Buying a laptop

[vy_storm]

With Dell you can sometimes get a better deal by going to or ringing one of the kiosks, much better than over the phone direct to their sales dept. From memory there is one at Marion, the only one in SA at this stage.

Dell Direct Kiosk

[Tom_1569]

Dell is winning 3 votes to 1 I think it's clear which brand I should go for!!!!!!!!!

Dont really know what happened to my thread but thanks to people who have offered their opinons and advice.

I'm looking at:

Benq Joybook dual core 2.1ghz, 250GB, 2gb RAM, 14" screen blah blah blah. $1200 from A & R computers.

Dell inspiron 250gb, dual core 2.0ghz, 2gb RAM, 15" screen Microsoft office included. $1100 from Officeworks

Asus dual core 2.16Ghz, 250gb, 2gb RAM 15" screen blah blah blah. Office thrown in no worries. $1100 from JB's.

Only really using it for basic stuff prob running a little bit of ableton or something like that so dont need a special graphics card or anything.

One of the main things I am asking is who should I buy from taking into consideration I'm not all that computer savvy. The Benq is winning at the moment because it's from A & R and it's also a pretty decent little laptop with all the specs I need and the right size.

My main worry is is something goes wrong or there's something I cant figure out that I wont be able to easily get help if I buy from JB's and the like.

BenQ arnt a very common laptop, so I would imagine there spare parts will be rather expensive (I could be wrong), also in most cases laptops need to go back to manufacturer for warranty repairs, so the computer shop will probably have very little to do with helping you, they may send it back for you, but I doubt they will be fixing it, but I dont no BenQ's warranty policy on laptops at all.

Dell are great value for money, and very solid. There after sale support and warranty's are excellent. Spare parts are "reasonable" compared to other manufacturers.

Asus - I havent had much dealing with them, so I wont comment much.The ones I have seen. seem alright nothing flash still a half decent computer, and reasonable solid.

You need to make the choice in which you feel comfortable in, also if you can go try some out, some laptops have a really bad design, and you get sore hands after typing for long periods of time etc.

Also if you choose dell, check out there website, Im pretty sure its cheaper to buy direct.


To the angry poster suggesting Hp/Compaq and Acer. You obviously lack knowledge in the technical field, or have not dealt with any of these companies direct.
HP/Compaq are well known for there dodgey power supplies, to the point we took one to an electrical engineer after buying 4 in 6 months. He looked at it, and said yeah there designed to break. He actually put this to Compaq's engineers, and the resolution was they sent out 4 "new design" power supplies, yet there "new desgin" power supplies still havent hit the market, wierd considering the sting you around 200 bux for each power supply. There service and warranties are pathetic, and they claim "this isnt covered under warranty".

Acer - Well where do I start. Every single Acer 2320 I have seen has over-heating problems, despite it being a common fault (google it if you wish) acer fail to acknowledge this. There designs are poor, and the cases are flimsy. When I was at TAFE, we had one room full of acers, and one room full of Dell's, They had to get two technicians to become "authorised acer tech's" because it was costing them to much in call outs. The dell's I never seen one even fail.


Laptops are designed to be taken with you, people drop them, they get knocked around sometimes you cant help it, thats why I keep coming back to how solid they are, as it is a very crucial part in my opinion.

Someone suggest IBM, they are ugly as dogs balls, but they are very good laptop, mine just wont die, I have dropped it, chucked my backpack (where it lives), survived a water fight when it was in my backpack, and constantly falls off the seat of the car with the lid open.

[Astranomical]

I'd go with the Dell...as others have said, Dell's after-sales service is second to none. Unlike most other manufacturers, they actually do seem to care about making their customers happy.

As for Macs...they're great machines, I'm on a MacBook right now and love it, but unless you've got Mac software that you want to run, or you want to use iLife or whatever, its probably not worth it. They can run Windows through Boot Camp, and it'll be just as good as it is on a regular PC, but to my way of thinking, unless you're going to use it as a Mac, its a bit pointless, kind of like buying a 4WD and never going off-road.

[TVR-190]

Seriously, go the Aldi Brand

Core 2 Duo 2.00, 4gb Ram, 320GB HD, 512mb 8600M GS graphics, 17'' screen and the parts are sourced through toshiba

[Bax]

Dell used to have a bad reputation for quality of computers, and a lot of people I know that are into computers still don't like them. But there is no denying that they have good customer service.

Asus, Lenovo and HP are the brands that I've heard are the best out of the Notebooks.

Also, when it comes time to choosing a laptop, go and look at it - see what the case is made out of, if it has a scratch resistant case. Then general stuff when you use it, take off your watch.

Take your time choosing it, think about where the headphone sockets are, think about where the buttons are.

I regret buying mine, It's near two years old and it was overpriced and underpowered. If I do buy another, it will be a smaller portable notebook, perhaps a 10" screen.

[Nanos]

I would go a dell. I have had mine now for 3 years. use it every day on constructions sites and i treat it rough.

pay for the extra warranty well worth it. i have used it several times all over victoria. cant beat the service

and before everyone asks the repairs are not becaue they are shit but because i treat it bad, no laptop will survive a drop of a 6 foot ladder.

[bezz]

So does anyone know whether any of the laptop brands are releasing new models at the moment? Keen on a dell studio 15 for uni, but I want it to have a T9xxx and a video card with dedicated memory. I can option up the highest model studio at the moment to include the better processor, but that adds like $300 to the price.

[Bax]

Not too sure bezz, I got told to hold out a while not long back. So I guess some places may be releasing some more soon.

[bezz]

hmm been doing some scouting and came up with these 4. I need this one for uni, to run various processor intensive simulation programs. Hence Id prefer something with the intel T9XXX processors. I don't need to play games on it, although i might run dual monitors. I have heaps of hard drive space on my home network so big hard drive isnt a concern, although you can never have too much room. I want 64 bit vista with it.

Asus JB Hifi $1797
T9400 (2.53GHz)
4gb ram
800gb hdd
ati hd3470 256mb dedicated graphics
tv tuner
vista ultimate (not sure if 64bit)

Dell Studio 15 $1798.30
T9400
3gb ram
320gb hdd
ati hd 3450 256mb dedicated
bluetooth
vista home premium 64bit

HP DV51059TX $1499 MSY
T9600 2.8GHz
2gb ram (will upgrade to 4gb)
250gb hdd
Nvidia 9200GS 256mb dedicated
Vista home premium (not sure if 64 bit)

HP Pavilion dv5-1134TX DSE $1615.95
P8600 2.4Ghz
4gb ram
320gb hdd
Nvidia 9600M GT 512mb dedicated
Mobile remote control
Vista home premium (not sure if 64 bit)

Leaning towards the HP from msy, or the JB Hifi asus if I feel like wasting more money.

[zerodown]

I've read a lot of positives about Dell in this thread so perhaps they have improved over the years. I still wouldn't touch 'em though unless something terrible went wrong with Toshiba and I wanted to switch.

Toshi all the way.

Try Laptop.com.au Pty Ltd - Cheap laptops notebooks Australia for sale - New and used notebook - Buy online - Quality notebook computers
Great prices and better spec machines than what's in chain type stores.

Oh, and stay well away from HP.

[vy_storm]

If you're looking at a certain model, join up and have a search over on whirlpool to see if there is a thread with any issues relating to it. When I got my XPS they had a major issue at the time regarding grainy screens and many people were able to get them switched out after reading about it on there.

Notebooks - Whirlpool Broadband Forums

[drewins]

I ened up buying the Benq Joybook. Pretty good little unit for what I need. Thanks for all the advice. In the end I heard good and bad thins about every brand. Some people swear by Dell and some people loathe them. I guess every brand can have their issues.

[bezz]

I ordered this one today, just a touch over $1700:

HP PAVILION DV5-1139TX-NE557PA
C2D T9400 (2.53GHz)
4GB DDRII
400GB hdd
DVDRW SM LS
15.4' WXGA
nVidia 9600M GT 512MB
WiFi Link 5100
GLan
Webcam
Remote
MS Win Vista Home Premium

My best advice is to do your homework and shop around, some stores were selling notebooks with worse specs than this up around the 2.5k mark.

[albert5268]

My old man ordered this the other day for $4300

SONY Vaio VGN-AW190
Intel C2D T9800 2.93 GHz
4GB DDRII PC2-6400
80GB Intel X-25M SSD (approx 230MB/s avg read)
500 GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue
18.4" 1080p (1920 x 1080) screen
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT - 512 MB
BD-ROM (Blu-Ray)
Vista Ultimate 64 bit

Usual features... WiFi 802.11n, webcam, bluetooth, fingerprint scanner, gigabit LAN

Should run fairly well with the X25-M SSD