Good, but affordable, laptops?

[prettymess]

For whatever reason my laptop just decided to die on me today. Do you guys have any recommendations for a cheap, non-****** laptop? I have about $2300 in the bank, but I'd prefer to not spend too much over $500 if possible. Like I said, something cheap enough without skipping on quality. Sorry if this post seems kind of rushed/overly demanding, but without my laptop, I'm forced to use an iPod touch to have any contact with the Internet at moment. :(

[oboedad55]

Have a look at Acer. I've got one I bought about 5 years ago and it was by far the best bang for the buck. Also it has been bullet-proof; I spilled and entire cup of coffee in right after I got it and after it dried out was fine. I ran Ubuntu 9.04 for a while on it with no problems. If you can't find a use for the other $1800 PM me and I'll send you my mailing address.:P

[el_koraco]

+1 for acer.

[cbanakis]

I'm a fan of Asus.

And depending on what you need it for...

The EEE PC's are great. (Net-Books)

Not As powerful as full blown laptops, but the batteries last like 4x longer, and they are much more portable.

[collisionystm]

For whatever reason my laptop just decided to die on me today. Do you guys have any recommendations for a cheap, non-****** laptop? I have about $2300 in the bank, but I'd prefer to not spend too much over $500 if possible. Like I said, something cheap enough without skipping on quality. Sorry if this post seems kind of rushed/overly demanding, but without my laptop, I'm forced to use an iPod touch to have any contact with the Internet at moment. :(

Toshiba or vaio.

You can also get a nice dell on dell.com under small-medium business. Vostro on fasttrack are as low as 439 bucks. They are nice

[collisionystm]

If you want to be super awesome.... wWW.system76.com

[coffee412]

Picked up a Lenevo (sp?) for about 430 bucks on sale. Everything works fine on it. Im quite happy with it except the buttons are a bit cheap for mouse control. But hey ...

coffee

[tastygrue]

My brother uses a IBM Thinkpad T60. I'm not sure what he did to it, but it works really great, better than my desktop. Of course, I have a horrible desktop, but still.

[Warpnow]

Check out cowboom.com's day of the deal for a week and you'll see several good deals on laptops.

A week ago I got a thinkpad z61t with finger print scanner, bluetooth, core 2 duo t7200, and 2gbs of ram for $250.

Cowboom is owned by best buy, btw.

[NightwishFan]

I think Asus machines are pretty fantastic I am very happy with mine. As of now though I am only buying from here:
http://zareason.com/shop/home.php

[KingYaba]

Check out the new Thinkpad x120e.

[arunb]

acer is good, I use the Aspire 5745 series.

[SilverDragon]

If you want to be super awesome.... wWW.system76.com

Agreed. There was a little problem with the Nvidia 8600GT card but I think there was a big problem with Nvidia cards in general at the time with the 8 series so it wasn't their fault.

Edit: I just wanted to add I spent about $1300 on it and it's been my primary computer since the summer of 2008.

[Jordanbadangayon]

Toshiba or vaio.

You can also get a nice dell on dell.com under small-medium business. Vostro on fasttrack are as low as 439 bucks. They are nice
Sony Vaios are quite expensive... if not outright expensive.. though they look pretty... :)

[linuxforartists]

I've seen some good deals up at NewEgg (http://www.newegg.com). Some people swear by Geeks.com (http://www.geeks.com) and TigerDirect (http://www.tigerdirect.com).

As for brands, I'm an Asus fan. Although I pay more attention to specs vs. price. I read somewhere that a few Taiwanese companies (Quanta and Compal) make most of the world's laptops, which makes me wonder if brands are obsolete.

@WarpNow: Thanks for mentioning Cowboom.com. I'd never heard of them before.

[NormanFLinux]

I recommend Lenovo's x120e... I got the top model with a dual core AMD e500 Fusion chipset, 3 GB RAM, Bluetooth and wifi for $450. And its the best ultraportable now on the market, bar none.

If you like the quality build of the famous IBM Thinkpad, you won't regret it. Its 3.3 pounds with the 6 cell battery and the battery can run 8 hours on a stretch.

Joanna Stern reviewed it when she was on Engadget. I bought mine from Lenovo with a custom build - its the best notbook I have ever bought. The beautiful default blue wallpaper is easy on the eyes!

With all the good reviews of it, its a must on your buy list and if you could have only ONE laptop, the x120e is the one to get.

[DrTebi]

Bought the ASUS Eee PC 1015PEM-PU17-BK 10.1-Inch Netbook from Amazon for $330, got rid of that strange Windows 7 thing on there, and installed Ubuntu Netbook 10.04 via USB stick.

It's not the fastest, and I had to hack a bit to get a couple of the special keys to work (volume, wireless), but it was not too much trouble. I also tried the 11.0x version of Ubuntu netbook edition, but did not like the user interface. On that version however, the special keys worked right away.

It's not the fastest (don't compare it to a dual-core desktop machine...), but works like a charm.

[rich52x]

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-AS5253-BZ684-15-6-Inch-Laptop-Black/dp/B004ETLO6W/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1304725301&sr=1-2

:D
My recommendation :P

[pookiebear]

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-AS5253-BZ684-15-6-Inch-Laptop-Black/dp/B004ETLO6W/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1304725301&sr=1-2

:D
My recommendation :P


dude did you just drop an affiliate referral code on here lol.

[Ctrl-Alt-F1]

+1 for Asus. I can vouch for their midrange models!

[NightwishFan]

I mentioned asus before but I will be specific. I have had this model for over a year now and it is fantastic. :) http://usa.asus.com/Notebooks/Versatile_Performance/K50IJ/

[Retlol]

Don't get HP or Toshiba.

My €1400 HP laptop died after a year and got fixed at the factory countless times. Died every month or so untill it ran out of warrenty.

Bought a €500 Toshiba laptop 9 months ago, it died after 4 months (I lost the bill, they wouldn't repair it).

My Asus Eeepc 900 died after 5 months (didn't bother getting it repaired, netbooks are crap).

I'm done with laptops, only desktops now.

My €400 desktop pc has been running for 5 years almost non stop. I had to change a €7.99 fan last year.

[rich52x]

dude did you just drop an affiliate referral code on here lol.

Lol nah its the lappy my uncle recently got, he got it off Amazon lol, next time ill just post the make and model xD

[Blasphemist]

I often use http://www.techforless.com/ They are like the cowboom above in that a lot of what they have is open box or refurbished though some is factory sealed. They buy mostly overstock and sell it cheaper. They have been real good to me. I do have an advantage with them in that they are down the street from me and I can go see anything I want.

[Cpierce]

Go to ebay and get a Dell D620 for about $250. All their hardware likes linux, and they are a very dependable laptop. There is a reason why most large corporations use them. Just look around at an airport.

I have 5 of them in my family and have never had an issue.