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August 31, 2011 4:54 PM Subscribe
Cheapskate who doesn't buy into the netbook craze wants to fall in love with a >$500 laptop. Introduce us!
A netbook isn't for me. Help me find a cheapish 12-15" laptop to take home.
Things I do: listen to music, watch youtube, browse the internet, sometimes with a slew of tabs open. No gaming (unless you count minesweeper).
Requirements:
1. 300+ gigs of hard drive space: I like to download music and movies.
2. CD-RW drive: I like to burn cds. I listen to them in my car, make mixes for friends, etc.
Otherwise, the usual wishlist: something reliable, sturdy, lightish, decent battery life.
Any ideas?
A netbook isn't for me. Help me find a cheapish 12-15" laptop to take home.
Things I do: listen to music, watch youtube, browse the internet, sometimes with a slew of tabs open. No gaming (unless you count minesweeper).
Requirements:
1. 300+ gigs of hard drive space: I like to download music and movies.
2. CD-RW drive: I like to burn cds. I listen to them in my car, make mixes for friends, etc.
Otherwise, the usual wishlist: something reliable, sturdy, lightish, decent battery life.
Any ideas?
I have one of these. It is not in any way for gaming (except, I suppose, minesweeper), but otherwise it's terrific.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 5:13 PM on August 31, 2011
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 5:13 PM on August 31, 2011
Honestly Best Buy has one of these on "sale" every week and they're all pretty interchangeable. Your best bet is to find one in an ad that's got the right price and then go poke it in person. I'd avoid "Pentium" branded CPUs and look for an Core i3 as that's at least new and will have more processing power relatively speaking.
There's this Gateway (cheaper). Or this Toshiba (bigger HD).
I know you're looking for a specific recommendation but the supply chains for these low-price machines are incredibly short and I'd be surprised if any given model is sold for more than a few months. Your best bet is to find a good price, poke it in person to see if you hate the keyboard/trackpad and just get it. Certainly price compare on BB, Amazon, Tiger Direct and Newegg, but at least at BB you can go in and check the trackpad to see how terrible/acceptable it is.
posted by GuyZero at 5:17 PM on August 31, 2011
There's this Gateway (cheaper). Or this Toshiba (bigger HD).
I know you're looking for a specific recommendation but the supply chains for these low-price machines are incredibly short and I'd be surprised if any given model is sold for more than a few months. Your best bet is to find a good price, poke it in person to see if you hate the keyboard/trackpad and just get it. Certainly price compare on BB, Amazon, Tiger Direct and Newegg, but at least at BB you can go in and check the trackpad to see how terrible/acceptable it is.
posted by GuyZero at 5:17 PM on August 31, 2011
Response by poster: Yes, I meant ;ess than $500 (or around there). I guess I never learned to make my alligator eat the bigger number in elementary school.
posted by quelindo at 5:30 PM on August 31, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by quelindo at 5:30 PM on August 31, 2011 [2 favorites]
I've been handling a very cheap 15" Toshiba. It's dad's new bookkeeping beater. Coming from my reassuringly expensive work machine, a Macbook Pro, the Toshiba keeps surprising me with its straightforwardness and usability. It's fast, too.
You have to clean out some crap software to get it to run like it should, but you have to do that anyway with any branded Windows machine these days. (Make sure to do this whatever you buy! Very noticeable difference.)
posted by krilli at 5:40 PM on August 31, 2011
You have to clean out some crap software to get it to run like it should, but you have to do that anyway with any branded Windows machine these days. (Make sure to do this whatever you buy! Very noticeable difference.)
posted by krilli at 5:40 PM on August 31, 2011
Don't buy a cheap Toshiba. Cheap Toshibas are a world of hurt as soon as they go wrong. And they will.
posted by flabdablet at 5:46 PM on August 31, 2011
posted by flabdablet at 5:46 PM on August 31, 2011
Intel i3, 2GB RAM, and whatever hard drive is available. Then choose between screen sizes/resolution. Everything else is gravy.
posted by rhizome at 5:51 PM on August 31, 2011
posted by rhizome at 5:51 PM on August 31, 2011
Toshiba M700 might work for you - I've had mine for about 3-ish years. It's a 12" flip screen - turns it into a glorified tablet (sans touch - uses a pen). Battery life is about 2.5 hours.
Other than that, you can get a really good Acer 15.4" for around $400 that is really nice; I bought half a dozen for folks at work and they have been solid for us.
I wouldn't focus on the drive space on what you get; you can upgrade the drive to stupid levels of space (500-750 gigs) for under a hundred bucks.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 6:27 PM on August 31, 2011
Other than that, you can get a really good Acer 15.4" for around $400 that is really nice; I bought half a dozen for folks at work and they have been solid for us.
I wouldn't focus on the drive space on what you get; you can upgrade the drive to stupid levels of space (500-750 gigs) for under a hundred bucks.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 6:27 PM on August 31, 2011
I love my Asus - 500 GB and case like a tank. But it cost $900 (great chips).
Check out New Egg - online retailer with the best prices I've seen.
posted by jb at 6:58 PM on August 31, 2011
Check out New Egg - online retailer with the best prices I've seen.
posted by jb at 6:58 PM on August 31, 2011
I love my Acer Aspire Timeline X. Best laptop I have ever owned. It is a little more than you want to spend, but maybe you can find one on sale. Or, if an Acer is an Acer, forthright's suggestion looks good.
posted by ainsley at 7:47 PM on August 31, 2011
posted by ainsley at 7:47 PM on August 31, 2011
I just bought a Thinkpad x120e and I'm enjoying the heck out of it.
It's technically a netbook, but it's a remarkably potent computer, considering the low-spec CPU. It's larger than most netbooks. The screen is high-res and pretty, and the keyboard is full-size and on par for feel/comfort/quality with the Real Thinkpad Keyboard on my much more expensive Thinkpad T400. Battery life is solid and build quality is excellent.
The only thing on your list that it doesn't have is a CDRW drive, so you'd need a USB external for your optical needs.
posted by zjacreman at 11:35 PM on August 31, 2011
It's technically a netbook, but it's a remarkably potent computer, considering the low-spec CPU. It's larger than most netbooks. The screen is high-res and pretty, and the keyboard is full-size and on par for feel/comfort/quality with the Real Thinkpad Keyboard on my much more expensive Thinkpad T400. Battery life is solid and build quality is excellent.
The only thing on your list that it doesn't have is a CDRW drive, so you'd need a USB external for your optical needs.
posted by zjacreman at 11:35 PM on August 31, 2011
Forthright's link is the ones we bought for the office. Very good machines.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 5:50 AM on September 1, 2011
posted by Old'n'Busted at 5:50 AM on September 1, 2011
If you can, look at reviews for the screen (if you buy online) or look at the screen in person; some laptops have really bad screens, to the point where it's annoying (you have to look at the screen at juuuust the right angle). If you go to Best Buy, you can look at a Mac to see what a pretty good screen looks like, and then compare with what you want to buy (it probably won't be as good, though).
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 4:48 PM on September 1, 2011
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 4:48 PM on September 1, 2011
And for what you're doing, the current-gen (Bxxx, codename "Sandy Bridge") and last-gen (P6xxx, codename "Nehalem"/"Westmere") Pentiums should be fine, and not much slower than the i3s, except for some very specific tasks. You'll want the regular mobile version though (~2 GHz), not the ultra-low-power stuff (~1.2 GHz, v. long battery life, sort of slow). The Pentiums from before that era (T4xxx) are getting very long in the tooth, however.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 4:57 PM on September 1, 2011
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 4:57 PM on September 1, 2011
Response by poster: I ended up getting a ThinkPad Edge E420 actually, but same basic idea as what jon1270 suggested. Thanks y'all!
posted by quelindo at 9:52 PM on September 1, 2011
posted by quelindo at 9:52 PM on September 1, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
i suggest any dell 13 incher
doesn't have to be the latest model for what you want
try 1318 or m1330
posted by udon at 5:07 PM on August 31, 2011