Time For A New Laptop..Any Good Deals?

[orangecrush]

Originally Posted by nickdawgy

I decided to go with this one:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...00_i00_details

I am sending back the Dell.

I'd drop the extra money to get another 4GB of RAM. The 7200 RPM HDD and dedicated graphics should help make it feel much faster than that dell. I'd also recomend deleting all the pre-loaded software before you do anything. I recently bought an HP laptop from the Microsoft store. I appreciated that it hardly had any bloatware.

Edit: Reading the reviews, it looks like it comes with some antivirus installed. Get rid of that and just stick with Microsoft essentials.

[D.Pham4GLTE (>60GB)]

There has to be something wrong with your wifi, shouldn't be dropping every 20 minutes.

[nickdawgy]

Originally Posted by orangecrush

I'd drop the extra money to get another 4GB of RAM. The 7200 RPM HDD and dedicated graphics should help make it feel much faster than that dell. I'd also recomend deleting all the pre-loaded software before you do anything. I recently bought an HP laptop from the Microsoft store. I appreciated that it hardly had any bloatware.

Edit: Reading the reviews, it looks like it comes with some antivirus installed. Get rid of that and just stick with Microsoft essentials.

I changed at the last second and got the one with a better video card and bigger hdd. But I picked up 4gb of ram for $22, so it's all good.

And I'm way ahead of you on MSE. I hate pre-installled one month trial virus protection. Have used MSE for the last few years.

Originally Posted by D.Pham00

There has to be something wrong with your wifi, shouldn't be dropping every 20 minutes.

yeah turns out it was the modem

[Randy Miller III]

I'm currently on the market for a laptop as well...finally moving away from the desktop at home. Looking to keep it under $600-$700, as I'd like to do some basic video/photo editing but nothing that warrants a super high-end machine. A Blu-Ray drive would be nice, but it's not necessary. Weight isn't a big deal either, as it probably won't leave the house very often.

As a Costco member I was looking at this: http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product...uctsInCategory.

Pros? Cons? Other leads?

[RichC2]

Pros:
Intel® Core™ i5-2430M Very solid mobile processor
8 GB RAM
640 GB HDD
HDMI Out
USB 3.0

Cons:
1366x768 Resolution is terrible on 15.6" screens
I've never been a huge fan of Dell products (They tend to break on me).
Poor Battery Life (Review - "The included standard six-cell only lasted 2 hours and 21 minutes in our video playback battery-drain test. Anything less than 3 hours is a big disappointment, especially with a second-gen Core i5 CPU and no dedicated graphics.")
Bulky

If you don't mind a less than impressive screen, bulky design and short battery life it's a solid laptop especially at that price. It should perform well. Also, Dell sells the 17" version for the same price: 17" 1600x900 LED; Intel Core i5-2450M 2.5GHz Dual-Core Sandy Bridge; 6GB RAM; 500GB HDD; DVD burner; 802.11n + bluetooth; Windows 7 Home Premium; 720p HD webcam; 6-cell battery; 1yr warranty; MS Office Starter (Word and Excel w/ Ads);

[orangecrush]

Tiger direct has another Dell that might work better for you:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...TQc5qW1e51WAJA

$700 AR

[nickdawgy]

I love the new Vaio, it's really fast, and way better than the Dell and the old HP I had.

Trying to get rid of all the bloatware though. Not sure what I need and don't need.

Any advice?

[Randy Miller III]

Thanks for the recommendations, guys. I went with a Dell business-class laptop with a solid state hard drive, sold over on a Woot-related site yesterday.

http://moofi.woot.com/moofi/megabook

Sure, a slightly bigger hard drive might've been nice (as well as USB 3.0), but the build quality, SSD and three-year warranty sold me on it. It comes with 4GB RAM but I'll get at least another 4GB separately (max is 8GB, but many past buyers have commented that it's actually 16GB).

As far as the lack of USB 3.0, can I just buy the upgrade separately and swap it out?

[Timber]

Originally Posted by nickdawgy

I love the new Vaio, it's really fast, and way better than the Dell and the old HP I had.

Trying to get rid of all the bloatware though. Not sure what I need and don't need.

Any advice?

If it's that much bloat I'd probably just start over. Did it come with a Windows disk?

[nickdawgy]

I think it did. What is the process of starting over, just a complete reformat?

[D.Pham4GLTE (>60GB)]

Originally Posted by nickdawgy

I think it did. What is the process of starting over, just a complete reformat?

Assuming it isn't just a restore disk and is a full windows disk, then stick it in, install it. In the installation process, it will give you the option to reformat.

[nickdawgy]

What if it's a restore disk? That's just the factory condition, right?

How would you reformat then?