Recommendations for a General Use Laptop for a Family
 

What's a good current set of specs for a general use laptop for a family?

There won't be any games on it besides Web games, so it doesn't need a video card that can handle 3d graphics amazingly or anything.

But what would be a good value?

Any brands you'd suggest over others? I have no experience with PC laptops, only desktops.

What is a good system that isn't overkill but that would be robust enough to do a wide variety of things such as homework, browsing, email, Web games, watching movies, listening to music, etc.?

I have an idea, but I thought I'd put this out there, as computer tech changes so fast, and I haven't looked at what's out there in a while.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Dell's are pretty solid. Good tech support...lots of user supported upgrade/repairs if needed.

I've also heard good things about Asus.

There should be a fair amount of choices at the 500$ pricepoint. I wouldn't spend anymore than that for a general purpose laptop.

Min recommended specs:
Core2Duo...1.8ghz or higher
2 gigs of ram
(videocard should be irrelevant..but any chance of viewing HD files?)

you can actually go for a bit more than recommended now. A Corei3(quad core) with 4gb of ddr3 ram should be about 700-900 depending on the rest of the features.

As far as brands go, I have an HP and love it. My parents have toshiba, my friends have asus and acer and everyone seems to like what they own. Keep in mind that now, you're only paying for name and support. The specs will be the same from one name to the next.

If you plan on buying in-store, check your local Staples and ask about their clearance deals. That's where I get my stuff as it's usually super cheap.

I'd go with a MacBook.

The only laptop I've had any experience with is a Dell, and it's the same laptop most of my friends at college had. The split was about 70/30 between people who never had any trouble and people who had a dell that was a heaping pile of crap. I know mine had 4 parts failures in the first year, which was fine when it was under warranty, the trouble was the failures kept coming. Customer service was also fond of reminding my roommate that he did not purchase a laptop, but a 'portable computer'. The computers were meant to be moved between desks and not really sturdy enough to be used as a laptop - meaning no extra resistance to bumps, drops or spills than a normal computer (food spills are probably the number 1 killer of laptops, with drops coming in a close second).

This is going on 10 years ago, but if I were to buy another laptop, I wouldn't consider dell without getting the 4 year full coverage extended warranty.


I despise Mac in general, but my wife's g4 laptop runs as good as it did the day she bought it and its roughly 7 years old. The battery is shot, but that's to be expected after this length of time.

Netbooks (itty bitty laptopy-things) are inexpensive, adorable, and easy to carry around, but the keyboard's tiny keys are impossible to work with, and the speed it takes to load a webpage is embarassingly slow.

I love my Gateway. It was cheap and has a nice big screen. It can handle anything I've thrown at it from image analysis software (Image pro plus, image j) to mapping software (ARC-GIS) and statistical programs (JMP).

Had a Dell Inspiron laptop for 8 years, and the first failure was the keyboard, after 2 years of abuse.

Laptops I've had over the last few years...

Acer Travelmate - Not ultra quality, but functional, lasted about 3 years before components started packing up.
Sony Vaio - Absolutely loved it, was super slick to use, excellent performance and always ran cool... damn shame it was stolen.
HP dv6 - Insurance replacement for the Sony... looks pretty but underperforms, and gets really really hot when set to high performance.
Toshiba Satellite - Most recent purchase and it's really great! Not as slick as the Vaio, but good performance.

I would buy another Vaio in a heartbeat, maybe another Toshiba, definitely not HP or Acer.

If you pay more than $350-$400 for a laptop for that family then you're wasting money, no ifs ands or buts. Get a Dell Vostro and be done. 2 GB memory minimum and the rest doesn't matter. No, the CPU doesn't matter as long as it's dual core.

I have a Dell laptop and I'm very happy with it. I had an HP laptop and it was nothing but trouble. It ran hot and as a result was in the shop 3 times in 18 months. The fourth time it imploded, I said to hell with it and never had it repaired. I'll never do business with HP again.

MacBook.
Easy for novices, does all you need, good software included, and you don't have to have anything to do with any of the various iterations of Microsoft Windows.

Lindy

Hmmm. Baraka never mentioned the level of users and is Windows really that much harder (nowadays) than Mac? One could argue if there current machine is a windows one, then this statement is actually false.

Not to mention about twice the price of a windows machine.

Yeah, it really was simply for homework in grade school, movies, Web games, all that simple stuff.

Yeah, I think this will be a Windows machine mainly because of price.

* * * * *

Thanks for all the tips, guys. They've confirmed some things, and informed me on some other things. I think I have a good idea of what's suitable in this case. It's incredible how much computer you can get now starting at $500.

Get any of the latest brand of laptops. Holy shit they're all so much better than anything I had 6 years ago, and 6 years ago I could do everything I do today..

Then put a linux distribution on it, so that you most probably won't ever have to worry about at time when you come home from work, ready to continue writing some paper, only to realize that while your kid was on the internet he/she happened to stumble onto some nasty malware that spams your screen with ads for porn.

After that, you will have a solid, reliable laptop that will provide years of secure, stable, speedy and efficient service for years and years and years and years and years.


Linux distros are 100% free, no registration required. You can put a linux operating system on a flashdrive, on a CD, on a harddrive, on your MP3 player, etc etc. The quickest route you could go is any laptop you can buy in a retail store, and the latest version of Ubuntu.

Burn Ubuntu to a CD and install it over windows, then if you want, you can install windows too, and use the loader to switch between linux and windows.

general use laptop
 

Acer is one of the best Laptops for the price.
I own a full Acer Laptop and an Acer Netbook, and both work great.
I also picked up a 3 year old Compaq for $100 that runs Win XP and have no problems with it.

Cnet has good reviews and specs on the Acer

Always something to consider with Macs is that they will serve you longer even if they do cost more up front.:) I have a six year old PowerBook and it still does everything I need it to do, (including large, complex Excel spreadsheets) easily docks into my desktop monitor/keyboard setup, has been utterly reliable, (even though I dropped it once) and is probably still worth $400 if I wanted to sell it. What's a five or six year old Dell worth?

If they are already using windows, you're probably right. Always easier to keep on keepin' on. All that software to pirate/move over onto the new machine too.:expressionless:

And well worth it if you think long term instead of present tense cash flow.

Lindy

From a hardware perspective, the two lines of machinery are converging anyway. You are paying a premium for an apple logo and OS. You'd need to sell it for more to make it even slightly worthwhile from a cash perspective. I don't dislike Macs, but you are taking the fanboi-ism a bit far to try to argue that a Mac is better value.

Hmmm - just because people run windows, doesn't make them software pirates. That seems a very long bow to draw.