Laptop recommendation needed

[Jarhed7276]

Hi,

A friend of mine ask me about a laptop recommendation for a gift for his daughter's birthday. Unfortunately, I know nothing about laptops ( I think I touched one once). He has about a $1000 to spend. Could I get some opinions on who makes a good laptop in his price range or some pointers in what to look for in a good laptop?

Thanks,
Gerry

i moved this to the Mobile Computing section

what will she be doing with this laptop? College? Will this be replacing a desktop? Will she be bring it with here alot? Will this be used just for word processing and surfing the web?

[Jarhed7276]

Thanks GZ3. I didn't notice this forum.

I not quite sure how she will use it. This one is to replace one that was stolen out of her car. I think she uses it mainly for email and web surfing. She is a geologist and spends 2 weeks at a time offshore anylizing core samples. Not sure if she uses it in her work or not. He was looking at a Gateway w/ 2 gig celeron, 128 meg ram, 20 gig hd, 56k modem, 14" screen, intergrated nic, and WinXP. This was for $1000. Only thing I could tell him was that she would need more ram for XP to run well. Other than that I didn't know if it was a good deal or not.

Thanks,
Gerry

[Xeroid]

We've had a lot of luck at work with Toshibas. Stay away from Compaq's, they've given us nothing but grief.

We also have some Dell's and IBM's that managers and sales types use that do well. I don't know how well they would hold up in the hands of a technician who's lugging them around into every account all day though. No one can torture a laptop like a technician.

[VHockey86]

Well, no matter what you use it for. you want at LEAST 256MB of ram.

XP takes up 128 practically by itself

I've always been a fan of dell laptops, but I dont really have any experiance with other brands

[SeanC]

Originally posted by Jarhed7276

He was looking at a Gateway w/ 2 gig celeron, 128 meg ram, 20 gig hd, 56k modem, 14" screen, intergrated nic, and WinXP. This was for $1000. Only thing I could tell him was that she would need more ram for XP to run well. Other than that I didn't know if it was a good deal or not.

Thanks,
Gerry

You would definitely need 256MB to run even XP home decently with ANY programs open. You should still be able to get one for $1000 with the extra RAM.

Otherwise that config is perfect for e-mail, web surfing and basic office tasks (word processing and spreadsheets)

Sean

[unknown9]

That config might even be overkill (except for ram), i think i would downgrade the processor a little and add some ram instead.

[Steeple]

Take a look Here at Best Buy. A nice Toshiba is about $850 after rebates.

[pickel]

I have the 800 p w/ a P4 but this one seems to be a great little laptop.

http://www.sotecglobal.com/us/produc...02&prodid=1002

http://www.sotecglobal.com/us/produc...120X-Specs.pdf

View above with Adobe PDF reader

[Jarhed7276]

Hi all,

First I want to thank you all for your help and advice.
Second sorry it took me so long to post back. I hadn't heard back from him until today.

I passed along the advice and he decided to go with a Dell. He bought her an Insprion 5100 with a P4 2.4, 14.1" XGA TFT Display, 32MB ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 Graphics,
384MB DDR Memory,8X DVD-CDRW Combo Drive, V.92 modem, and a 10/100 nic. He was able to get it for $999.

His daughters B-day is this Friday and it seems she's going to have a great one thanks to all of you.

Gerry