Help_Laptop gift for wife

[dogknot]

I need some help from the laptop gurus.

My wife will be retiring in a couple of months after a 30 year teaching career. She plans to continue working (probably privately) in education as an educational advisor. The district provides her with a work laptop now (a crappy HP), but that will end at the end of this school year (retirement).

My dilemma is the more I research and read about the different laptops, the more confused I get. :isadizzy:
(in simpler terms...I don't know what I'm doing)

According to the charts for a 3 year laptop life, they indicate Asus and Toshiba as having fewer problems. (?)
Some reports indicate that the 500GB hard drive "dies/gives up" nearly twice as much as the 320 GB. (?)

Here is what I think she would need and/or like and possible uses:
15" screen or larger
good storage capability
good horsepower
good to great battery life
cd/dvd player/burner.......blu-ray would be a nice option
card reader
blue tooth capable (??)
HDMI capable would be nice
USB ports
decent speakers
reliable warranty
reliable customer service

She would use the www, stream videos, e-mail, powerpoint presentations, manage pics like jpg/bmp etc, watch movies, download and listen to music, word processing, Microsoft Office and Works, forms and grids, taxes, etc., etc.
And probably at least ten other things I can't think of right now.

I'd like to keep it under $1200 if possible.


Thanks for your time and input. :salute:

[tigisfat]

I need some help from the laptop gurus.

My wife will be retiring in a couple of months after a 30 year teaching career. She plans to continue working (probably privately) in education as an educational advisor. The district provides her with a work laptop now (a crappy HP), but that will end at the end of this school year (retirement).

My dilemma is the more I research and read about the different laptops, the more confused I get. :isadizzy:
(in simpler terms...I don't know what I'm doing)

According to the charts for a 3 year laptop life, they indicate Asus and Toshiba as having fewer problems. (?)
Some reports indicate that the 500GB hard drive "dies/gives up" nearly twice as much as the 320 GB. (?)

Here is what I think she would need and/or like and possible uses:
15" screen or larger
good storage capability
good horsepower
good to great battery life
cd/dvd player/burner.......blu-ray would be a nice option
card reader
blue tooth capable (??)
HDMI capable would be nice
USB ports
decent speakers
reliable warranty
reliable customer service

She would use the www, stream videos, e-mail, powerpoint presentations, manage pics like jpg/bmp etc, watch movies, download and listen to music, word processing, Microsoft Office and Works, forms and grids, taxes, etc., etc.
And probably at least ten other things I can't think of right now.

I'd like to keep it under $1200 if possible.


Thanks for your time and input. :salute:

For those requirements, you can do a lot better than 1,200 dollars. You'll most likely have to concede the good speakers though. You'd be buying a whole bunch of stuff you don't need just to get better speakers.

My Toshiba laptop is great, lasts a long time on a charge and is fast. I paid 500 for it at best buy back in november. It's got a core2duo 6600 and a 17" screen. It'll do anything she wants it to do other than game. I use it at work where I have like 15 windows open at any time, such as spreadsheets, PDFs, and word documents all at once. It never bogs down on me. I've got thousands of work files on it and my whole 300gig music collection.

It's got OK (good enough) speakers on it. Oh yeah, I don't think it has bluetooth either, but it does have WIFI without needing a USB plug-in. The HDMI works great for presentations.

[dogknot]

Thanks for the advice. I really appreciate it.

[djscoo]

Dunno if you saw the thread on Thinkpads, but you should check them out. There's a good selection, and they are pretty much the gold-standard in terms of build quality.

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/special-offers.workflow:find-config?category-id=653343E0DE54435882FABC3CE1BC569A&filter=Product%20Family_0

[safn1949]

I am typing this on a Toshiba Satellite A-505,I also have a L-505D.This is my 4th Toshiba,the L-505D is the girlfriends,I sold an A-215 that is still working great after 2 years and dumped a bottle of water in my A-305 by accident so I upgraded.

They have been great computers,they ride in an 18 wheeler day in and day out running 24/7 and never quit.I have dropped the A-215 4 times and it never quit,the A-505 twice...same thing.They get covered in dirt and run in all kinds of temperatures and humidity.

The speakers suck on the L505 but are great on the A-505,you just have to tweak the settings.Also the A-505 screen is brighter.

I often turn the truck off at night down to 40 F and leave them running.So yea,they are great computers.:d

[Snuffy]

Some of the best deals on the planet ...

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/guidedSearch.asp?CatId=17&name=Laptops,Notebooks

[dogknot]

I'm reading, reading, reading. Thanks fellas.

[Dangerousdave26]

I recently purchased a ASUS laptop from best buy and it does the job well but has an Achilles heel most people could not deal with.

But the problem is not ASUS's fault directly. The computer comes with a Seagate Momentus hard drive 500 GB, 8mb cache, 5400 rpm and an extremely high failure rate.

The first laptop I bought had the hard drive blow out in 9 days.

The second one I got because Best Buy would only return it not give me a hard drive for it lasted about a month. It now has failed. Rather than deal with Best Buy I called ASUS and they gave em a RMA for the hard drive. I sent the drive to them they received it on Tuesday. I should have it back with in two weeks. I asked for something other than a Seagate Momentus drive but we will see what they send me.

My point is stay away from the Seagate Drives. From doing some research on line I found out they are suffering high failure rates. Some people attributed this to the fact that Maxtor bought them. Where or not that is true or not I don't know yet. If they send me the same drive I am buying a Western Digital drive and installing my image on it.

Momentus that's how long it lasts!

[aeromed202]

Type in ASUS here for a thread I started a while back. My daughter settled on a K60J which had goods and bads.

Goods; Affordable at around $600, lightweight and portable, runs very cool, decent memory, took Windows 7 fine, handles music (of course) and DVDs, fast enough for streaming news, TV shows and such.

Bads; Crappy speakers, succumbed to the Black/Blue screen of death which revealed a pretty poor ASUS tech help service when we tracked them down (still waiting for the boot disks, not sold at time of purchase -Best Buy- to help keep the sale price down). We ended up doing a partial re-format with the built-in boot (who knew) partition and recovered all the files.

But she is still overall happy with it, especially the portability, Windows 7 frustrations aside. However I am thinking this would be a lower option, unless the missus really savors good deals over high-end stuff. I am also betting she would want a bigger screen at least. This one is on the smaller side (12.5"x7.5").

Good hunting.

[Willy]

I'll second Dave on the HD's. The next Western Digital that I have fail will be the first.

My daughter bought a Sony laptop a couple of months ago and seems to be well pleased with it. But also, I've always had very good luck with Toshiba products.

[harleyman]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115727

[safn1949]

Actually my first laptop was an Acer...it lasted exactly 7 days and never booted up again.I suspect the hard drive failed also.

[aeromed202]

Nice pick Harleyman. Pretty much the same thing we got, but the support HAS to be better.

[Lionheart]

If she wants high quality, some power, super thin package, you might think Apple Mac Book. The base unit isnt expensive, they make a white one that the ladies seem to like, its small, powerful, has tons of built in stock features, super nice screen, and you can load Win7 on it in either Bootcamp or virtual programs.

Their battery technology is the best around, second to none. They created their own batteries. They last usually 8 to 10 hours. Their screens are also LED illuminated, which tend to heat up your face, which is great when its cold out. (I dont know if it gives you a tan though).

The suite of Apple software (iLife) is pretty cool too, including iPhoto, iMovie, etc. iPhoto is great for all the family pictures and things, includes editing tools.


Just a heads up. If she is more a Windows person all the way, then I also suggest Gateways laptops. I bought my brother one a few months ago. Really sharp red case, Win7 64. He hasnt had any problems with it at all. (He wants an Apple now however, after seeing mine, lol).