[Wes]

Ok, my mom has to buy a laptop so she can travel and get all her work done. Unfortunetly the laptop has to be a PC because she is an accountent (anyone know if quickbooks is coming to the Mac?).
What brand is the best, and are there any features that I should look for? Or any things that the salesman wouldn't tell me upfront?
I was thinking Dell but she would like to be able to get her hands on the computer before she actually uses it.

And what is the difference in the various displays? UXGA, SXGA+, XGA etc.

thanks.

[ 01-19-2002: Message edited by: Wes ]

[KellyHogan]

Originally posted by Wes:
<STRONG>Ok, my mom has to buy a laptop so she can travel and get all her work done. Unfortunetly the laptop has to be a PC because she is an accountent (anyone know if quickbooks is coming to the Mac?).
What brand is the best, and are there any features that I should look for? Or any things that the salesman wouldn't tell me upfront?
I was thinking Dell but she would like to be able to get her hands on the computer before she actually uses it.</STRONG>

Dell is the most solid with the best keyboard. Very good value compared to other manufacturers too.

[TNproud2b]

Compaq Presario 710US laptop from CompUSA

1Ghz Duron, 14.1" active, 256M ram, 16M video (Mobile Rage), 20gig drive, DVD - with $100 rebate - $1149.

[Wes]

1Ghz Duron, 14.1" active, 256M ram, 16M video (Mobile Rage), 20gig drive, DVD - with $100 rebate - $1149

Sounds good, but my mom would like a combo drive, and a slightly larger hard drive. Can you BTO those?

[m a d r a]

you can get quickbooks and quickbooks pro for mac as well as quicken and quicken deluxe. i think quicken deluxe is the only one that's been released for X tho', but i could be wrong there.

quickbooks mac support

[boots]

Originally posted by KellyHogan:
<STRONG>

Dell is the most solid with the best keyboard. Very good value compared to other manufacturers too.</STRONG>

My housemate bought a dell last fall. She's had a lot of problems with it. The dell people have been nice about it, but the number of problems makes me wonder if Michael Dell is still actually running the show.

It seems like the power source has some flux problems, the screen connections seem to randomly short out...then come back in, the optical drive doesn't recognize stuff once in a while.....


My advice as far as wanting to see something is to go to CompUSA,Circuit City, or Best Buy. They usually have a fair selection so you can play with the one you want at one of the three places. When I was looking (and this was 3-4 years ago) HP was making a pretty nice laptop. One of my coworkers has a ThinkPad that he likes, but it has the stupid joystick rather than a touchpad.

[TNproud2b]

Originally posted by Wes:
<STRONG>

Sounds good, but my mom would like a combo drive, and a slightly larger hard drive. Can you BTO those?</STRONG>

Not from CompUSA for that model.

Decent deal on this one going on right now (top of page $1099) &gt;&gt;

http://www.compusa.com/products/cate...&category_id=6

Again, the hard drive isn't huge but 15GB should be enough...hell, 10GB should be enough. I just can't find anything with a disk burner and a small pricetag. A CDRW costs less than $200 - meaning I wouldn't pay more than $1250-1350 for a machine that fits your description.

wait..here's something&gt;

Fujitsu
Notebooks LIFEBOOK C-6611 WINDOWS XP HOME O/S S-VIDEO & FIRE WIRE (ALL-IN-ONE) & COMBO DRIVE! PIII 900MHz 14.1inch XGA TFT 128MB 20GB CDRW & 8X DVD 4 USB 56K & 10/100 W/FREE FEDEX 2 DAY! $ 1199 FREE FEDEX! Global Computers
800-650-4006
408-277-0712

[ 01-19-2002: Message edited by: TNproud2b ]

[starman]

Dell is your best bet. I've been pricing PC laptops for over a week.

You can get a 4100 with a combo drive, an 8100 with a combo drive, or an 8100 with a DVD-ROM AND a CD-RW drive (2 bays!) for within $10 of the combo drive price.

Mike

[theolein]

I got a Dell Inspiron last week. It's fine and very fast, but...
It's big and heavy. I'd personally go for a small acer travelmate or something with a 12" screen. If she needs the pc for work, and doesn't need a brilliant graphics card, there are quite a few notebooks that have graphics chips onboard using shared memory. She would probably do fine with a 600 or 700MHz machine and all in all should be able to get one very cheaply with those specs. If she can, tell her to get Win2000, as it's a bit easier on resources than XP and is every bit as robust, if not more so.

[NeoMac]

Just remember one thing, PC laptops might be inexpensive (i would say 'cheap' ) but they are also heavy. Make sure you get a laptop she can actually carry without needing a dolly.

[Eug]

1) If she's travelling, the smaller the better, but for most people it's still best to have a CD-ROM (CD-RW?) +/- floppy built in to the chassis. I sold my 15" tarted up PC laptop simply because it was too big. The Dell 8100 is a fine example of what NOT to get if portability is an issue.

2) nVidia chipsets seem OK, but in my experience, ATI chipsets are easier for configuring the VGA port. ie. Out of the several laptops of colleagues, it's been easier to quickly get PowerPoint working with notebooks with ATI video. They're all supposed to be plug and play, but it definitely ain't the case. It also seems to be model and OS dependent however, not just chipset dependent.

3) If it's a very high resolution screen like 1400x1050 or 1600x1200, make sure she likes it. Some people hate anything above 1024x768 on a 14" screen and anything above 1400x1050 on a 15" screen, whereas others are fine. Also, in relation to #2 above, make sure it's easy to step down the VGA output resolution, since many VGA projectors don't support anything beyond 1024x768. Ie. If she gets a machine with 1400x1050 and if she can't figure out how to set her machine 1024x768 when she needs to, then in a lot of places her laptop will be useless for presentations.

4) Brand names for the most part mean very little. Whereas Dell has good customer service, models will vary a lot in terms of bugs and reliability. eg. Apple gets stuff from Quanta. Dell gets stuff from Compal. IBM tends to make it's own high end stuff, but the low end stuff might be made by someone else. Indeed, one older Dell model (not made by Dell) was actually sold by 8 different companies, often with some cosmetic differences, but with identical internals. You get the picture.

5) Have her decide if she likes the touch pad or the eraserhead thingy for a pointer. It is a MAJOR issue for many people.

6) On the road a built-in modem jack (and built-in modem of course) is a must for some people.

7) In some institutions Ethernet is needed, and built-in Ethernet is sooooo much better than a PCMCIA card with dongle.

8) Some people may want S-video outputs for presentations.

9) 1 vs. 2 USB ports? Note that 4-port hubs can be quite small these days, although a few peripherals don't correctly work through them always.

10) Firewire still not big in the PC world. I wouldn't put it high up on the list.

Overall I'd recommend a 13.3" (yes 13.3" - definitely nothing over 14") 1024x768 screen, floppy, CD-RW, Windows XP/2000, 20 GB drive, 384 MB RAM. Speed of video card is irrelevant, unless she plans on playing Quake III.

[iCartman]

Get an IBM Thinkpad. They are the only company that designs the entire notebook (from screen to keyboard). If you go to Anandtech you can get one using the IBM employee discount.

[JohnD]

Look for a machine that support standard installations.
To my knowledge Compaq doesn't an after have bad experience with Compaq years ago I am still under the impression that they s*ck bigtime.
The last 6 months I bought four Asus laptops for our company and they run pretty well.
We use the 8400 the A1000 and the B1000, the last one with 15" screen.
Solid machines with good keyboard and bag was included.
Use W2K as the OS and you'll get a stable setup.
I don't know about Dell, no experience with them.

[daimoni]

.

[agentz]

I use a Dell Latitude at work, all the members of the team got given one for on site work. It now mainly sits on the edge of my desk alongside a Dell Optiplex which gets most of the use. Was in a similar position in that I didn't really want a PC laptop but my boss absolutely refused to buy me an Apple one. Nearly all of our Corporate users that use laptops use Dell Latitudes without too many problems.

I don't know if connectivity is important to you (beyond a modem that is) - A large number of Latitude models now come with a modem, 10/100 ethernet and are wireless ready (you can spec the card at order time), although you do have to watch as some models if you choose wireless networking you kiss the integrated modem/ethernet goodbye. The Latitude C610 definately allows all three technologies to be integrated at once.

And I'd also second what other people have said - the Dell Warranty is great, although if memory serves you have to pay extra to upgrade the first year to onsite, but its worth it.

[jarends]

SAY NO TO COMPAQ!

Don't touch compaq. Every single compaq desktop or laptop that I've ever worked with has been utter crap.

They have a weird non-standard bios so you have to keep a special small partition on the drive.

Also they never ship with normal windows installer cds, but special restore cds that redo your entire hard drive and add a bunch of partitions you don't want.

Anyway check out www.compaqsucks.com if you want more information.

[Agent69]

In my opinion, the best PC laptops made are Thinkpads.

If you go to E-Bay, IBM runs a auction store site with brand new Thinkpads, with warrenty, for a good price. Many are sold "Buy It Now", so you can buy immediately if you wish to avoid a bidding process.


Agent69

[Wes]

Another option for your mom is to buy a combo drive iBook, load it up with RAM and run VPC. And she would have free tech support from you.

We went looking for a laptop today at compusa and such. After looking at various laptops my mom was considering purchasing an Apple laptop. Do you (or anyone) know of any business programs that have problems with VPC? (mainly the newest version of quickbooks)

Also, I do recall reading a recent Intuit press-release about QuickBooks coming back to the Mac. This would be a good thing.

I remember reading something along those lines at MacAddict, but didn't it come out that it was just a unbased rumor? If it was true it would be a godsend.

How much ram is required for VPC to run smoothly (on a iBook or PowerBook)?

[ 01-19-2002: Message edited by: Wes ]

[Gene Jockey]

Make sure you look at battery life as well...I work for the sysadmin in our building, and the head of our geology department recently got a Sony Vaio. It's really nice, has FireWire and DVD, and I think an 800 Mhz Duron...quite the speedy little guy under Win2K. Which is good, because you had to work fast to get your work done in the 45 minutes the battery lasted. It was a good thing it came with a free second battery and two bays...just something to look for.

Memory too, if she's just running Excel and the like, she won't need much, but some top out at 256, like the Vaio above. Which was nice for me, because he bought a 256 he couldn't use, so I traded him the 128 that Apple supplied in my TiBook. Free Crucial CL2 RAM! That was a nice day...

--J

[akebono]

Compaqs are shit. If you spend $1k on one today, great, you'll have the extra $1k to buy another tomorrow. Dells are, well dells. They're a computer and people get by with them fine. Any Dell laptop that's worth a damn can also double as a wheel-stop to keep your 747 parked on Lombard avenue. The are bricks. The only PC laptop worth the scratch that I have seen are the IBM Thinkpads. They are rugged and (ahem, la la la) well designed. Anyway, the R series are a good value. The only regret you'll have is not having the TiBook, but apparently you believe there's nothing you can do about that.

[akebono]

Originally posted by Wes:
<STRONG>
And what is the difference in the various displays? UXGA, SXGA+, XGA etc.
[ 01-19-2002: Message edited by: Wes ]</STRONG>

That's PC speak for color depth and resolution. Just make sure the display you get has the features you want.

Thinkpad.

Good luck. PC's laptops are generally inexpensive for a reason, thinkpads are the quality-exception. But budget for a usb mouse unless you can get used to the clitoris pointer.

[rambo47]

I've had several Sony Vaio laptops foisted upon me by the powers-that-be at work. Seems this one arcane program we need is Windows-only, and Win98 at that! What a shit-show. Man, I hate Windows98 with a passion. I said "several" Vaio notebooks because one is in the lake behind my house.

The Dell notebooks everyone at work now uses are crap. No doubt, Dell has the best warranty and tech support in the industry. Apple is always trying to raid their support division because, as far as tech support goes, Dell does it right. Of course, they need the support because quallity has really slid downhill the past 2 or 3 years. My guys have had all kinds of problems from bad motherboards, screens, power supplies, and graphics cards on both laptops and desktops.

IBM, while expensive, seem to be the best laptops now. The A-series seems to be feature-rich for the money. And the 15" screen is sweet.

[seanyepez]

I would get a Sony VAIO R505 in the ultra-light category. They're very sleek notebooks. However, the battery life leaves a lot to be desired. Rest assured that the double-capacity battery is completely unviable; it costs $500 from Sony and not a whole lot less from on-line retailers. However, they're very solid machines. They also have great screens!

The Dell Inspiron 8100 series is, by far, the best desktop-replacement notebook out on the market. It has the best notebook keyboard ever! The keys use the buckling spring technology that the old IBM keyboards used. It is a pleasure to type on. In fact, I'm using my friend's Dell Inspiron 8000. The machine can be ordered with a 1.2-gigahertz Intel Pentium III-M processor. Though "Tualatin" isn't the fastest CPU ever, Intel has a winner for the portable market with the mobile version of the processor. The ATi RADEON Mobility 7500 with 64 megabytes of DDR graphics memory produces insane framerates, too.

Apple's iBook is still my favorite. If you can't convince your mother to get the iBook, I would go for the Dell or the Sony.

[JoeG4]

Three suggestions: IBM thinkpad, Sony (high end ONLY!!!), or Toshiba.

IBM is the most un-durable laptop I've ever used however, I've seen many broken after 2 or 3 years.

Sony is supposedly good for durability, and they have some of the best OEM machines I've used. *shrug* here I don't know.

Toshiba is one of my favorites though you have to be careful which model you get, they have the eraser head pointer, and they give you the best features for your price, and normally their enclosures are BULLET PROOF.

Since PC gaming, etc, isn't a major concern, you can get away with a powerbook or ibook running VPC, and as I said, Quickbooks should be available for OS 9.

Dell is the number one of the worst laptops ever made. I say this not to get dell owners upset, and if you happen to be one of the lucky few who thinks their dell is the best in the world, I feel sorry for you.

Apple makes some of the most durable laptops around, and if that's a huge concern, you can easily get an older colored model ibook, since those are the most durable around. The newer ibooks are fine, but the hinges look flimsy to me.

[Eug]

As I've said before, statements like "Dells are crap" or "Compaqs are the best" are meaningless. Laptops are often made by and even designed by 3rd party companies, so it really is up to the specific model.

As for the Dell 8100, I am not completely impressed. It is a desktop replacement yes, but just don't plan on using it as a laptop, unless your arms look like Popeye's. Plus, the base model requires significant upgrades to make more usable as a laptop. Several of my colleagues have it.

A very good point. Nothing is more frustrating than finding out that the only version of Windows that is supported on a piece of hardware is the custom version sold by the manufacturer. Grrr!

Very important point. I would not recommend any PC laptop that only comes with a software restore disk. Apple's are a different story though.

Another option for your mom is to buy a combo drive iBook, load it up with RAM and run VPC. And she would have free tech support from you.

I totally disagree. VPC with a 600 MHz iBook and 640 RAM is utterly useless, even if you're comparing it to very low end PC laptop.

[ 01-19-2002: Message edited by: Eug ]

[vmarks]

Hi,

I can offer you the employee discount on IBM thinkpads.

email me.

Victor Marks
[email protected]

[nuckin futs]

does anyone know how well those accounting (quickbooks/quicken) programs work using Virtual PC on a Tibook or ibook?
that might be a viable solution if the only program that is needed is quicken.

[ARENA]

Originally posted by nuckin futs:
<STRONG>does anyone know how well those accounting (quickbooks/quicken) programs work using Virtual PC on a Tibook or ibook?
that might be a viable solution if the only program that is needed is quicken.</STRONG>

Like Madra said, both QuickBooks and Quicken are available for Mac. Quicken has a Mac OS X version.
So why using VPC if you can run them natively in the Mac?

[phantomdragonz]

Originally posted by Eug:
<STRONG>...Have her decide if she likes the touch pad or the eraserhead thingy...</STRONG>

Uhumm, It's called a " Monkey Dick "

One of my friends made that one up. I will call it that till I die.

P.D.