Recommend a laptop, please

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

My laptop of less than a year broke. I plan to order a new one on Amazon because I have $300 in Amazon gift certificates from filling out online surveys. I need one that will allow me to write, has at least a fifteen inch screen and can stand up to some baby touching.

I’m debating between one with a cheaper housing but a two year warranty and a more expensive model made from aluminum. My husband says go for the latter as it will be more cat and baby proof. The shorthair likes to sit on the keyboard. The baby likes to grab mommy’s computer the minute she leaves the room. I suppose between the two of them it’s a wonder that anything in this house remains unbroken . . .

#2

Aluminum vs plastic makes almost no difference in baby or cat proofness. An aluminum chassis may be a touch more rugged if dropped off a desk or banged around in a suitcase or but it’s a minor difference at best. Metal vs plastic is the very last thing you need to be considering in evaluating notebooks if it’s going to be sitting around the house or on a desk most of the time.

What you will find is that all plastic chassis are usually the budget lines and all metal are the mid to upper lines.

If the notebook is vulnerable to cats and babies you might want to think about using it closed with an external monitor, wireless mouse and keyboard. That way the notebook itself can be tucked away and if the baby spills or pulls keys or the cat pisses on it the inexpensive keyboard is all you have to replace. Most HPs can be used closed and come with a handy wireless remote to boot the unit up without opening the lid up. That way it’s protected and you can still take it on the road if necessary.

As a side note if it’s less than a year for the broken notebook why aren’t you getting it replaced in warranty?

#3

Thank you. We already used the warranty I believe when it broke a few months ago.

#4

Even if the cat doesn’t piss on the computer, cat hair isn’t good for it.

I’m looking at the best-selling notebook computers on Amazon’s site. A bunch are either Apple Macbooks or other systems that cost more than a thousand bucks. The ASUS A53E-ES92 is $360, so it would cost you only sixty dollars after you use the gift cards. But given the cat and baby, you might want to spring for an extended warranty.

#5

That’s actually what my husband suggested complete with extended warranty.

I’m a professional writer with a steady side gig work at home job that requires internet access or I don’t get paid. My primary concerns are screen size, portability, price and ease of use. One of the companies I work for requires me to read hand written material so I need some graphics power I think.

I feel so ignorant about this subject . . . :smack:

He suggested some of the following possible choices:

#6

Is that how the warranty works? It broke once, so if it breaks again within the warranty period you can’t get it fixed or replaced?

I admit that i’ve been lucky with electronic equipment, and have never had to make use of a factory warranty, so it could be that i am ignorant about how it works, but i was under the impression that your warranty was good for a year even if multiple things go wrong during that period.

#7

Two of those systems only have two gigabytes of memory. Four is better, so I wouldn’t get them.

#8

It sounds to me like you need what you need is a computer cabinet that you can close when you leave the room. Even milspec laptops aren’t cat and baby proof.

http://www.walmart.com/search/search-ng.do?search_constraint=4044&ic=48_0&Find.x=0&Find.y=0&Find=Find&_ta=1&search_query=computer%20armoire&_tt=computer

#9

A new notebook manufacturer’s warranty of one years duration generally does not expire or cease after it’s been used once or a dozen times if it’s still within the coverage time limit. It’s still in effect. Used item second party warranties may have different limits.

#10

Is 6GB measurably better than 4, for someone who isn’t trying to do anything like play any games more demanding than Sims 3, or watch high def movies or anything like that? I’m about to buy a new laptop too and I’ve been wondering that. I know I want at least 4GB, which seems to be the lowest they make nowadays for new medium-end laptops.

The desktop I’d been using until the other day had 512MB and I’ve never had a computer with more than 2GB :frowning:

#11

One of the Amazon pages that she linked to said that the system includes a one-time-use accidental damage warranty. (“1-Year Accidental Damage Protection - Covers accidental drops, spills, power surges and fire damage for the first year. One incident per laptop.”) So perhaps that’s what she was referring to.

#12

I asked my husband. He told me that the warranty people told him the laptop wasn’t covered for the damage we had.

I think we’re going to go with the cheaper machines and a better warranty. My other problem is that I’m kind of a klutz. I’ve managed to bang the machine a bit just by holding it and walking around the house tripping over the cat or the baby in the process. I’ll have to be really careful in the future. Part of the problem is that I’ve never had a laptop before and didn’t quite realize how careful I need to be around it.

He thinks the amount of gb should be fine. I just want to be able to work and bring it with me from room to room or outside on a nice day while with the baby in a jumper or even if I have to use the bathroom for a long time. They get irked at work if I take too long to read a paper when I’m not on a formal break.

#13

That could be it.

Maybe it’s a matter of semantics, because it sounded to me like the problem was something to do with the computer itself. The OP said “My laptop of less than a year broke.” That implies, to me at least, that something went wrong without any external accident. If she had written, “I broke my laptop,” that would signal, to me at least, a different set of circumstances.

And it’s still not clear, even from the OP’s most recent post, whether the “damage” to the laptop was caused by external forces (dropping it; water; a crack in the screen) or was the result of parts failure.

#14

I don’t know if you do this already or not, but definitely keep an external backup of your files. You don’t want everything on a laptop that your are likely to drop.

#15

If this is a business machine, then you should get a business class machine.

Cheaping out on buying a quality laptop is likely to cost you more money in the long run. How much have you lost already from the time your laptop was out of commission?

I personally use Dell latitudes. 3 years ago I bought a slightly used latitude e4300 for 800$ off Ebay and made sure it included Dell’s awesome 3 year NBD warranty. I had the warranty transferred to my name and have had no problems having dell fix my laptop. They send someone out to me to fix it for free. For pretty much any problem I can think of, for any reason. I’ve never had them even try and deny me (although baby vomit might be a problem…).

3 years later, the machine is still chugging along with the warranty just finally expiring. It’s been a workhorse. It even survived me backpacking through south east asia for 6 months.

The newer dell latitudes are even tougher. My current laptop is a e6320 from work and it feels VERY solid.