new laptop!
 

I've been haunting this forum for a few days now, at least enough time for me to realize that everyone here knows much, much more than I do -- or that I really don't know much at all.

Anywhoo,

I'm going to be spending a year in Japan, and I need a laptop for classes and assorted schoolwork, and the occasional videogame. I have a budget of about $2000. Pretend this is your money... What do you buy? Links are preferred, but system stats are quite helpful as well.

I'm not sure the compatibility errors I'll run into over in the Land of the Rising Sun, so I'm not sure what constraints I should offer up; thus, information about those would also be helpful.

But, the point is: you have $2000 to design a laptop.

What do you do?

What do you do?

I have a 6 month old Compaq Presario 2100T laptop that I'm pretty happy with aside from the fucking mouse, but if I were buying today I would probably buy a Sony that is smaller than the 15.2" display that I have. At 6.75 lbs my unit's not heavy but I've come to realize that size does matter and I'm jealous of colleagues with the 12-14" displays that are 5 lbs or less.

Whatever you do, get SXGA+ or UXGA monitor and max out the RAM. With $2000 you can get pretty much whatever you want.

Toshiba Satellite - max out your budget.
Mine has withstood a few summer vacations, telecommuting, and general use as a workstation, since it's the fastest machine here.

I believe they are rugged pieces of good engineering.

im not an hp fan, but pc world rated one of their laptops the best in the benchmarks ratings. i think me personally, id go for a dell or somthing

IBM Thinkpad with Intel Centrino

I'm happy with my Sony. And, opposed to popular belief, Sony offers some reasonably priced laptops, definately good ones under $2000. You can check em out here.

I was chatting about my new laptop a few threads back


check it here

It hasn't been built yet (another couple of weeks) but there were a few good suggestions in there.

My dad got a Toshiba Athlon XP 2400+ with everything you'd want: 802.11g, 512 MB, 60 GB hdd, usb 2, firewire, blah, blah. $1100 at Best Buy.

rubi thats hella deal.

i bought my gf a dell a couple months back for her school work, i obviously got rid of all the bloatware on it once we got it home, but i was VERY happy with all the options and features available at the time i was doing the online config

<a href="http://www.gotapex.com" target="_blank">gotapex.com</a> regularly posts very affordable dell configuations. thanks to dell's stackable coupons, every so often an amazing deal slips through.

t40.

I've had laptops for 5 years and I must say, if I had the cash, I'd get an IBM ThinkPad T40, or preferably a fully decked-out T40p. That would be the new love of my life. :)

For now, my T20 does nicely.

Yeah. He went back almost a month later and saw it was on sale for $100 cheaper. He asked and Best Buy credited him another $100 because it fell within their 30-day price guarantee.

Smart shopping always pays off - if you have the patience!

Sony Vaio's suck.

Know someone who has a Sony and it has crashed about 3 times every day (XP Home)

14" Apple iBook
1 Ghz G4 processor
640 MB RAM
CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo Drive
60 GB HD
32 MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9200

$1,649

i have a sony vaio tr2a and before that a tr1a , they are both rock solid in terms of stability.

i like Toshiba i've been useing them quite a bit to do my job as a network person lol, but i think they are great i've even droped the one i'm useing now from bout 5 ft (do not try at home kids) and its still working :D

Yep. I have always been a fan of IBM laptops and have used them for almost 8 years. Great machines... I have dropped them, kicked them, stepped on them, and they are still ticking (no guarantees though :D). I have also found that I like their keyboard feel much better than any other laptop I have used.

Sorry, thought of some more stuff. Toshiba also makes good machines, you might want to look into those.

Also, remember that most laptops are <i>very</i> similar. Go to the store, find one that meets your needs, and <i>try the keyboards</i>. One of the biggest differences between brands of laptops is their keyboard action. Finding one you like can be the difference between a laptop you use all the time and one that sits in the corner unused.

I have a couple of questions.

1. Do you need to type/input in Japanese?

2. What part of Japan are you going to be in?

3. Do you want to input in Japanese after you return to the States?

You may want to consider buying your laptop in Japan, with a Japanese keyboard. Most laptops there will automatically adjust to proper electric cycles, saving you from dragging a converter around with you. (FYI: Western Japan runs on 50 cycles, Eastern Japan on 60 cycles).

If you buy your laptop there, wipe the hard drive of it's native OS, install a native English OS (2000 or XP) with Japanese language support, and you're good to hook. If you buy the laptop there, you can use it in the States without a converter because it will automatically detect the cycles. Plus you would have a Japanese keyboard, which is uber necessary if you want to input in kana.

If your going to work in English only, look at the above comments.

Awesome advice, Ratman. I will definitely have to think about that.

I'll be at Kansai-Gaidai University, which is in Osaka.

Check out Sager. Some great power laptops and lighter versions as well. I've been very happy with them.

Osaka is in Western Japan. so you would need a converter if you bring it from the States. I would wait and get the laptop there. Having the Japanese keyboard (which, I should say is QWERTY layout, with kana as well) is so much nicer than trying to type in romanji. Good deals abound, especially in the big cities. Check out these links for English support, software and systems.

www.mcljapan.com

www.users-side.co.jp

Most of these guys offer dual-boot systems, but it's really not necessary. PM me if you need more info.