Best Laptop on the market

[MGD]

Okay fellow geeks, I hereby implore your wisdom........

My sister wants to buy a new laptop for personal use and to start her own business with. She uses a computer at work but isn't super experienced when it comes to IT....I'm not a guru by any means but I could easily get her set up and rolling with the knowledge I do have.

My main PC is one of the newer bottom of the line HPs with Windows 7, I bought it to support some recording software, have had minimal problems with it and have been somewhat satisfied. My laptop is an older Gateway with Windows XP. My wife bought it for me and I've used it since 05 for most of my beginner programming stuff, even though I've had to reinstall the OS a couple of times and it doesn't have near the power of the newer machines, it's been an okay unit. Either of these brands seem okay to me.....any thoughts????

She's soooo picky, and wants to have the best for less....(like who doesn't right?). Her business is undefined and she has no clue as to what to purchase.....The sales people keep trying to sell her extra warranty and all of that but I've advised against it being that I've been able to resolve all of my problems on my own, would help her with issues she would encounter, and have been dissatisfied with warranties I have purchased. Thoughts on warrantee?????

My HP has a 600 Gig hard drive and almost 4 Gig of memory, I don't know why she would need to start with much more than that....it not like she's a huge game nut or anything. She doesn't want to spend a ton either.....she's thinkin' like somewhere in the $500 to $600 zone.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.......

Thanx, MGD

[katmai539]

Well the Best Laptop on the market, replying to your thread's title, would be the Lenovo w710ds (look it up, it's quite overkill). Although i don't think your sister'd be satisfied with an extra screen and a built in drawingtablet, a module that corrects screen color according to environmental light, a rollcage that keeps your harddrive intact on impacts over 35mph, doesn't die when drowned in water (up to three feet or so) and so on and so on. The problem, however, this particular laptop costs a little $6000. If your sister isn't planning on spending half of her business' budget i'd recommend the HP WD755EA. Brilliant and fast laptop, around $1600, looks really classy, a little heavy but hey, not as heavy as driving your own business! I'm saving up money to buy one myself too. Take a look at both of them and compare. In speed there's not much of a difference but in price!

[EDIT]Wait, i now see your $500 ~ $600 limit. You won't get a decent laptop for that kind of money. Either way, HP's laptops serve the best price~quality relation. Even a $600 HP laptop would be fine.

[Go_bots]

Greetings to all,

Regarding the topic...

I don't know you guys. (scratching head quizzically) Those prices are pretty heavy for a good deal of folks trying to break into the IT field or to simply explore. I'm personally an ACER fan because it's pretty easy to manipulate, especially if you want to partition and install another OS or remove another entirely (wink). Things run pretty smoothly. I was saddened to see them jump-ship on Netbook development prematurely though - competition was a bit much I suppose. More importantly, the price is affordable for newbies like myself but they also have laptops with comparable specs in the ranks of the big4 (HP, Dell, Compaq, Toshiba) whose prices are more in sync of what's been quoted here so far. Also I like the fact that their becoming more recognized globally, though it tends to be a fringe kind-of-laptop. That's just my opinion.

I'm very leery of the big 4 and other mainstream brands that enjoy a comfortable share of the market if only because I know how closely they work with governmental entities ...far beyond the regulatory parameters of what is conceivably 'security concerns'. I've had a Toshiba before and that old boy still gets a Bios update every now and then for nothing serious but how do I know it's for what it says. I've had a Compaq before and as recently as four months ago, I purchased a Dell for my sister who's away @college (she loves it by the way); incidentally, Dell was voted the best laptop vendor by linuxjournal back in Nov. Personally, I don't require anything so fancy while I continue to perfect my craft in coding. Furthermore, I think a healthy mistrust of all such firmly placed business/political entities is smart. Best advice for anyone is the following: Read, read, read, & read.