Laptop Recommendations needed...

I'm in the market for a laptop. I'm looking for something to use for Word, Outlook, and your basic school stuff like powerpoint and even the occasional photoshop session. This is going to have to last me for at least a couple of years when I get a real job and such. So I'll need wireless, and enough RAM and CPU power to use this thing for a while. Let's start my budget at $800. Any recommendations? What do you guys think about buying off of EBAY?

eh, your choice on the ebay thing, if you trust ebay enough, then go for it, sometimes it has some good deals, id suggest kjust gettin a dell or a compaq, i dont know if you can get a real good lap top for 800, if you jacked up your budget, id suggest a sagar www.pctourque.com same as alienware, but cheaper

Dell has a few cheap value notebooks that might be worth looking into that are close to $800. I think they had a celeron 2.0 system from about that. Inspiron 1100?

If you don't mind noise Compaq notebooks are ok. I know quite a few people with new compaqs. It might just be the models with P4's that are loud. You could also look at HP lappys since Compaq is hp. You could go check out HP or compaqs at bestbuy and then buy em online.

I have allways liked dell notebooks. There are two in my house, and my highschool has a laptop program where every student gets a dell laptop, they do fairly well.

dell makes good laptops but only bad thing is when you have a problem and you got to call them plan on being on the phone with them for a few hours

I have a new Compaq and it is pretty loud but only while the fan is running. The fan is almost always running if it is plugged in but if you're running only on battery power the fan rarely runs and it's very quiet then.

Apple

Why not get an iBook or PowerBook, along with Microsoft Office X. You'll know it will be great for things like Photoshop, too. Also, I never hear of problems with Apple notebooks. Sometimes I do with other brands.

I have an Acer Aspore 1353XC and it rocks imho - graphics arent great but it comes with xp2400+/256mb/20gb/dvd/cdrw and WLAN is optional.

Re: Apple

t_biggs said:

Why not get an iBook or PowerBook, along with Microsoft Office X. You'll know it will be great for things like Photoshop, too. Also, I never hear of problems with Apple notebooks. Sometimes I do with other brands.

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Cause it needs to be around $800 thats why....

What do you guys think of the HP 4560 series. It has an XP2500+ with 512mb of RAM, built in 54g wireless, etc. etc.

It looks like they've been selling new on ebay for right about at my budget. Here's a product link.
http://www.shopping.hp.com/cgi-bin/..._code=DM736A#ABA&cat_level=4&browse_link=true

I went over to the local compusa and felt around on the laptops and I have to say I liked the HP, though I wouldn't have considered HP a top brand. There's a couple of people in my classes with this laptop and it certainly is attractive.

The graphics are Radeon integrated with shared memory. Just how bad is this. Would I be able to play a few older games?

One last question. eMachines has come out with notebooks based on the Athlon 64. There's a loaded system with 512mb and a Radeon 9600 solution for only $1300. This sounds like it's too good to be true, like the main parts would be ok but other things would be trashy. Any opinions? That's a lot of performance that might be worth it if it's packaged well.

I know my whole family loves dell laptops! I personally don't have one yet, but there has been good luck with dell so far that when I buy one, it will 90% be a dell.

I'm looking into the Dell's. The only think affordable for me though, is one based on the Celeron, and then it doesn't have built in wireless, only has 256mb of RAM, and has a smaller screen. I'm still considering it though. If the quality is that much better than an HP, then it might be worth the performance cut.