Laptop Advice Sought

In My Humble Opinion
1

So, sort of a companion thread to my car purchase one.

I have been using, for the last few years, a Netbook that was provided by my employer, for minor tasks - videoconferencing, keeping up with Facebook when I travel, etc.

I hate it. The screen is obnoxiously tiny and the thing can’t run for beans. Notably, it’s extremely flaky when trying to service a three-way video call on Google Hangouts, basically to the point of intermittent total failure.

I think it’s time to bite the bullet and buy my own laptop. But I don’t want to break the bank, or get stuck with a lemon, so I am bringing the question to the Dope, because - despite working in IT - the array of laptops available is pretty staggering. If I were custom-crafting a new desktop PC, I’d probably not need advice on anything save perhaps the latest generation of video cards, but laptops are a bit more removed from my shopping experience.

So :
I want something reliable, that I’m not going to have to return to the manufacturer five times.

I’ll probably use it plugged in most of the time, so battery life isn’t a big deal.

I want a 13 inch screen at a minimum.

I want decent sound quality for watching videos and servicing video calls.

I’m unlikely to use it for high-end gaming, but I would like to be able to have some distractions to run on it - mostly older or indie Steam stuff, but if it could passably run newer games, that’s a bonus.

I’m thinking 4GB+ of RAM, too.

And unless someone can convince me otherwise, I want it to run some flavor of Windows 7, not 8.

So I’m looking at Amazon and TigerDirect and NewEgg, and there are tons of options, but the question of ‘value for money’ is hard to answer, even when you’re looking at an array of comparison specs. I’d rather spend $500 for a laptop that I’ll use for six years than drop $250 on a refurb that’ll break down after a year. Are refurbished laptops generally good? That’d save a whole lot of money. Are some brands to be avoided? I generally don’t trust Dell, but maybe they’re better now.

Help?

2

Oh, and I’m hoping to keep the total cost under $600.

3

Have you considered a different OS? If want to stick with Win7 I’ve had good experiences with Asus, but you’ll have to either switch 8 for 7 or get an older machine.

4

Most consumer laptops – which is what you’ll find, new, in the sub-$500 range – are crappily built. They’re running similar internal hardware to the higher end stuff, but their plastic outer parts aren’t very durable. Their keyboards are often junk, their hinges and charge ports tend to break quickly, etc.

If you can afford about $800, you can then afford either an Ultrabook (Intel’s branding scheme to compete against Macbooks, with an enforced minimum standard of hardware and build quality) or a business laptop. Dell, HP, Lenovo etc. have two tiers of laptops, one for your everyday consumer and one for “business” users; the business laptops generally have much better build quality and, often, better support options (for example, they could show up at your house the next day and replace anything broken that same day).

So if you can afford that, which brand? I’ve had good experiences with Asus, Lenovo, and Dell (again, only their BUSINESS side… Dell’s home laptops are absolute crap). If you have specific questions, the forums are notebookreview.com are probably where you want to be.

Hardware wise, try to go for models with the latest-generation “Haswell” chipset for better battery life, performance, and Windows 8 integration (meaning touch-screen, if you care about that). If you don’t care for the touchscreen, spend $5 on Stardock’s Start8 program to bring back the good ol’ Start Menu.

And if you want to get a refurbished laptop, just make sure you buy it from somebody reputable, meaning either somebody on eBay with a high feedback rating (at least 99% positive, multiple sales) and a reasonable DOA/return policy (say 30 or at least 7 days)… or buy refurb straight from the manufacturer and add on a 1 or 2 year service warranty. Dell in particular has a whole site dedicated to their refurb units (“Dell Outlet”) and lets you browse by condition, price, and a whole lot of other specs. My current laptop is a refurbished business Dell and it’s served me very well for the last three or four years. At under $200 used, it’s a steal for a simple laptop that’s faster and lighter than any netbook or Chromebook. It has a craptacular speaker (most business laptops do), but if I were doing anything important I’d have headphones on anyway.

Good luck.

5

Try this approach:
[ol]
[li]List all of the things you want to do with the laptop.[/li][li]List all of the software applications that will do those things.[/li][li]Compile the minimum hardware specs for each software application.[/li][li]Which operating system is best suited to run the identified software applications.[/li][li]Now look at hardware configurations to meet the above.[/li][/ol]
Addendum:

Never go with the minimum hardware requirements. For example, if you end up with a Windows 7 O/S, Microsoft says 2 GB of RAM is sufficient. Well, it is if all you want to do is turn on the machine. In reality, a minimum of 8 GB is needed if you want to multitask with a browser running, Office apps running, and maybe some social media. If you are thinking graphic apps, then bump the minimum RAM to 16 GB. The same applies to the minimum hard drive size. Do it with screen size (and graphics capabilities), etc.

Once you have some decent hardware specs to run the software apps to accomplish the work you need done, now start looking at laptop manufacturers and what configurations that have available.

Oh, yeah, one more thing. Your starting price is gonna be around $1,000. Anything less will shortchange yourself within a month after you bought a cheap machine.

6

IMHO, moreso with laptops than desktops, you’re not just making a list of criteria but a list of compromises. Performance isn’t the only consideration. There is also cost, weight, screen size, service, build quality, etc.

A 16GB quad-core video-editing beast with a discrete graphics card and two hard drives is a very different machine from, say, an Ultrabook – many of which are limited to the soldered-on 4GB of RAM. $1000 could get you either machine, but they fill rather different usage scenarios.

7

Work in IT? Like being able to take things apart? Get a Toshiba Satellite. They’re modular, and take parts that are both interchangeable between models and surprisingly inexpensive. Replacing a coffee-soaked keyboard is $17 + S&H, and requires you to pop off a bezel strip and undo 3-4 screws. Replacing the hard drive or RAM involves taking off a couple of easily-visible access hatches on the bottom. I bought one of the cheapest possible models ages ago – about $450 new, running Vista – and it lived happily for about four years before I ever had to open it up for more than cleaning. If I were seized with the urgent need to install a BD burner in the thing, Toshiba would be happy to sell me one, and it would take me about ten minutes to fit it into the case.

The next tier up has fancier displays, sound cards, etc. I wouldn’t call any of them gaming rigs, but a friend of mine bought a cheap one a year or so ago as an emergency Windows machine (i.e., he needed to play the Guild Wars beta test, and only had a Linux laptop), and apparently performance was just fine. Aside from the aforementioned disk-bashing fall onto a wooden floor, my ex-Vista Satellite still chugs along just fine; the fan is ever-so-slightly noisier than it used to be, but I haven’t had any trouble with any of the ports that usually die with wear, like the power plug, headphone jack, or USB ports. The battery did keel over after about two years, and the (heavily abused) power adapter after about three, I think, but they’re as inexpensive as the rest of the parts.

Note, however, that I have never actually bothered speaking to Toshiba technical support about anything. It never broke while it was under warranty, and afterwards it didn’t seem necessary to phone anybody when I could crack the case open and replace, say, the HDD I toasted by dropping it during disk access, all by myself. I did work tech support at my alma mater for several years, and I don’t think anyone ever brought me a Toshiba for anything other than the usual mess of trojans and spyware.

8

In my experience and from reading others’ experience on slickdeals.net, refurbished laptops are usually good. I’ve bought two from Dell (consumer, not business) and had good experiences with both. Actually, my daughter’s was a scratch & dent one, but we didn’t even see any damage on it.

All Dells include a one-year warranty and they’ll come to your house to fix it. And you can pay more for a longer warranty, of course. So that’s a lot better than having to send it in somewhere.

If you care to shop around for good deals and possibly wait a little while until one comes up, go to slickdeals. I had an email alert set for laptops and that’s how I found both of mine (I wasn’t only considering Dells, that’s just how it worked out). My daughter’s was under $300 including tax for a 14" ultrabook, third gen Core i3, 1 TB hybrid hard drive, 4GB. Mine was under $700 for a Core i7, GeForce 650 graphics, 1 TB hybrid drive, 1080p screen, 8GB RAM, and a few other bells and whistles.

9

I’m very happy with Windows 7. I have never used Windows 8, but I am not willing to put up with one iota more of backwards-compatibility failure.

10

Don’t want Win8, don’t care about Battery life.

Decent sound quality is essential. Headphones aren’t an option.

Thanks for the other input!

11

Not really sure what the requirements are for Videoconferencing via Google Hangouts, since it’s not really packaged as a discrete bit of software. Apart from that, looking for general purpose. Web browser, document editor, a few games - but not really any games in particular.

12

That’s an interesting option. I don’t have anything particularly for or against tinkering with computer internals - I’m a Database Administrator, not a hardware guy - but the ease of upgrades is intriguing.

13

slickdeals, eh? I will check it out.

14

Actually, check out the outlet stores for any of the big brands. Often times you can get not only refurbished machines at great prices (and original warranty) but often you can get a new machine at a refurbished price. I bought two new Lenovos several years ago from their online outlet store and saved something like 40 percent. A new machine from the outlet means just before it was to be shipped to a customer, the customer cancelled their order. So the machines never left the manufacturer and never went back into inventory.

15

Sounds like a plan.

16

I didn’t expect it to be that way when I bought it; I’ve never had a laptop I could get into without a lot of swearing and maybe a hand grenade before. As far as I can tell, the only things you couldn’t replace easily are the motherboard and the actual screen, so make sure you get the base and the display you want. The rest of it comes apart very cleverly with a minimum of screws. I can only assume this is a happy accident that comes from making them as easy as possible to configure at the factory, and that nobody gave any thought to me at all, but it’s still handy.

Toshiba does acknowledge it, though, as they’ll sell you parts directly. As far as they’re concerned, you can do whatever you want with it after they’re no longer responsible for free repair work. You can still get parts for laptop models 5+ years old, so mine can’t be the only one still running.

17

Heh, I just bought a laptop from Dell, an Inspirion 17 for about $500. I am happy with it and it does what I need: Quicken, email, Legacy Genealogy Program, etc. I am not a gamer, but I do play games, like Solitaire, Freecell a few arcade games and it seems perfect for that. I mostly use it at home (actually haven’t taken it anywhere yet) and plugged in but that may change in the future.

18

Maybe I should dip into savings and buy something beefier. Something designed as a mid-range gaming laptop.

19

If weight isn’t an issue, the 15.4" form factor is likely the cheapest (because it’s the most common), and a lot more upgradable than most Ultrabooks.

20

Lighter is better, but it’s not a big deal.