Laptop suggestions?

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wasilvers

wasilvers

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I need to get the kiddos each a laptop for their school this year. They are home-schooled and will be doing streaming school thru Abeka video.

The machines have to stream flash (Adobe 10) with no problems - as well as be ok machines for the next year or so. It has to be durable enough for the kids to travel with them 2-3 days a week. The kids are careful enough with our laptop, but you never know what they can get into. I have MS Office licenses for them so that will be installed as well.

I thought about netbooks, but each review I read shows they have trouble with playing flash without being jumpy. UMPC's are an option, but I have to buy 2 in the next 3 weeks, so the cost is up there. "Rugged" Notebooks are not an option at $3k each.

Any suggestions? Any brands work great for you? I use HP now, and we go thru about 1 a year with power cord or display issues.

Thanks for any input!
Will
 
I've had good luck with my Toshiba Satellite Laptop. As a over the road truck driver I need a computer that can handle the extremes in weather and bouncing around in the truck. One day it can be in the 100's in the desert, then the next day in the 0's in the mountains. I started out with a dell and it only lasted 2 years. This toshiba is in its sixth year and still running strong(still on the original cord that came with the computer, the battery needed replaced in the fifth year). Still its time to upgrade from xp to window 7 so I'll be picking up a new toshiba down the line. From what I've seen they are running from $500 to $800 at walmart. Who knows maybe I can find a way to use this older labtop in the boat when I pickup a new one. I sent my twin daughters to college last year each with a toshiba satellite. I figure if mine can survive me in truck then theirs should survive four years of college.
 
We have to keep ours from school for 5 years... I did have to replace a battery, but my lenova think pad is still going strong. Used to be 4 years and my last one barely made it. A lot of the kids at school use the apples, but I just can't get used to them.
 
I'd have to agree with po1..... I loved my toshiba, which lasted me about 5 years, right up untill the day it was stolen :evil: I'v also had a gateway, dell, and compaq (HP).... and would never wish one upon anyone as they are pure junk!!! My wife still has a Sony Vio that is about 8 years old and still runs strong too.

My new Laptop is an Asus, and I can't complain about anything at all. Asus has always made parts for computers, now they got into the game for themselves, and have very reasonable prices. You can probably find a couple with decent video cards and proceccers for around $400 to $450 each.
 
I bought a Dell in 2002 and it lasted a little under a year before I gave up on it. The warranty was a joke. I had problems with it not long after I purchased it and I could not get them to honor their warranty. Their policy is to shove it off on the next customer service agent until you hang up. I will never buy another Dell. I bought a Gateway in 2003 and it ran beautifully for seven years. I just purchased a new Gateway NV Series a couple of months ago. It runs great so far. It is a little larger than I was looking for since I carry it to work every day. It has an Intell Core I3-330M Processor and runs streaming video with no problem. P.S. I have heard rumors that Gateway was purchased by Acer but you can still purchase Gateway branded products out there.
 
you get what you pay for.
I have a dell about 3 years now and on proplems but it was top of line when it was new xps.
 
So Toshiba or Sony - I can swing that. Two of my employers had Toshibas and they seemed to be durable enough. Sony is Sony, I just expect it to work ;)\

Thanks for the help, now to scour TigerDirect,Frys, and a few others for some deals.

:)
 
I also love TigerDirect.... Good site. To bad its not close to the day after Thanksgiving, that's when I got mine for more than half off :D
 
As someone that works with computers for a living, I am extremely surprised to see anyone endorsing Toshiba... I would say the number of Toshiba laptops I have repaired is probably double the amount of all other brands combined. They have serious heat dissipation issues, not to mention absolutely abysmal customer service and the components they use are pretty much complete garbage...

I can't say much nice about Sony's computers either...

For years now I have bought nothing but Dell for the school here, and have absolutely no complaints... I am not saying a Dell is necessarily better than other laptops out there, but I started ordering from them exclusively because they are the best at honoring warranties and getting me parts FAST when something goes wrong: you can't put a price on that when you are responsible for keeping a bunch of machines running at all times... Kind of disappointed to hear people here not happy with their customer service. Perhaps they treat an average person differently than they treat an IT Consultant? I have had nothing but good experiences with them...

I do give Asus a HUGE thumbs up though: the quality of their stuff has always been great. I can't say much about their Customer Service though as I have never dealt with them (I have heard they are NOT the greatest in this aspect though...) and they haven't been in the pre-fab PC game long enough to know for sure if their quality is still as high as it was when they were a Motherboard/Graphics Card manufacturer.
 
I am a pretty passionate hater of the Macs, but they are GREAT for our students to use and for me to easily monitor what they are doing. Apple really has the education market licked, but I have a really difficult time with them as far as warranty work is concerned, which is really disappointing considering how much we pay for their hardware and warranties...
 
breachless said:
I am a pretty passionate hater of the Macs, but they are GREAT for our students to use and for me to easily monitor what they are doing. Apple really has the education market licked, but I have a really difficult time with them as far as warranty work is concerned, which is really disappointing considering how much we pay for their hardware and warranties...
Click to expand...

I am curious why? I'm by no means an expert on this stuff either.... just curious as to why you hate macs. My wife has a Graphics Design business, and all she will use for the real meat and potatoes of her job is a mac. In fact she is not the only one..... Both of the newspaper firms she does work for only use macs. She tells me it is because a Mac is far more suited to run her programs? Like I said I really only know a little about a lot.... But not much about the macs.
 
Well, I think Apple has skated by for a LOOOOOONG time on the assumptions by people that things are still the same now as they were 5 or 6 years ago. Back then, Apple really DID have a superior platform for things like Graphic Design, Audio Engineering, Video Rendering and Editing and that sort of things. For multimedia purposes, it was hands down the best, and they deserved the reputation they had.

The problem I have is that people are using them under the assumption that this is still the case, when the truth is that you can spec out a Windows-based machine with more horsepower for half the cost of a Mac, and nearly all of the apps one might use for these sorts of things, AND be able to use a ton of other apps that an Apple won't run.

I am not saying Macs are crap: they are nice, fast, and easy to use, and they certainly have a place in the market where they excel. I just get really bummed when my friends with Macs have problems and get totally ripped off at the Apple store after paying double what they should have paid for the thing in the first place. With the prices you pay for a good Mac, it should be covered by an unconditional, no-questions-asked warranty for at LEAST 3 years.

I think the people that actually WORK with them in most cases are simply working with them because it has been engraved into the office environment for those types of multimedia tasks. All these companies from x-amount of years ago invested all this money into software that runs on a Mac that it becomes easier to just stick with Macs, not to mention they are probably just simply used to Macs and prefer to just stick with what they know (nothing wrong with that: if it works, why change?)
 
breachless said:
Well, I think Apple has skated by for a LOOOOOONG time on the assumptions by people that things are still the same now as they were 5 or 6 years ago. Back then, Apple really DID have a superior platform for things like Graphic Design, Audio Engineering, Video Rendering and Editing and that sort of things. For multimedia purposes, it was hands down the best, and they deserved the reputation they had.

The problem I have is that people are using them under the assumption that this is still the case, when the truth is that you can spec out a Windows-based machine with more horsepower for half the cost of a Mac, and nearly all of the apps one might use for these sorts of things, AND be able to use a ton of other apps that an Apple won't run.

I am not saying Macs are crap: they are nice, fast, and easy to use, and they certainly have a place in the market where they excel. I just get really bummed when my friends with Macs have problems and get totally ripped off at the Apple store after paying double what they should have paid for the thing in the first place. With the prices you pay for a good Mac, it should be covered by an unconditional, no-questions-asked warranty for at LEAST 3 years.

I think the people that actually WORK with them in most cases are simply working with them because it has been engraved into the office environment for those types of multimedia tasks. All these companies from x-amount of years ago invested all this money into software that runs on a Mac that it becomes easier to just stick with Macs, not to mention they are probably just simply used to Macs and prefer to just stick with what they know (nothing wrong with that: if it works, why change?)
Click to expand...
Ever used a Mac for more time than a few short sessions ??

Your general premise is correct, in that they are not as superior as they once were and that for some jobs they are head and shoulders above a Windows box. Overpriced... you bet !!! Worth it... hardly.

But for high end graphics and video work, it's Mac... hands down.
 
I have spent more time with a Mac than I care to admit to be honest... In fact, I probably spend more of my time at work dinking around with Mac problems than I do with our Windows machines.
 
You'd still recommend Dell after what they just got caught doing? If you hadn't heard, they knowing used inferior components, balked on warranty replacements and would then replace broken parts with same component KNOWN to fail. They even had a school that was running hardware intensive apps and kept having issues. Dell's solution was to tell them they were working the machines too hard! :shock:

I have had Dells and had them last pretty well, but that was years ago.
 
wasilvers said:
You'd still recommend Dell after what they just got caught doing? If you hadn't heard, they knowing used inferior components, balked on warranty replacements and would then replace broken parts with same component KNOWN to fail. They even had a school that was running hardware intensive apps and kept having issues. Dell's solution was to tell them they were working the machines too hard! :shock:

I have had Dells and had them last pretty well, but that was years ago.
Click to expand...

I know Dell makes some good stuff. I have a Dell monitor on my custom built desktop computer. It works great, never had a problem with it. The problem I had was with a Dell laptop. They refused to honor their warranty. All they could do was transfer my call to another customer service agent. No one knew anything about the computer it seemed. By the time I gave up I would be talking to an agent in India which you could barely understand. It was awful. The warranty ran out after a couple of months trying to get it fixed. That left a bad taste in my mouth for Dell. Now on the other hand My girlfriend purchased a Gateway desktop computer in which the video card went bad. Their service was excellent. They were very knowledgeable about the the computer and how to fix it. They sent a new card and we had it working in a couple of days. They were top notch. From then on I am a Gateway guy. I have had no more problems with her Gateway desktop or laptop or my two laptops from Gateway.
 
Well there you go: to be fair, I haven't actually purchased any new machines from Dell aside from my own laptop in about 2 years now... in light of some of the things I am reading here in this thread, I would definitely be thinking long and hard about buying from Dell again this fall when it's time to order up a bunch of new tech for the school. Problem is, I have no faith in any of the other manufacturers either, so how do you really pick one? Like I said, warranty-wise, Dell has always been good to me (and I never claimed their laptops were necessarily BETTER than anyone else...)
 

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