My son needs a laptop for school. Please help!

[Eeyah]

***LE Story of Le Laptop ***

Years ago (7 or 8) Dh had just bought a Toshiba laptop(he's a gamer so it was high end), we were sitting next to each other at the table (I think he was helping me with some school project) anyway I move my arm and proceed to spill an HUGE glass of milk on the laptop *BAWL* I was stick to my stomach. The laptop automatically turns itself off. We sop up what we can, and head to bed, VERY UPSET. The next day I take it down to the computer store, and they tell me chances are it's Kaput, but for $350 bucks they can clean it up and and take a look, but no promises that it will ever work again OR just buy a new one (yeah right!). At the time I was a full time student with a 12 hour a week part time job so that kind of money was a dream. So I took it back home, still sick to my stomach that I had wrecked this expensive laptop. Dh and Idecide to dismantle the laptop ourselves and spent the entire evening with Qtips picking out all the curdled milk. Guess what??? The laptop booted up JUST FINE, and continued to work for years after!!! In fact it still works to this day, only it is REALLY out of date, and kinda looks like something from the stone age LOL
Lesson #1 TOSHIBA ROCKS
Lesson #2 Don't cry over spilled milk
Lesson #3 Don't ever turn back on electronics until you are sure everything is dry, chances are it will work once dry
Lesson #4 TOSHIBA ROCKS

[lekate]

I've never had a problem with Dell, and in fact find their service to be great.

They have a great buy now pay months later service, and offer the option to have a dell technician come to you if anything is wrong with your computer, instead of taking to the shops.

They also have a live online service that will guide you if you fancy attempting to fix anything yourself.

I would suggest sticking to Dell. You can't go wrong with them from my experience.

I find they don't hold up to student life though...Very few students would have a Dell their second year....and the horror stories were plentiful, again, not saying it's a bad computer, they just don't hold up to being a bag and travelling around campus, etc. My mom has one, works fine, but it sits on a desk...always.

[Natalka]

***LE Story of Le Laptop ***

Years ago (7 or 8) Dh had just bought a Toshiba laptop(he's a gamer so it was high end), we were sitting next to each other at the table (I think he was helping me with some school project) anyway I move my arm and proceed to spill an HUGE glass of milk on the laptop *BAWL* I was stick to my stomach. The laptop automatically turns itself off. We sop up what we can, and head to bed, VERY UPSET. The next day I take it down to the computer store, and they tell me chances are it's Kaput, but for $350 bucks they can clean it up and and take a look, but no promises that it will ever work again OR just buy a new one (yeah right!). At the time I was a full time student with a 12 hour a week part time job so that kind of money was a dream. So I took it back home, still sick to my stomach that I had wrecked this expensive laptop. Dh and Idecide to dismantle the laptop ourselves and spent the entire evening with Qtips picking out all the curdled milk. Guess what??? The laptop booted up JUST FINE, and continued to work for years after!!! In fact it still works to this day, only it is REALLY out of date, and kinda looks like something from the stone age LOL
Lesson #1 TOSHIBA ROCKS
Lesson #2 Don't cry over spilled milk
Lesson #3 Don't ever turn back on electronics until you are sure everything is dry, chances are it will work once dry
Lesson #4 TOSHIBA ROCKS

What a GREAT story!

[Sally888]

Haha my dell. In the less then a year.

2 adapters, first one literally fell apart.

2 batteries. Apparently the first one was "faulty" so they sent me some crap USED one to replace it

2 screens (that ones my toddlers fault)

and then the real kicker the whole thing slowly fell apart piece by piece literally. screws hinges etc. When they put in the new screen it was just not done correctly or precisely.

[takasuite]

How is about Asus ? choose one. it is not cheap but the best one.

[Karebear68]

My son just bought a Toshiba Sattelite. He's 14. He uses it for gaming, etc. I'm hoping he'll use it for school. Lol!

He loves it. The only thing he doesn't like is that he had to spend his own money on it. Ha ha.

[Lynn49]

Wow...I'm reading about all you Toshiba fans and I'm sitting here wondering why I hate mine so much! It was a $700 Toshiba and it constantly blacks out on me! Even when it's plugged in! When it's not, it's got about 1/2hr of user time.
I would absolutely toss it out the window if I had another one in sight.....
Must be a lemon, judging by all your favourable posts........:-(

[oddduck]

I personally have an HP and an Acer right now. No major problems with either. I have a cracked plastic bezel on the HP as it fell off the fireplace mantel into brick, but works fine even after that.

Regarding Dells, we use them at work. Our contract is next day onsite service, 3 year warrenty and it's fabulous. I have needed to contact them for staff members and they are quite quick to get someone out for service. My grandparents also have a Dell and opted for the next day onsite service for 3 years as well and that laptop is still going strong 5 years later (though I have replaced the hard drive for them when it started to fail).

[Aslan]

Reported.

Edit: Spam removed, Thanks Mods.

[matrix82]

I've never had a problem with my dell until now. I think the harddrive may be going.

But the laptop is 5 years old, and has been heavily used, it wasn't a low end dell though, it was on the higher end at the time.

I've heard bad things about Acer, my husband has had problems with the display of his HP laptop (but got it fixed for $20 today). My sisters and two friends have had trouble with their toshiba's (can't remember the model, but it was bought three years ago and all four computers over heated, something wrong with that particular model).

Right now would be the time to buy with all the deals going on. If he is spending up to $900, he could also look into getting one built at a local computer shop.

[matrix82]

Did you just get the harddrive replaced at a computer shop or did you do it yourself?

I am looking at replacing the hard drive in my laptop, but was wondering if it is worth it. From the issues I am having all the tech people I have talked to says it sounds like a harddrive issue. Just wondering if it was worth replacing the harddrive of a 5 year old laptop.

[Aslan]

Lenovo also offers a lot of deals. At the other large Canadian deals forum that can't be named, they have had a 30%+ off coupon for quite a while, and you can get a nice $1500 laptop for $1000 or less.
Honestly, the only laptops I would really recommend are Lenovo, Asus, or perhaps Apple. HP quality is quite bad apart from the Envy line, Dell is okay only if you're willing to pay a lot for the extended warranty, and Acer is okay for the price but little more.

I am looking at replacing the hard drive in my laptop, but was wondering if it is worth it. From the issues I am having all the tech people I have talked to says it sounds like a harddrive issue. Just wondering if it was worth replacing the harddrive of a 5 year old laptop.

Well, it depends on the drive it uses. If you're lucky and it uses a SATA hard drive, then the drive won't be that expensive to replace. Difficulty of installation depends on the brand of laptop, but usually it isn't that hard to replace.
If the drive is IDE, then it will cost a bit more for a lower capacity drive, as IDE laptop drives are no longer that common any more and are more difficult to source.

However either way, if you do it yourself, then it shouldn't cost much more than $100.

[anner2050]

Thanks to everyone who helped out with ideas for my sons laptop. He ended up getting the Dell, and after 2 weeks in college, he seems to like it.

[matrix82]

That's good. I hope everything works out well for him.

One thing I would reccommend is that he makes two seperate copies of files like essays: keep one on his hard drive and one in his email. That way if something does happen he doesn't lose his work.

[wendymac]

My husband is part of a volunteer program that puts together high-quality computer systems for the United Way who gives them for free to needy students. He spends about an evening every 2 weeks scrubbing hard drives, installing software, etc. so that a dynamite system is available to hand over to someone who needs it. Seriously...the computers systems he assembles are better than the one I use professionally and am using right now. I suggest you look into the free options that might be available to you. You won't have to fill out government paperwork. The United Way doesn't even check up to see if you sell the computer they give you. It is based on trust. Tho', of course, I don't they'll give you more than a few before saying "no."
wendymac