penny-pinching student

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

I am a university student looking to buy a laptop mainly for research and
writing. My price range is bottom-end, between $1000-$1500 CDN (sub-to-$1000
USD). I've looked around and the Averatec AV3220, Compaq R3210CA, and the
Toshiba A60 seem to be the best pick. There are some comperable Dell's and
e-Machines too. My real requirement is wireless, and reasonably fast web
browsing. Are these good picks? Are there any other recommendations? How
important is the brand, in terms of history of faulty units? (I was advised
on Toshiba becuase of this) Or is that an issue I'll likely have to ignore
because of my price range?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

If you live in Canada you can do a lot better by
buying one of the many white box, private label
laptops offered by many Canadian computer stores.

Where do you live -- or more important, where do
you go to school?



dk



"j santos" <jsantosremovethis@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:V1K3d.478989$gE.367850@pd7tw3no...
> I am a university student looking to buy a laptop mainly
> for research and writing. My price range is bottom-end,
> between $1000-$1500 CDN (sub-to-$1000 USD). I've looked
> around and the Averatec AV3220, Compaq R3210CA, and the
> Toshiba A60 seem to be the best pick. There are some
> comperable Dell's and e-Machines too. My real requirement
> is wireless, and reasonably fast web browsing. Are these
> good picks? Are there any other recommendations? How
> important is the brand, in terms of history of faulty
> units? (I was advised on Toshiba becuase of this) Or is
> that an issue I'll likely have to ignore because of my
> price range?
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

> Where do you live -- or more important, where do
> you go to school?

I'm at the University of Calgary (yay for cheap tax!)


> If you live in Canada you can do a lot better by
> buying one of the many white box, private label
> laptops offered by many Canadian computer stores.

I'm assuming that you mean one of the custom-builts, right? My desktop is
from a local builder named Voodoo (voodoocomputers.com) and it was great
when I got it half a decade ago, but my experience is that these small
companies tend to be more expensive. I've heard people deal with companies
like Computer Rack (computerrack.ca) and Memory Express (memoryexpress.com).
Do you know any others? What about the other important stuff to add to a
bare-bones system?

Thanks Dan,
John

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"j santos" <jsantosremovethis@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:V1K3d.478989$gE.367850@pd7tw3no...
> I am a university student looking to buy a laptop mainly for research and
> writing. My price range is bottom-end, between $1000-$1500 CDN
(sub-to-$1000
> USD). I've looked around and the Averatec AV3220, Compaq R3210CA, and the
> Toshiba A60 seem to be the best pick. There are some comperable Dell's and
> e-Machines too. My real requirement is wireless, and reasonably fast web
> browsing. Are these good picks? Are there any other recommendations? How
> important is the brand, in terms of history of faulty units? (I was
advised
> on Toshiba becuase of this) Or is that an issue I'll likely have to ignore
> because of my price range?

The Compaq, Toshiba, or Dell will be good. Fujitsu is also fine. Since
battery life isn't an issue, you don't need one of the more expensive boxes
with the mobile processor.

Stay away from the no-name white-box notebooks.

 

[Rob]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

EMACHINE, Great laptop, best value.


"j santos" <jsantosremovethis@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:V1K3d.478989$gE.367850@pd7tw3no...
>I am a university student looking to buy a laptop mainly for research and
> writing. My price range is bottom-end, between $1000-$1500 CDN
> (sub-to-$1000
> USD). I've looked around and the Averatec AV3220, Compaq R3210CA, and the
> Toshiba A60 seem to be the best pick. There are some comperable Dell's and
> e-Machines too. My real requirement is wireless, and reasonably fast web
> browsing. Are these good picks? Are there any other recommendations? How
> important is the brand, in terms of history of faulty units? (I was
> advised
> on Toshiba becuase of this) Or is that an issue I'll likely have to ignore
> because of my price range?
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"Rob" <bucfan11SPAM@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:2rehrhF1a016eU1@uni-berlin.de...
>
> EMACHINE, Great laptop, best value.
>

.... and practically no support.



dk

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

You can get brand new laptops for $599 and up. Any of them will do most
of what you want (if it doesn't have wireless, you can get a PC Card --
in fact, there's an argument for that as standards evolve and change).
These days, most of the laptops are made by OEM firms in Taiwan, Quanta
and Compal being the largest. The "Toshiba Toshibas", actually built by
toshiba, were superb (I'd say generally among the best you could get),
but some of the "Compal Toshibas" were pretty poor. Problem is, it's
hard to know for sure, any more, who makes what.



j santos wrote:

> I am a university student looking to buy a laptop mainly for research and
> writing. My price range is bottom-end, between $1000-$1500 CDN (sub-to-$1000
> USD). I've looked around and the Averatec AV3220, Compaq R3210CA, and the
> Toshiba A60 seem to be the best pick. There are some comperable Dell's and
> e-Machines too. My real requirement is wireless, and reasonably fast web
> browsing. Are these good picks? Are there any other recommendations? How
> important is the brand, in terms of history of faulty units? (I was advised
> on Toshiba becuase of this) Or is that an issue I'll likely have to ignore
> because of my price range?
>
>

 

[Rob]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"Dan Koren" <dankoren@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:41521eef$1@news.meer.net...
>
>
>
> "Rob" <bucfan11SPAM@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:2rehrhF1a016eU1@uni-berlin.de...
>>
>> EMACHINE, Great laptop, best value.
>>
>
> ... and practically no support.
>
>
>
> dk
>
>
I disagree. I had to return my power supply. They paid for s/h and I had a
new one in 48 hours. Nothing but praises from me.
Rob

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Thanks to all the advice from the group. I've looked around and found an
Averatec Laptop for a wicked price w/ Athlom XP-M CPU, 256MB RAM (shared,
but I don't mind)\, and it's liht as a feather.

How is Averatec's history? Do they build well? Price vs price, they match
out any other company for what they offer on their system.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 23:51:17 GMT, "j santos"
<jsantosremovethis@shaw.ca> wrote:

>I am a university student looking to buy a laptop mainly for research and
>writing. My price range is bottom-end, between $1000-$1500 CDN (sub-to-$1000
>USD). I've looked around and the Averatec AV3220, Compaq R3210CA, and the
>Toshiba A60 seem to be the best pick. There are some comperable Dell's and
>e-Machines too. My real requirement is wireless, and reasonably fast web
>browsing. Are these good picks? Are there any other recommendations? How
>important is the brand, in terms of history of faulty units? (I was advised
>on Toshiba becuase of this) Or is that an issue I'll likely have to ignore
>because of my price range?
>

My college senior daughter was in the same boat as you are. Her old
laptop was dying and she needed something with the general specs you
stated.

After much searching she selected an Macintosh iBook for $999 from
www.apple.com/store and she clicked on the academia discount. In
addition she included a built-in 802.11g wireless card for $71 and an
HP printer for $99 with a $99 rebate. So her total for a G4 ppc CPU,
256MB ram and 30GB HDD with CD+RW/DVD, 10/100 LAN, wireless, v.92
modem, printer port, firewire, USB 2.0 with OS/X version 10.3 was
$1,070 USD including a color HP printer. Not bad. It works like a
charm.

Good luck.