[big'ol_freeper]

Anything that runs XP.

[HAL9000]

Any suggestions (other than, "Buy a Mac!")?

The correct expression is "Get a Mac", not "Buy a Mac".

[stratman1969]

Don’t know, but I will say my next computer purchase will either be a Dell or a Gateway. HP/Compaq is crap and their customer service isn’t any better.

[MrB]

Notebooks are nearly disposable these days.

You could get a kickass Acer for under $500, maybe even $400.

[Uri’el-2012]

Get Root !

[GRRRRR]

Why wouldn’t you consider a MacBook or MacBook Pro?
Is it going to be used with work too>?

DELL is fine, but if you are buying it for a personal laptop, get a Mac, they’re very reliable and you won’t have to worry about Vista.

G

[mamelukesabre]

Is there really any difference? Unless you’re a gamer, computers these days are way more powerful than most people need. You might as well make your decision based on battery life alone. Well, unless you want to avoid vista.

[Eaker]

Dells are great if you have a backup PC when it is broken.

I would go with Etch-a-Sketch or Fisher Price.

What I would really do is find a local independent that has a mortar & brick store and buy a clone from them. Get to know the owner and staff.

They will take it personally if your PC breaks and will fix it.

Dell - millions sold and hundreds satisfied.

[ThomasThomas]

If you view large graphic files allot I would consider a larger screen. I would also suggest finding a store that sells just laptops. They may not have the lowest price you can find but you have a much better chance of getting what you really need.

[eyedigress]

I have an old IBM Thinkpad that does pretty good.

[davetex]

Ive had several Dell laptops, never really had a problem. I just pass them on to the kids and as far as I know they’ve never has a problem. I’d love to have an XPS though. You can still get XP with a Dell also. And, no, I don’t work for Dell.

[Cagey]

I have a Dell Latitude D630 with Vista and it has been as smooth as silk for me. Just spend a few more bucks and load it up with plenty of memory and you’ll be fine.

[Snoopers-868th]

I think XPS get you tech support in North America. Ask the rep. I have XPS Desktop and I have North American support. It is worth the extra cost for the computer to be able to understand the technician.

[fkabuckeyesrule]

My Dell 2004-2006

[paulat]

Hi Lou...you may want to upgrade the following:

1GB1 Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (2 Dimms)

Size: 120GB2 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive

128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GS

I would DEFINITELY go for:

2GB DDR2 SDRAM

a 7200rpm drive is nice and a 256MB video card is good...but both of those are not necessary if you will upgrade in the next 2-3 years.

The memory is key, however. Don't go less than 2GB!! I am serious! Especially if you do large spreadsheets!

[dhot]

I recently bought a Dell.

Inspiron 1520

Within 2 weeks, I needed to have the hard drive replaced. I was FURIOUS.

However, within 48 hours, they had shipped a new hard drive to the local service center and a nice man came to my office to replace the hard drive in my system.

While I was very angry - I was only inconvenienced for two days - plus the time it took me to reconfigure my machine - again.

Your mileage may vary.

[Kirkwood]

If you are doing computationally intensive work such as mathematical modeling, then get the XPS. If you are just doing spreadsheets, emails, and docs, then the Inspirion will be suffcient. If you are going to splurge, get more ram and more HD drive space.

[aruanan]

Any suggestions (other than, "Buy a Mac!")?

I see you've tamped your ears with wax and have tied yourself to the ship's mast. We use Dells running XP on our lab's Hitachi DNA sequencing machines. And we do this only because Applied Biosciences has produced software only for that. For everything else, such as servers for ordering, machines for analysis and editing, posting results, maintaining databases, we use Macs. Over the past 14 years since beginning grad school, I've been in labs with both Macs and PCs. The PCs invariably require much more TLC from IT than the Macs and for the simplest of things. With the newer Macs, the thing to tell people who complain about the availability of software, PCs versus Macs, (since that's about the last claim for superiority) is, "If you want to be able to run nearly anything out there including PC software, get a Mac. If you want to be limited to PC software, get a PC."

[MainFrame65]

My 14-month old HP2125dr died 10 days ago, and I had to go back to my 1995 IBM 600x for the past week while Best Buy tries to resurrect it under their extended warranty.

I really use a notebook for portability. I take notes on it whin I take classes, and I use it for record keeping, demonstrations, and slide presentations when I am teaching classes. I also use it for Mensa meeting minutes. Since I use it in many different locations, portability, ruggedness, battery life, and usability under adverse conditions are VERY important to me.

HP’s “Tru-brite” screen is unusable in sunlight, which might matter to you.

After a year, the battery will only keep it running for less than an hour. I could install an extra battery in my old IBM600, but not the HP. Now the 120 Gb disk (or at least access to it) died after 14 months, so reliability is questionable as well.

If communications matter to you, try to wait for something with 802.11N built in, or plan to use an adapter - and make sure that you have a slot available for it.

Get 2 GB if available, and the biggest disk offered.

[MarkL]

For what it's worth, I bought an Inspiron 8100 P-III 1GHz system not quite 7 years ago, and it's still in use. For about 3 1/2 years, I used it every day both at the office and on-site, and when I wasn't using it, it was in a bag, rattling around in my car's trunk.

Then, about 3 years ago, a cousin begged me to sell it to her, and I really tried to talk her out of it, but she insisted. I told her the history of it, but since I was out of work at the time, I really needed the money. Well, it's been sitting on her breakfast nook ever since, and they use it to check the news and stocks every morning over breakfast.

Utterly reliable (at least that one was).

Mark