Laptop Opinion

[Poppa_Meth]

I'm thinking of buying the following laptop.

http://www.staples.com/office/supplies/StaplesProductDisplay?storeId=10001&jspStoreDir...0051&langId=-1

Seems to be a decent system for the price. Any input on it? I don't normally buy from Staples but it seems like a good deal for what I'm getting.

Thanks.

[G)-(OST]

man, that is cheap, for us in Australia anyway, 2 months ago, I bought a HP Pavilion from our local Good Guys store for AU$2200 with similar if not the same specs, also, I like the smaller 14.1 inch screen, keeps it more compact. The only thing I hate about HP's is, there is alot of HP garbage installed that I had to get rid of.

Denis

[freebird73717]

With the exception of the screen size it's very similar to a laptop that I bought for my wife from staples a year ago. Hers is a 17inch widescreen. Other than that the specs almost match completely. It's been a good machine.

Like G)-(ost said though there is a lot of HP crap that you have to get rid of. I spent the better part of two hours getting rid of crap and tweaking vista to run smoothly after we bought it. But after that it has run smoothly.

[lordsmurf]

If it overheats, and you hate it, can it be returned for 100% money back? Some stores do that, others suck.

My HP's are awesome, but my brother has one that could bake cookies or fry an egg.

[redwudz]

I've been happy with the Compaq/HP laptop I'm presently using. I also got it through Staples. (Compaq F750US Laptop) Once I removed all the crappy included programs, it worked fine, I also adjusted the power settings as I use an wall adapter most of the time. By default those laptops will run in power saving mode and may seem a bit sluggish compared to a similar desktop PC.

Just using a spacer pad underneath the laptop to keep the air intakes and exhausts more open helps a lot with cooling. I use a radio mouse as I can't stand those touch pads. I shut mine off as I was always dragging my fingers on it while typing and the cursor was always moving around. I also moved the caps lock key to the scroll key so I didn't keep hitting it all the time.

[Poppa_Meth]

I haven't seen a Desktop or Laptop in years that doesn't come factory loaded with a bunch of junk. I'm use to cleaning it up for other people so I shouldn't have any problems there. This will be my first Vista rig and I'm dreading that. I've worked on Vista a few times for other people and it still annoys the crap out of me. Hopefully it'll come with a free upgrade to Windows 7 just in case.

I might as well order it and hope for the best. I just have to figure out if they'll take my Staples Rewards dollars for it as well. They can be picky about what you use those on, but an additional $25 off would be nice

Thanks for the input.

[Poppa_Meth]

It looks like Staples gives you 14 days on technology purchases for a 100% refund. I guess that's reasonable. Now I have to find a decent wireless router to add to my wired network.

[redwudz]

I'm favoring Netgear routers at present. Had two bad Linksys ones in a row. Enough of them. My laptop hasn't lost the wireless connection in months.

I've been running Vista on this laptop for about a year and I like it a lot more than XP. It's fairly hard to crash and no complaints. I do have UAC tuned down with TweakUAC. That was one of the major irritations for me. And I refuse to use IE8 as all it does is screw up the system.

My old HP laptop is also still alive and running, but it didn't have a wireless card and I wore the letters off the keys from typing. But it was dependable. I paid about $600US for this Compaq and upgraded to 2GB RAM and it's also been dependable.

[Poppa_Meth]

I'll probably get a Linksys WRT54GL an put Tomato firmware on it. Never had a problem with that particular combo yet.

UAC will definitely be tune on mine. I find it to be a joke of a security measure. If I'm dumb enough to click yes the first time, I'm 99.999% sure to click in again the second time. My main gripe with Vista is that they moved absolutely everything and I have a hell of a time finding things that were simple to find in previous Windows versions. It's just not laid out intuitively to me.

[Poppa_Meth]

Well. It seems to be a good little laptop. I hate HP software though. I can't seem to burn recovery disks to save my soul. I get past the verification of the first disk of three, which takes over an hour, and it tells me to reinsert the disk I just burned. Then it sets there doing absolutely nothing for hours on end. Any input on this?

[victoriabears]

I did a lot of research and found that modern laptops build has improved a lot due to comppetition and their greater popularity as a desktop replacement.

I expected to try mine and return it as I have historically disliked laptops, as soon as I experienced wireless for the first time and the ease of use of this laptop I was sold.

Dunno if its true in the USA but I went away from HP for one main reason, if it needs fixing it has to go back to HP, whereas London drugs here in Canada fix Toshiba in their own workshop, I am very pleased with my Toshiba, its works flawlessly with my Linksys wireless N router and was easy to set up.

http://www.londondrugs.com/Cultures/en-US/Product+Detail/Computers.htm?BreadCrumbs=Com...7&ProductTab=3

I use a kensington bluetooth mouse so I do not even have a usb dongle sticking out the side.

It did not come with a lot of crap software either.

Other than that I believe the Dell are very good.

[Poppa_Meth]

Well I finally got my restore disks made. Evidently the burner in this thing is extremely picky about what media to use. 7 different types of disks will not read in the burner. My very newest Verbatims worked fine. Go figure. I might make them replace the DVD drive if I have issues with so many different medias.

[G)-(OST]

Had two bad Linksys ones in a row. Enough of them. My laptop hasn't lost the wireless connection in months..

I also had a bad experience with Linksys, my model was WR160N, I wish I checked the net for feedback first, nothing but bad comments on them, It would not let my HP laptop connect, it kept dropping the signal out on my desktop & I had to reinstall my printer drivers every 3rd day or so, it just would not recognize it anymore, I ended up getting a trusty Dynalink RTA1025W, it is only a G, but that is good enough, N is still in draft anyway, but the end story, not one problem, not one disconnection & I have had it now for 7 weeks, but I must say, Linksys's phone support is great, they tried to help so much, but how can you help when the unit is a dud.

Denis

[lordsmurf]

I have a Netgear that randomly refuses connections sometimes. Unplugging and re-plugging power is the fix.

[G)-(OST]

Yeh, that seemed to be a quick-fix with my Linksys that lasted all of a few hours

[Poppa_Meth]

I've always had issues with Linksys when using stock firmware ever since they moved away from Linux builds. That's why I specifically got the WRT54GL. It's still a linux build and can be easily flashed to a third party firmware. I've used DD-WRT before but had it brick two routers during upgrades. Actually it was before upgrades. They tell you to hold the reset button on the back to reset to factory defaults before an upgrade, but this bricked two routers during the reset for some odd reason. Tomato is a lot safer firmware to use, though not as fully featured. It's fine for me though. So long as torrents work okay with the router, that's all I really need new firmware for. Linksys without 3rd party firmware hates BT.