine. I have heard horror stories about Dell from other people, but two friends and I all bought identically configured systems at the same time, and have had no problems.

IMO, 512 MB of RAM is plenty for basic word-processing and the like. The one thing I would suggest is that you try to keep the DVD burner option open - there’s nothing like it for backing up the thousands of MP3s that you will inevitably acquire. As a corollary to that, a large hard disk would seem to be mandated - 60GB, if not 80.

Since I’m not in the US, I don’t have any idea where you would look for deals - I’ll leave that to other people.

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Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA.

Buy your local Sunday newspaper every Sunday for a month. I guarantee you that within that time span, each of those will, at least once, advertise in their circular a laptop for less than $600. That laptop will, more often than not, have 256 MB RAM, a 15 inch screen, a 60 GB hard drive, a DVD ROM-CD RW drive and built-in wireless network connectivity.

I’d recommend at least 512 MB, but don’t have them upgrade the memory in the store. They’ll overcharge. You can usually find (again, within a month’s perusal of Sunday circulars) an extra 256 MB laptop memory for less than $40, and an extra 512 won’t be much more. And adding a memory chip is very easy.

Samples from this week’s circulars (New York area, but I believe these circulars are the same nationwide, or at least similar):

Best Buy: Gateway with Intel Celeron 360, 256 MB RAM, DVD ROM/CD RW drive, built-in wireless network, 60 MB hard drive, 14" screen - $549.99

CompUSA: Toshiba Satellite with Intel Celeron 380, 256 MB RAM, DVD ROM/CD RW drive, built-in wireless network, 60 MB hard drive, 15" screen - $499.99. Also, 512 MB of notebook memory for 39.99

(Circuit City’s cheapest this week is $649.99 - well within your range, but more expensive than my point above.)

And don’t be fooled into thinking that the low price means low quality. I’m currently typing this on a Compaq laptop I got from Circuit City for $549.99 last November. My wireless card isn’t built in, and I upgraded to 1 GB RAM by buying RAM on sale at CompUSA. No complaints yet about the machine. And I use mine for software development.

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I second everything said so far.

BUT, search the internet for coupons and specials on certain brands and models. Here is one example, for the Dell computers:

http://www.dailyedeals.com/free_online_coupons/dell.htm

If you’re not in a rush, you can scope out a good deal for yourself, based on the features/upgrades that most interest you.

This is a good time of year for a bargain, in any case.

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If you don’t need the latest and greatest, check out http://www.retrobox.com .

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These sound impressive, except I would try to get hard drives with at least a Gig of storage space. 60 MB these days just won’t cut it.

:smiley:

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:smack:

Thanks for the correction, Sense. Snickers, as the man pointed out, I meant to write that those systems come with 60GB hard drives, not 60MB.

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Hee! Aww, I knew what’cha meant.

So’s I got some Sunday papers to be buying. What really chaps my hide is that I have some notebook memory already (I upgraded that in my old notebook), but I’m fairly certain that it won’t fit in a new computer. I spose that’s something I should check, no?

Thanks for the recommendations, guys.

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So, as long as y’all are here…what would be needed for a similar laptop, but one that would also be used to do music stuff? My sweetie wants a laptop for surfing and basic wordprocessing, plus he wants a copy of TablEdit. That’s not much, but I don’t know what more he’ll want down the road if he gets seriously into playing with music files. Does software for creating music take a lot of something that I’d need to plan for?

Also, anything about adding memory to be aware of when buying? (I’m already planning for a large disk drive and DVD burner.)

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Exactly what cmkeller said. The brand name retail store notebooks after rebate are about the most bang for the buck you’re going to get in inexpensive notebooks, they come with full warranties (vs online refurbed units) and will beat online vendor units (including Dell) dollar for feature most of the time. The sales tax is about equivalent (or less) to the online units shipping charges in most instances.

One note is that notebooks are one of the few items you may want to consider for extended warranties. If you travel with the notebook vs it just being a deskbound unit extended warranties can be prudent.

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Snickers: As others have said, both in-store rebates and online specials (especially from Dell) are good. Here’s an excellent site that lists the latest deals: Dealnews.com PC notebook section.

As for Alienware… probably not. Their computers are generally ripoffs. Think of it this way: You can pay top dollar and get top-tier Alienware performance or you can buy somebody else’s system for 1/2 the price and get 90% of the performance. Or spend the same amount of money and get a better system. IMO, Alienware’s more for wannabe geeks (strange concept) who have too much money and care more about brand name than performance. If you don’t even want a gaming laptop, just ignore them altogether.

redtail23: Regarding music, it depends on what kind of music files he’ll work with in the future. There are two basic types: Sheet music/MIDI-esque files (which is what TablEdit seems to use) and actual sound files. Basically, the difference is that MIDI-like files only store notation information whereas regular sound files store the entire performance. Think of it as the difference between storing “Jingle Bells” as “EEEEEEEGCDEFFFFFDDDGGFDC” and recording an actual, live performance of the song.

MIDI-like files are very undemanding and any modern computer should be able to handle them with no problems whatsoever (but they will probably sound like crap to real musicians – they’re not much more than glorified ringtones).

Regular sound files are more demanding, but even then, it depends on the specific things he’s going to be doing with them. Certain tasks (format conversion/encoding, noise processing, advanced editing with software like Adobe Audition, etc.) will require a relatively powerful computer with a good CPU and lots of memory. Basic recording (and maybe even a little remixing), however, will only demand an average computer with perhaps a large hard drive, depending on how much audio he wants to keep on the computer. If his system can browse the web, edit a Word document and play an MP3 at the same time, it can probably do the recording stuff just fine. Advanced editing can be done too; it’ll just take longer.

As for adding memory, make sure you don’t add more than the notebook supports (they usually take lower maximums than desktops) and make sure you get a compatible chip. Check your manual or the manufacturer’s website for compatibility info before you buy RAM.