Would you kindly suggest a new laptop for me?

To be honest. You wont get much in the way of good at such a low price range.

The Wider screen computers with good parts will be at least a grand.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834101196

Thats not bad for the money. The 2.1 Cpu with a busty cache will keep you up to speed. Nice sized ram, could be better but beggars cant be choosers. Nice Hard drive space, brand name so a warranty or replacements shouldn’t be hard to find.

Tell me what you think and i’ll try you help more.

Toshiba makes good laptops. I found this. It looks good, but the battery life is shit. 2.25 hours is pretty bad.

It cannot be a Mac, as my school’s IT is very Mac-unfriendly.

You don’t need a new laptop. You need a new school.

@Shield_of_Achilles, that one looks like it has about the same specs as the ones I’ve seen at officemax (I get a discount with them) Thanks for the suggestion, it would probably work well for me.

@johnpowell, battery life doesn’t concern me that much, because my last laptop’s battery would die immediately after unplugging it, so I’m used too/not really bothered by a shitty battery. That laptop looks good though. I’m kindof leaning towards it at the moment.

Thanks alot, folks.

@frdelrosario, I’m going to a great school for free, we just have a shitty IT department. Thanks anyway.

@frdelrosario What are you talking about. Mac is quite literally crap parts with a label and a huge price tag.

I would only ever trust Toshiba or Asus, although I know little of Sony VAIOs. Don’t get anything with an AMD processor if you can avoid it, because they are noisier and don’t have as good battery life as the good Intel processors. That said though, if you get a great deal on one then don’t worry too much. Also avoid an Intel Pentium or Celeron processor, as these are not good for battery life either. A dual core over 2.0GHz should be enough for you, but it sounds like you will need a dedicated graphics card. For most people, a 32 bit operating system is still the best way to go, but 4GB is the maximum allowable amount of RAM (which is heaps for most users). I won’t give you specific models, but just get something that satisfies your criteria.

What about this ?

I don’t know much about computers, is this a decent one?

@Shield_of_Achilles Please refrain from starting a flame war. Thanks.

I have a Dell laptop right now. I haven’t had any significant problems with it and it was quite cheap. Something like this might suit your needs nicely. If you customize it, you can go for a bigger harddrive too.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Is it just me, or did you just link back to this question?

@gggritso Being a computer hardware enthusiast. I have a little more to go on than just opinion. I’m not trying to start a fight. Just sharing what I’ve found.

@FireMadeFlesh :: The link was botched. It should have been to here.

@FireMadeFlesh, do you mean in my thank you message? or where I asked about the laptop and linked to it? I’m surfing through my phone and it does some wonky things sometimes online…

If money is such a consideration, you may want to look at Dell refurbs. The XPS series was pretty damned good, and might break your price barrier now. They will run Win 7 out of the box, etc.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard I mean on this thread when you linked to the laptop. Maybe its my computer.

I’m a big fan of Asus’s. My first laptop was a W3J, and I loved it. I’m not quite sure of their new models, but my experience with them has been nothing but good.

What were some of the computers you were looking at?

@dverhey For some reason I always thought that Asus build quality wasn’t exactly legendary. Did you have any hardware problems with your laptop? How long did you have it for?

@Shield_of_Achilles Not wanting to start a fight here, but I’d also like to share my opinion with you.

I switched from PC to Mac about 3 months ago, and I’m as happy as a clam. When I think of all the time I’ve wasted over the past 20 years fiddling and diddling with PCs trying to get them to do what my beloved MacBook does intuitively and without complaint, it makes me weep bitter tears.

People complain about the price, but my question to them is: what is your time worth? My productivity has skyrocketed now that everything works, and works well.

Two words: Mac rules.

@PapaLeo Define “PC”, because I do believe it means Personal Computer. What you mean is “Windows sucks”. And yes, if you don’t change a few things, windows is very inefficient. Throw a little GUI Linix in your life and see how much better computer life can be.

@Shield_of_Achilles Thing is, I’m not just talking about operating systems. I’m also talking about all the time I spent with my hands getting scraped by card busses and the like. Accidentally dropping those ridiculously tiny screws into the power supply fan, etc. Remember having to manually set the switches on a sound card? Give me a friggin’ break!!!

Thanks @all, for the suggestions.

dells are really good for that

Damn, I find myself in agreement with @pdworkin yet again. Refurbished computers of all kinds (Dell and others) are readily available in a very competitive market. My next computer will come from a father-and-son storefront operation that I know of nearby. Great prices, great service from people I know (and refer other business to) and a wide range of options.

@gggritso I think you may be thinking of Acer. I’ve heard Acer build quality is terrible. I’ve currently sold that laptop to a friend and bought a macbook, but it’s still running after about 3 years, with nothing broken. I’m a firm believer in the “you get what you pay for” mentality in terms of build quality.

high five, cw

Stop feeding the flames. I too disagree, but I’ve had this argument far too many times. It’s not worth fighting.

Oy, could this not degenerate into fanboi nonsense, please. We are all trying to help the OP solve a problem, and he will examine all the advice, I’m sure. Macs are just lovely, and PCs work well, too.

@PapaLeo Without wanting to contribute to the flaming, that is the first time I have seen “Mac” and “intuitive” used together. My opinion is that Windows is stable if you know what you’re doing, but Macs are the safe option for those with a tendency to screw things up.

@Shield_of_Achilles, I really wish you would go somewhere else to have Mac/PC flame wars. This is where we help the OP find a laptop.

@pdworkin How is that a starting a flame war? He questioned my statement, I backed up what I said.
And if you look, I was the first to have a legitimate response to the OP’s question. So you can not say I haven’t contributed.

@dverhey You get what you pay for, unless you buy an HP. I have been told that they have good quality components, but they cost cut on the batteries so they die within a year or so.