looking for a good laptop, need help computer guru's

I've had my HP laptop for 6 yrs. The only thing I've had to change is the hard drive. Other than that, it runs like a champ.

 

Personally, if she has the computer for a few years, the HDMI port will become more convient to her and the progress of TV and LCD screens increases. My daughters wish they had one now, and they are in college.

 

I'm torn between the dell studio xps 16 or the hp envy 15.

 

Toshiba, HP and Asus are probably the three you're gonna have the best bet with.

Toshiba gives you a LOT of bang for your buck and will last for an extremely long time provided you take care of it. HP tends to offer more in their mid-ranged systems in terms of eSATA (handy if you plan on using an external HD because they transfer data faster than USB and some firewire types) and HDMI ports. I used to work for HP as a rep and some of the claims about funky quirks are true. There have been a number of instances of screens going out and keyboard keys inputting the wrong key. Asus, imo, would def be the way to go because they can smash both HP and Toshiba on pricing and hardware. For the same price of an HP or Toshiba mid-range, Asus can provide you with hardware for a better-than-decent gaming system. They used to be a major motherboard manufacturer, so if their mobos are any indication to the quality of their hardware, awesome. The only thing about Asus tho is that I've heard of their casing being shotty . . . .but i dunno what ppl do to their systems to find that out. I'm still weary of DELL after they destroyed their inspiron models after a few months when the 9400 released . . .i'm still on the fence about them. They really dug themselves into a hole. Sony=$$ for name, so forget about them. Gateway owns emachines . . need I say more . . .avoid like the plague.

If ur sis just DLs music and uses it as a media machine, you honestly don't need to spend much at all. You don't need a hefty cpu, but everything is dual-core nowadays anyway. AMD or Intel would be fine. Intel costs more, but ull prolly barely see a SMIDGEN more battery life just because most of their models operate at a lower voltage than AMDs and they tend to have a bit more cache. This is all provided that you get a T5800 or higher intel cpu tho, otherwise, don't worry about it, ur sis prolly wont juice the system enough to notice any diff whatsoever. 3-4gb of ram . . .more than enough for whatever she's doing, and most systems have that anyway, I wouldnt go lower tho. Don't worry about ddr3 . . .again, ur sis prolly wont be doing anything to warrant paying for faster ram. DDR2 is absolutely fine and you can get a lot more for less now. Unless ur sis plays games, no need for a video card, the integrated Intel gpu (graphics processor) will suffice. Regarding an HDMI port; unless the system has a Blu-Ray player, there is no reason to worry about having one. Most all non-gaming laptop monitors can't display HD quality resolution so if the system had a blu-ray player, then you'd be forced to hook it up to a HD TV to watch it in true HD. If ur sis downloads HD movies, that's a diff story, then an HDMI port might be worth thinking about. Also, ignore estimates on battery life. . . most all mid-range systems get around 3-4 hours of battery life. The only way to get more is to have a higher cell battery in a non-gaming system. You'll notice gaming systems often have a 12cell battery just because the hardware requires more juice and then still get around 2-3 (if theyre lucky) hours of battery life.

I do remember seeing a bestbuy sale of a dv6 model HP that was going for $549. It had a 2.1 GHz intel dualcore, and 4gb of ddr3. I think it had like a 250gb HD, but thats still fine. The price was awesome, but a lot of bestbuys didnt have it. LOOK FOR SALES!!!!!

Long post, sorry. I tried to cover most things I remember people getting confused or worrying about when buying a laptop.