In the market for a laptop...

[snapping turtle]

Call Dan at eagle micro or stop by while in the castleton area.

 

[Milkshakeed]

I always recommend Desktops unless absolutely necessary because of the life of them. Usually you start to have issues with laptops around the 3 year mark.

Ditto. Plus a desktop will allow you to have more memory.

 

[Milkshakeed]

I would go with a 64 bit tower with 8 gb of memory. Photoshop is a hog so you might want to spend the extra for a i7 (though if it is not your profession I would spend the extra). Make this your main beast and get the wife a net book or a tablet for surfing the net/email/whatever.

Go shopping at Fryes (Fishers area, can't recall what area you're from). I've gotten great machines from them at great prices. I try to get refurbished from them (some people don't like that, with good reason, but I have never had a problem with Fryes refurbished. Plus you can get an extended warranty and if it breaks you get a new machine for your refurbed one).

If you go with just a laptop, the only ones I have seen with a key pad are 17 in or larger, so you would be buying a beast for that. That's what I have for my laptop and it's a chore to cart around. Another thing with the laptops are the plug for the power cord. This goes before the hardware most of the time. If you got a full coverage warranty though you might be fine.

Happy hunting.

 

[Bigum1969]

I just picked up a Toshiba E205 Satellite from work.

I like it so far. It's plenty fat (I5 processor) and has a backlit keyboard which I love!

 

[Noland]

I am thinking about getting a new sandy bridge Lenovo. The 9 cell battery option claims over 20 hours of battery life.

 

[Fenway]

I have shot both and although the XD feels great I still prefer Glocks!

 

[danielocean03]

I have shot both and although the XD feels great I still prefer Glocks!

 

[Indy_Guy_77]

Gonna bump this up again:

Scenario: We have about $800 to spend.

Having a nice, high-quality built-in webcam / mic in a laptop was a big impetus into a cash gift we rec'd.

Unfortunately, not sure if a laptop will fill the bill, so to speak.

Perhaps now we're thinking of buying a right-decent desktop / good external webcam + a very inexpensive laptop (w/ webcam) for portability throughout the house.

My father is soon to be on in-home dialysis and being able to "skype" with me and the baby is a BIG DEAL.

So.... more suggestions?


-J-

 

[norman428]

Gonna bump this up again:

Scenario: We have about $800 to spend.

Having a nice, high-quality built-in webcam / mic in a laptop was a big impetus into a cash gift we rec'd.

Unfortunately, not sure if a laptop will fill the bill, so to speak.

Perhaps now we're thinking of buying a right-decent desktop / good external webcam + a very inexpensive laptop (w/ webcam) for portability throughout the house.

My father is soon to be on in-home dialysis and being able to "skype" with me and the baby is a BIG DEAL.

So.... more suggestions?


-J-

First: Careful with cheap laptops, Yes you only paid 300 bucks, but you get what you pay for, they are NOT built well, junk internals.

Laptop: If you go this route go with Either toshiba, Asus, Sony, In that order. Toshiba are going to get you the best specs for the lowest price, Asus is geared more towards gaming, Sony are very reliable, and have a "Motion Eye" webcam, one of the better webcams in a laptop.

Desktop: You will be able to get a very nice desktop for the same price as a mid range laptop, You get higher specs, loose the portability. So the significance of it being portable is key here.

If it were me, watch the sales adds and places like bestbuy, wait until a nice toshiba goes on sale, they have lots of sales during the summer for the kids getting ready to go to school.
Avoid dell and hp at all costs, they are junk. No offence to anyone that has one, but their most recent models, are made poorly. Sony and toshiba have the best tech support, Most of sonys is automatic through a program on the laptop, never even have to make a phone call, so thats nice. Basically just decide if you need the portability or not. If you go with a desktop, Asus, Great specs, Strong internals, very upgradeable.

source: I work at bestbuy. lol

 

[badwolf.usmc]

Gonna bump this up again:

Scenario: We have about $800 to spend.

Having a nice, high-quality built-in webcam / mic in a laptop was a big impetus into a cash gift we rec'd.

Unfortunately, not sure if a laptop will fill the bill, so to speak.

Perhaps now we're thinking of buying a right-decent desktop / good external webcam + a very inexpensive laptop (w/ webcam) for portability throughout the house.

My father is soon to be on in-home dialysis and being able to "skype" with me and the baby is a BIG DEAL.

So.... more suggestions?


-J-

I don't think you can get a good desktop & laptop for $800, you would better served to pick one or the other.

Unless you plan on upgrading the hardware within your desktop, i still think a laptop would serve you better.


Desktop:
Newegg.com - iBUYPOWER Gamer Power 567D3 Desktop PC Phenom II X4 925(2.8GHz) 4GB DDR3 1TB HDD Capacity ATI Radeon HD 5570 Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Webcam:

HD 1080p:
Newegg.com - Logitech C910 USB 2.0 1080p HD Pro Webcam

HD 720p (cheaper):
Newegg.com - Logitech C310 USB 2.0 HD WebCam

 

[Indy_Guy_77]

Oh yeah, and I'd REALLY love an on-board SD slot.

Could just buy a card reader, I suppose...

 

[seanamus]

Gateway - Laptop / Intel® Pentium® Processor / 15.6" Display / 4GB Memory / 500GB Hard Drive - Satin Black - NV55C38U

just wait for it to go on sale, my friend just got it a couple of weeks ago for 400, and is very comprable to mine which i have had for 2 years in august, and i have been very bad to it (dropped it, spilled a little bit of soda on it, leave it running for days at a time etc) it is a very nice computer and seems to be a very money efficient brand

 

[popeye]

I'd buy a new desktop. Probably a Dell. If you use the PC to do banking hard wire it to your router. If you have to have a Laptop get a netbook instead. It sounds like you really don't need a Laptop. I've got 3-4 old laptops laying around here. I used to use them as a database on the job.

 

[theweakerbrother]

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