Members Danhedonia Posted December 10, 2012 Members Share Posted December 10, 2012 I wish I could offer more help on specific models - the truth that I can offer is that the PC market is so insanely fluid that doing a fair bit of web research is smart. I do think that having a quad core proc as a general rule will be very important to those who want to process audio. As for brands .... I look more to corporate practices than brands or models. I flat out think Hewlett Packard's approach to the consumer desktop market reeked of sleaze. I'm sure they have some nice models, and I'm also sure they are non competitively priced. No one makes money in consumer electronics by being generous, but I do think both Asus and Acer make nice stuff, and Toshiba has been a benchmark for quality laptops for some time. YMMV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rog951 Posted December 10, 2012 Members Share Posted December 10, 2012 Is $360 too much? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GomezAddams1 Posted December 10, 2012 Members Share Posted December 10, 2012 I'm a big fan of Lenovo's T series laptops. Newegg sell refurb Lenovos for fairly cheap (compared to what they cost new). Two years ago, my daughter needed a laptop for college. I bought her a refurb T60, a new battery, and extra ram for $300. It is still going strong. Before my current T410, I had a T60 with 4GB of RAM running 32 bit Windows 7, and I was quite happy with it. Not sure if it fits in your budget, but a refurb T400 with 4GB RAM and a solid-state disk would rock. My current T410 has a SSD, and it is amazing. I can log in and start all my apps (including Outlook) in about 5 seconds. I highly recommend an SSD. It will make your system seem like greased lightening. Be aware that if you do get a refurb, the battery will most likely be shot. OEM Lenova batteries are priced about like gold, and aftermarket batteries are a crap-shoot. If you go this route, let me know and I'll dig up the paperwork and figure out what I bought for my daughter. Oh, and also note that some models of the T60 series won't run 64 bit Windows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mrbrown49 Posted December 10, 2012 Members Share Posted December 10, 2012 I'm a big fan of Lenovo's T series laptops. Me too. I have a thinkpad at work, and my GF has a lenovo edge and both are great laptops. The edge doesn't have the great keyboard that thinkpads are known for, but it's got a great keyboard in it's own right. The basic version of the edge started at about 450 at the time I got it for her. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JohnnyDD Posted December 10, 2012 Author Members Share Posted December 10, 2012 what is an SSD? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Ratae Corieltauvorum Posted December 10, 2012 Moderators Share Posted December 10, 2012 what is an SSD? Solid state hard disk drive, small (Physically and capacity) expensive and no moving parts so fast and not prone to mechanical damage. Asus would be my bet too, as all the really good Samsungs are too expensive, maybe look at some older Dells, needs to have at least a Core 2 Duo running at over 2GHz, avoid any AMD chipped based laptops. Lenovo/Thinkpads are love hate things, personally I can't stand them, some swear by then, Toshiba Satellite Pros and Tecras are usually solid and well spec'd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gdsmithtx Posted December 10, 2012 Members Share Posted December 10, 2012 Solid state hard disk drive, small (Physically and capacity) expensive and no moving parts so fast and not prone to mechanical damage. Lenovo/Thinkpads are love hate things, personally I can't stand them, some swear by then, Toshiba Satellite Pros and Tecras are usually solid and well spec'd. The prices of SSDs have been dropping lower and lower this year. A few months ago, I got a Crucial M4 256gb for my desktop (replaced the C: drive with it; insanely fast Windows boot up and restart times) for $185. I have a Lenovo G770 (core i5 quad core CPU, 6gb ram, 750gb hd, 17.3" display and dedicated hi perf [for a laptop] video card) that I've been very happy with. I picked it up at Amazon for just at $700 a year ago August. They're now $537, which is a good price for quite a powerful portable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tkachuk07 Posted December 10, 2012 Members Share Posted December 10, 2012 I picked up a 15.6 inch Gateway laptop @ Target last week for $259 + tax. This was a pretty hot deal where most stores were probably sold out the same day the sale started. The only real bummer is no USB 3.0. It's really no issue for me, but if you do transfer files between an external hard drive you miss the reduced times of USB 3.0. I found to step up to a significantly better machine spec wise you really needed $550 - $600. The options were not abundant, but it was possible to get a graphics card with 1GB dedicated to graphics & you would get USB 3.0 & probably an AMD A8 or Intel I3. Anything in the $300 - $500 range is going to have integrated graphics pretty much no doubt & most still do above that price. GatewayIntel Pentium B960 - 2 cores Sandy bridge (Close to I3, basically equal in most tasks)4GB Ram500 GB HDIntegrated GraphicsWindows 8Only USB 2.0, no 3.0.DVD DriveHDMIVGA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members katty1166 Posted December 11, 2012 Members Share Posted December 11, 2012 How about these models? I think the price is affordable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sammyreynolds01 Posted December 11, 2012 Members Share Posted December 11, 2012 the hp or the lenovo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members steve_man Posted December 11, 2012 Members Share Posted December 11, 2012 HP would be the best choice, followed by Asus... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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