Looking for Laptop

[JaiMackay]

hi

Need advice on buying a laptop. Looking at buying my daughter one for xmas. I have never bought one before, so looking for things to keep eye out for.. or things I should watch on.

For example- Think both future shop and best buys had the cheapest one in flyers for 299.99. I am not of the quality of the products.

I am also looking on kijiji and the classified ads for used ones, but again, not knowing what questions to ask to make sure I am getting my money worth.

Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Jai

[DavidY]

From time to time, Walmart has a 14 inch Toshiba with an AMD quad core A6-3400M for as low as $398 (current price...see link below). Regular price is $448. Some have noted that it's thickish looking. Check out their return period. Check over the display quality and the battery life....there have been a few complaints about these issues. I prefer Acer's keyboard over Toshiba or HP. The 14 inch Toshiba does light gaming too....currently, this is the best valued laptop IMO.

http://www.walmart.ca/canada-estore/...&inputId=40163

BB and FS have similar laptops (A6-3400M CPU), but are pricier ($500-$530)...HP is the brand.

Asus has the best laptop reliability rating. Toshiba isn't too shabby either as of 2009.

HP has the worst reliability. Gateway and Acer are not much better. Dell and Lenovo are in the middle.

Laptop reliability here:

http://www.brighthub.com/computing/h...es/70899.aspx#

15.6 inch laptops are the most common laptop available. I find 15.6 to be a bit large and not that portable. 11.6 or 13.3 inch are very portable....more like a 10 inch netbook IMO. I have a 14 inch Lenovo Thinkpad Edge at home.

Here's a 15.6 inch Toshiba laptop....sale for $368 at Staples (Nov 9-22, 2011)...won't play games very well, but a good basic computer...doesn't look like it has HDMI (to connect to a TV for movies/videos):

http://www.staples.ca/ENG/Catalog/ca...affixedcode=WW

Dave

[shopdog]

Suggest you might want to jot a few notes about a) what she's into (in school, hobbies, life in general) and b) what sorts of tasks/activities she uses a computer for now. Go into a Best Buy and give this info to a (hopefully female) sales associate and they should be able to steer you in the right direction. Tell them right up-front how much you're willing to spend so nobody has to waste time on the upselling game. I suggest staying away from the Dell and Acer brands.

FORGET KIJIJI!!!!! If you have no real experience with laptops it's very easy to get sucked into buying an obsolete piece of crap that some shyster paid $20 for at a garage sale and will now happily sell you for $250, claiming it has "everything you need."

[MangoFruit]

How old is your daughter? If you daughter is attending college, I recommend getting a netbook instead of a notebook. They tend to be more resourceful at taking notes, and they conserve more battery. If your daughter is into computer gaming and stuff, then I recommend getting a laptop.

And don't look for the cheapest because cheap stuff don't last long. Computers become obsolete very fast. Technology is progressing really fast, so you want your moneys worth for what you buy.

Also, if you can hold back for another two weeks, I recommend buying it during cyber monday, since the deals that are offered on that day can get you more than what your money is worth.

But if you can't, I recommend browsing NCIX. Best buy/Future shop only has good sales once in awhile, but NCIX tends to have sale every week or so.

http://www.ncix.com/promo/promosale....andOpening2011

[charlesstongesc]

how much are you willing to spend?

[MostarkaGirl]

I'd go to Future Shop or Best Buy and look into their open boxes shelf. Most of the times, they do have very good quality items there including iPads at cheaper prices. The whole difference with the open box is that someone prior bought the item brand new, something happened it could be something minor and they send it to the company for a fix or they might fix it in the store and they put it back on a shelf at reduced price. We just bought my daughter pink smaller laptop for her birthday open box Sony laptop for $200. It is in excellent shape, nothing wrong with it and I still get warranty.


Forgot to add we also bought our iMac open box 2 years ago for $1200 where the brand new would've been $2500 (the type we bought) I know there are cheaper now days brand new but the one we got was open box. Its still working like brand new and I never had any problems with it.


Yes, I agree stay off Kijiji.

[marstec]

There are compromises you must make when you buy a cheap laptop, whether it be specs or battery life or weight/size of product. She will complain if the laptop is awkward to carry or doesn't run her programs well. I would rather pay more and get something that will last; there is nothing more frustrating than having computer issues.

[JaiMackay]

Thank you all for the responses, and sorry for my delayed one. Worked all weekend long, bleh.

Daughter is 13, so do not want to go overboard on pricing, but something she can use for recreation, and for school. She has learning disabilities, and her work has greatly improved since the school allows her now to use a lap top in class.

thank you again for all the input

Jai