Wolverines

Looking to buy a decent laptop. I sorta want one of the ultra-portables (12" screen) so I can carry it around, BUT I'd rather one with XP. I've looked at Dell and a bit at IBM, are there any other places you guys can suggest for a Laptop customization?

what are your expectations/constraints?  how much do you want to spend?  you already mentioned portability.  what about gaming? 

As far as brands, I like Toshiba, Dell (as long as you get the one good type but can't remember which one that is), alienware, and Lenovo (formerly IBM).  Toshibas are the best imo.  When I worked at Compusa back in the day, those were the laptops I had the least in the shop for repairs and we sold a fair amount of them.  You may not be able to customize them as much, but still quality.

Dells and Lenovo/IBM are the best in my opinion. I haven't worked on or used Toshibas, but I know my personal Dell laptop I sold to Bleed worked great and Lenovo/IBM are just rock solid. Volnar, Kithari, and myself all have lenovo's of different models we use for work and they are sweet. Check out notebookreviews.com for some good info on laptops.


AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, NEVER, EVER, BUY A GATEWAY.

Hey, what's wrong with Gateway laptops?  Oh, that's right.  Everything.  ...fucking shortsighted nincum-fucking-poop librarians...

go with gateway and then pester JT about making an image for it for 6 months.

I'm looking at a range of $1000-$1200. Gaming isn't my biggest priority, if anything I'd use it for smaller, C&C, TA kinda stuff. Its mostly so I can have a decent notetaking and coding computer (my next 2 years are going to be heavily in coding and networking).

that's fine.  I'm just going to outsource the work to Snacks anyways.  :)

PS - Thanks again Snacks!  You rule!

Dell has some great deals on their smaller models, i think base price is 700


hey you owe me an imaging drive that works!

wtf mate?  l2imagingdisk!!!

Look in the dell outlet store under "refurbished" there are some sweet XPS systems for $1,700 512 vid cards, 17 inch screens...most likely that will be my next laptop...

I'm honestly trying my best to stay away from Dell. Their support sucks, and a laptop is nothing I'm going to really be able to service myself.

I hear, though, that their small buisness class support isnt too bad. Is it easy enough to get into that class range?

I <3 my Toshiba... seems to love wow too. Only thing is I couldn't get it with XP, only Vista but I haven't had any issues with Vista (By the way if you don't like the new layout of stuff it lets you to convert to classic view)

I've never had any problems with Dell support. I had my laptop for about 3 years and had to contact them a few times. It's best to just use the live chat session vs. calling them. It's a lot easier. I wouldn't totally discount dell as an option, their inspiron series is relatively cheap and compact.

I'll +1 a few of the comments above endorsing Lenovo and Dell.  The Latitude D630 is a very nice machine, and on the Lenovo side the T61p is pretty sweet.  If you want to go with more of a gaming/desktop replacement laptop you'll need something beyond those models.  In that case I'd say Dell XPS (see Refurb site).  Toshiba probably wouldn't be a terrible choice either, but I don't have a ton of experience with them either.

Customer support is hit or miss no matter where you go, but Dell has been the best out of my own personal experiences over the years.

My advice usually boils down to this:  Don't buy a computer/laptop from a retail store (BestBuy, etc), buy a Dell if you want a desktop/gaming rig, buy a Lenovo if you want a rugged, reliable, powerful laptop (unless you want an uber gaming laptop, or are on a budget, then see Dell).  If you're into building your own computer, more power to you, but that's so 1996 for me.  (Hi Hawkes! Love ya buddy!  ;))

-gr0n

The d630 latitudes are nice, we use them as our classroom loan laptops. They are small and take a beating, we have about 20 of them and all of them have weathered really well considering people treat them like shit.

ok, in looking at all of the major laptop sellers, I have come to find out that none offer XP. I get free copies through my school, and have no problem reformatting into XP when I get it, but I hear finding XP drivers for Vista laptops sucks. Any suggestions? (or maybe a place that still sells XP laptops?)

microsoft is no longer selling XP, its all vista now, and I've had no problems with drivers - vista finds just about everything on the initial install.

I think Nads is referring to formatting and going to XP instead of Vista, then experiencing problems getting XP drivers that will work with the hardware.

gotcha, well everything I read is that everyone is still going to support XP as far as drivers

Dell is still supporting XP for us till 2010, meaning we don't have to get, and we don't get Vista on any machines we buy from them.

Who is "us" and can I become one :-p

hm, I guess if its not that big of an issue in finding drivers, I won't worry too much about that.

and one last question: with or without Vista, is 3GB of RAM overkill on a laptop? Or would 2 do me just fine?

sorry, "us" is my place of employment and if you like making maps sure, you can be one of us! I'm always a fan of RAM. If you can afford more RAM do it, it's always worth it in the long run.

ThinkPad R61

•    Processor:        
  Intel® Core? 2 Duo processor T5750 (2.0GHz 667MHz 2MBL2)
  
•    Operating System:   
  Genuine Windows Vista Business
•    Recovery DVD:         
  Genuine Windows XP Professional Downgrade DVD US English
•    Display type:      
  15.4" WXGA
•    System graphics:       
  Intel GMA X3100, GM965, 1394, S-Video, PC Card/Smart Card
•    Total memory:       
  3 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM)
•    Pointing Device:
  UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad) with Finger Print Reader
•    Hard Drive:       
  160GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
•    Optical device:       
  DVD Recordable 8x Max Ultrabay Enhanced
•    Wireless card:       
  ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wi-Fi wireless LAN Mini-PCIe US/EMEA/LA/ANZ
•    Battery:       
  9 cell Li-Ion Battery

$ 1,087.20 

through Lenovo. Pretty sure thats what I'm gunna get. Any suggestions or better deals anywhere else? I want to order it by mid next week.

are you a student? might be able to get a student discount. i know OSU gets like 30% off

Did a quick check on my school's site and Lenovo, couldn't find anything. I go to RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology). Is there some certain place that would say it?

Hmmm, I couldn't find anything on their site either.  You should probably call 1-800-405-6879 and ask them about it.

Called them, and they have a standard "Student Discount" of 5%. With tax and shipping, cost me $1,061.14. thanks for the help

kick ass!  congrats!

Mom signed for the package at 9:30 this morning. Time from order to boot-up: 7 days. It only took 2 days to get from Hong Kong to my doorstep, I was in shock to have it so soon. Thing is a beast. Now to dual boot it with XP and Vista. Thanks again for all the help guys.

eh just skip the xp, might as well start getting used to vista, and honestly after the service pack update it works really well.

put Fedora or Ubuntu on it instead

Won't matter, Vista will be skipped and Windows 7 will be the new norm before long...

Rando = correct.  Use XP for now and see what happens with Windows 7.