Computer help needed

[Retired Trooper]

Whats the best Laptop for a small business for under $1000. Its going to be used for a ton of word and documents as well as a ton of power point programs.
So a good wireless internet connection is a must.

[retdetsgt]

Really hard to say, kinda like asking who makes the best car. I have a Dell Inspiron 1521 that's worked great for me once I added Microsoft Office to it. Although I've had several Dells and gotten great service out of them, I've seen plenty of posts here and other places where people were cussin' Dell.:confused: But I've had 4 and will probably buy another one when I need it.

[KnightRider3702]

Go with a Toshiba Satellite. They had a nice one on sale ( they typically do at Best Buy etc) for under $600

120GB HDD
2GB DDR2 RAM

The only downside as far as I see is that they come with Vista

check on tigerdirect.com and select Windows XP if you want to stick with that and see what they have available for a good price,

Pick your OS and go from there ;)

[FoodStampz]

Toshiba or Hp/Compaq.

Dell = EVIL!

[retdetsgt]

Toshiba or Hp/Compaq.

Dell = EVIL!

I feel that way about HP. Love their printers, hate their computers. Their tech support are the dumbest people I ever dealt with.

[Ispbear]

I got my wife a dell laptop for her birthday and have had zero problems with it. If you keep an eye on some the "deal" sites you can usually end up with a pretty good price on one.

Hers has a core 2 duo processor, 4 gigs of ram, 250 gig hard drive, DVD burner, blue tooth, and a 17 inch screen for the mid $800 range. But like I said I watched the sites for approx. 1 month before getting the best deal I could.

It has Vista premium on it and I was dreading that. However after working with it and getting it set up, I'm not sure why everyone is so down on vista. Given I'm not trying to run older software or games on it that would not be compatible, but for basic business use, email, surfing the net it works nicely.

[retdetsgt]

It has Vista premium on it and I was dreading that. However after working with it and getting it set up, I'm not sure why everyone is so down on vista. Given I'm not trying to run older software or games on it that would not be compatible, but for basic business use, email, surfing the net it works nicely.

Same here. I have VISTA Home Premium on both my computers and like it fine. It took a little bit to get used to some of the differences, but it ain't rocket science. I've never had it crash and/or lose anything, ever.

[KnightRider3702]

Heres the thing with Vista...the more "uer friendly" they make it, the more of a nightmare it is for us IT types. Disseminating that OS to fix things is a beast.

And as far as the GUI itself goes, I don't personally like how Vista navigates files.

But anyway, there are alot of options for a laptop.

ispbear, sonds like a nice deal. I got the Toshiba Satellite that I mentioned before that had all of those same specs minus the RAM & HDD capacity (I just hit reply before remembering all of them LoL)

[BP348]

Same here. I have VISTA Home Premium on both my computers and like it fine. It took a little bit to get used to some of the differences, but it ain't rocket science. I've never had it crash and/or lose anything, ever.

+1

I recently purchased a new home computer. A guy at work likes to do computer stuff and I told him how much I wanted to spend and he built it for me. Anyway he asked if I wanted XP or Vist and I said since Vista is the newest let's go with that. I've had the computer for about 2 months now and haven't had a single problem. Vist or otherwise.

I am going to need a laptop soon. I've been told I'll be traveling more offten to conduct oral hiring boards & that deal Ispbear got sounds pretty good.

By the way I'll be in the Dallas area later this week.

[retdetsgt]

Heres the thing with Vista...the more "uer friendly" they make it, the more of a nightmare it is for us IT types. Disseminating that OS to fix things is a beast.

The more user friendly that make anything, the better I like it. I couldn't care less about IT stuff. I just want something I can use for what it was intended and not have it crash on me.

Going back to HP, I've made four calls over the years to their tech support. The last was over a printer that wouldn't accept HP ink cartridges. The guy finally said he didn't know what the problem was and couldn't help me. End of call.

When CD writers first came out, I bought a HP external writer. My computer wouldn't recognize it. I called tech support. The first person couldn't figure it out, the second finally said that they didn't know how to make it work.:rolleyes:

One call for tech support about 6 years ago to HP funneled me from one phone option to another until I got a recording that told me to call the 800 number I just called.

Conversely, when my Dell desktop's DVD writer quit working, I called Dell in the afternoon and the next morning at 9 a.m. a guy was at my door to replace it. The Indians at their support are hard to understand sometimes, but they've NEVER failed to fix my problem quickly and effeciently.

[KnightRider3702]

Not that its a bad thing, but thats why the main market for Vista was the non-techy types. It's on a forced shift now since Microsoft has dropped support for WinXP.

Oh well. I'm trying to move off of teh MS bandwagon for my computing needs (AND NO I'M NOT GETTING A MAC!!) As one of my coworkers would say: "Don't be a sissy...put a REAL OS on there...lets load Linux"

[RemyG]

Dell has great reliability now and great tech support. I've only had one problem with my laptop (that i've owned for 3 years now), the battery would not hold a charge after about a year. I got a new battery overnight shipped at no cost to me, even return postage with the old battery was paid for by dell. They are affordable, reliable, and have great tech support/customer assistance.

I would recommend them to anyone, tech savy or not. (I'm a tech savy individual myself). I have XP though, but have not had a problem with vista.

[Retired Trooper]

Thanks for all the feedback

[RemyG]

If need be, shoot me a pm and i'll help customize the performance portion of your laptop, I helped out kate getting her laptop by explaining to her what each part does and what amount of (cpu speed, memory, hd rpm/storage capacity) xxx you'd need.

If you need, don't hesitate! I'm always willing to help out someone on RP.

[KnightRider3702]

If need be, shoot me a pm and i'll help customize the performance portion of your laptop, I helped out kate getting her laptop by explaining to her what each part does and what amount of (cpu speed, memory, hd rpm/storage capacity) xxx you'd need.

If you need, don't hesitate! I'm always willing to help out someone on RP.

Offer doubled ;)
Whoever you go to first or can get a hold of first. Just use your available resources.