This may be a bit early, but I'm going to be in the market for a new laptop in the next couple of months.

I currently have an HP Pavilion ze5375, which I've had since high school graduation in 2003, a P4 2.4 ghz. The battery life is crappy (original battery died, had to replace), around an hour on a full charge, and I've already had to replace the hard drive because of epic failure. Also, the 802.11b built in adapter is outdated and pretty much the only thing keeping me from upgrading my router to something more modern than my current 802.11b NETGEAR.

I need a laptop that is very portable and has excellent battery life (around 6 hours would be nice). Graphics aren't important, so long as it can process some D3D stuff that I program (mostly simple shapes meant to resemble walls). I'll be using it mostly to take notes, work on the web, and build some Visual Studio applications (mostly VB .NET 2005).

My roommate recently bought a Core 2 Duo Toshiba which seems pretty nice, and I've heard nothing but good things about Lenovo. My budget isn't set in stone yet, but it isn't especially high. Definately no more than $1000US, and the cheaper the better. So any recommendations you have would be much appreciated.

You can get a Dell Inspiron E1405 for like $700.

My mother has one, and while it won't get you 4 hours, on power saver it should get you atleast 4.5-5.

It's very small, and very very light. It also has VGA and S/video out which is nice.

If you have a spare copy of XP/vista kicking around go for I'd go for a macbook. If not I'd personally always seriously condiser a Toshiba.

avoid dell. macbook, toshiba, or hp are great.

pfft.. no. The only thing you should every by HP is a printer. Even then only get the expensive ones.

HP computers are the worse. I did well with a Compaq in the past...

My HP laptop is lovely. I had trouble with Compaq in the past.

Previously had a Compaq Presario X1460 (Pentium-M 1.5, 512 mb RAM, Radeon 9200SE), and had the screen, optical drive, speakers, and keyboard replaced. Thank god for my extended warranty. As soon as I got it back, I sold it off to some sucker.

Now I own an HP Pavillion dv2040. So far so good, it's been almost a year now.

I've also been considering this for a while, but quite frankly the only things I'm looking to do with it is browse the net, write my novel and play wow on it.

I'm frankly unsure what to aim for and what kind of money I'd need to dish out for that (namely wow)

Avoid retarded stigma.

After owning several Dell laptops I can tell you THEY ARE FINE.

You can get an e1505 with a 7600 Go got like $800, I think.

You'll have to look.

I know many, many people with Dells, both desktops and laptops. They are /not/ fine.

I have a Sony. It r gud.

You must know alot of tards.

I've NEVER had a problem.

My dad's company uses Dells, and uses them for their clients. They're older stuff was great, but within the past year or so, their products have really gone downhill in terms of quality. Tons of problems all across the board.

Dell used to be great. Experience with 500+ Dell computers, lately, has proven they are now otherwise.

MacBook/MacBook Pro :downs:

I just bought an Acer Aspire 5100 earlier this week. It came preloaded with Vista and I wiped it without even looking at it. It's running XP now. It's HARDLY a powerhorse, but it'll get what I need done just find.

Oh, and Acer tech support is CRAP. Complete, total, undeniable, CRAP.

I had to grab the drivers for the system from their website. Of all the drivers, the modem, wireless adaptor, soundcard, and graphics card were all either wrong, or did not work. Phone support was horrible. I was on hold for over 20 minutes. I sent them an email, despite hosting XP drivers, they refused to help me. I had to spend the next day and a half finding the missing drivers. Now that I have them though, smooth sailing.

So yeah, if you go their route, support sucks, and be prepared to suffer driver hell if you go to XP.

There's a general rule of thumb though for laptops regardless of brand:

Go small, light, and functional. It'll save your shoulder from carrying heavy cases around, it'll run so much longer on battery, and it'll be small enough to keep out of the way. Going for a desktop replacement just isn't a smart idea, there problems outweigh the benefits.

It looks like you're trying to do that, but just don't get enticed because one laptop has a better video card over another.

I don't know about Jep, but I care nothing for a video card. As long as I can do some DirectDraw and D3D, really simple stuff, I'm fine. I'm more concerned about processing power, as I'll need to compile and recompile some Visual Studio projects, as well as render .obj models in rendering software of choice, probably Blender or POVRay. Rendering quickly in Terragen/2 would be nice as well.

But yeah, like you said, I'm looking for lightweight and long battery life. I like MacBooks, but I'd have to see if I can get all the options I'd want (larger hdd and more RAM are easy to upgrade, but I need a DVD burner, not just a DVD/CD-RW combo drive, and Apple's site isn't clear if you can add it to the $1099 version). Also, MacBooks are still kind of expensive. I was hoping to spend around $800, and with the upgrades, the MacBook would probably run ~$1200.

Another thing is that I'm unsure of where to look to buy a laptop. Newegg/Tigerdirect are fine for parts, but I'm not sure about laptops. I've been searching around Pricewatch, but I'm unsure of the reliability of the stores I'm looking at.

You're upset because they gave you vista, and vista drivers then they wouldn't install right because you installed a likely illegal version of WindowsXP?

Talk about :downs:

You should have just stayed with Vista. But you're too

Oh well.

http://www.notebookreview.com

Lots of good info. And the folks on the forums are nice.

No. Idiot. Way to go assume.

They gave me Vista, I have every right to not WANT Vista. I have a COMPLETELY legal copy of Vista Business through my College MSNDAA, as well as a COMPLETELY legal copy of Win2k SP4, and COMPLETELY legal copies of XP with SP1a and XP with SP2.

I installed Vista awhile back on a spare drive in my desktop, decided I didn't like it, and have absolutely ZERO wish to use it as a primary system. ANYWHERE. Thus I installed a copy of XP with SP2. Drivers for *XP* NOT VISTA, were given on the site, HALF did not work.

Is that clear enough for you?

Oh, and if you need ANYMORE reasons why I don't like Vista.... When I had to take ownership of my external Hard Drive to even LOOK at it in Vista, it did something that locked me out of looking at half of the files on there when I returned to XP with it. Now, seeing as I depend on this drive QUITE OFTEN, I see no reason to repeat something like that on a continual basis. Especially since the only way to fix it was to salvage what I could and wipe the drive.

But that wasn't any of your business anyway. I just want to make it perfectly clear that I'm not a ****ing moron and paranoid.

So you're basically saying that anyone who doesn't like Vista is using an illegal version of XP, because nobody who actually upgraded from 98/ME/2000 back in the day kept their install disks, cd keys, etc? Does that mean that the version I'm using is illegal because it came pre-loaded on my computer (XP Home: Pirate Edition) because I'm paying for the computer and not the OS? Wow, when you're done telling us what we're obviously doing, can you pm me tonight's lottery numbers?

Then again, it sounded exactly to me like he was trying to use Vista drivers with an illegal version of XP. Because this is what everyone on the internet does, especially if they don't see how Vista is obviously superior to any other OS in existence.

Maybe you haven't noticed the kind of stuff he posts about.

Either way I don't care.

I'm sure.

<`Rob> The beauty of being right.
<`Rob> Is that when you are right, the other person will always respond to you with hostility.

And Rob's point has just been proven.

Yeah. mhmm. Would you like proof? Be MORE than happy to dig up the appropriate emails. Along with posts on other forums of people who had the same issues I went though.

Oh, nevermind. Just because I responded to a known ******* with hostility means I must be wrong. Wasn't aware I had to be all polite about it.

On the internet, faking e-mails is impossible.


INTERNET.

But, Rob! Proving you're right to a person on the internet is really important!

Wow, this thread fails.

Seriously, you guys suck.

if your laptop comes with vista business or ultimate, you have downgrade rights to XP Pro anyway.

and Rob, I work on these things every day, so I get to see who has more problems, and Dell is by far the worst.

I got a 13" Macbook, and it's awesome. Order some extra RAM and you're golden.

I'm sure if I made a post slating something (like a race or people who use certain software or who do things in a certain way) I would get quite a bit of hostility which wouldn't necessarily make me right

So... All this time SF_Gold has been right, and we were wrong?


Also, what is "epic hard drive failure". That sounds like the worst epic ever.

HP and Compaq are the exact same thing now, Compaqs are fords and HP's are mercury's... There is no difference albeit some luxuries that HP's have that only grandma would use anyways.

I concur!

A friend of mine has a macbook. The screen fell off. Literally.