Thread: Need a lap top

the asus range and the toshiba range.

I have the linux 701-4g EEE from asus and with a few usb addons its the ducks danglies the bigger ones are even better but at $300 for a 701 its hard to go past. <$700 will get you into the upgrade models that run windows as well as the toshiba units that share the same foot print (Dicksmiths have all of these)

They aren't really laptops or notebooks they hit the class of NETbook so dont expect them to do hyper complicated stuff or run the latest games but for basic DTP, File management, Internet watching movies they're pretty good.

The toshiba sattelite range is sub $1k and is pretty much the bread and butter of the laptops that I have at home (I have a couple sparies I use as loaners on occasion if your local and youd like you can borrow one to have a test run with)

For bargin basement the tevion units that turn up at aldi are hard to go past so long as you dont expect top of the line perfomance or durability from them but for what they are they are very very hard to beat on price and providing you fill out the warranty card their warranty is very hard to beat.

It may be possible to pick up a refurbished Apple macbook for around 1k, or a new macbook with the education discount for just over the 1k. I know you'd like to keep to your budget but one of these would be a vastly better computer than most things in that price range.

To give you some idea a friend bought a tevion laptop and we put my macbook next to it and the screen was like TWICE as bright. His you couldn't see well in bright places where the mac you can.

It all depends how much he will use it. If it's occasional go cheap but if it has work to do see if you can go a little better for a much more usable device.

dont get a hp what eva you do every person i know that has had one the screen has failed just after waranty ran out we have 2 toshibas now and they are fantastic

Check out Dell computers on the Internet, they usually have some good deals, esp. if you buy online, Regards Frank.

My friend works for Asus in the repair centre. He always used to steer me away from their laptops but changed his tone about a year ago and now recommends them over other brands so that must be a good thing. Apparently the older designs used to break at the hinge.

I Hope your son isn't into gaming much because a $1k laptop won't handle the newer games. Be great for internet and school assignments etc though.

Mines a higher end HP and so far (6 months) has been trouble free but now i'm worried about my screen (glad I got the extended warranty!)
-Mark

I'll second the MacBook, and the new one is basically the same as the 13" MacBookPro but in a plastic case.

The EEE's are also good, few friends have them.

I have acer 3620 now for 3 years No problems what-so-ever and it gets used daily.
John

We have a Toshiba - about 6 months old now - and it has been faultless . I would tend to stay away from Dell. Our last laptop was a Dell, and although its performance was great for the price, it wasn't terribly reliable .