raybay, always appreciate your posts. Why is it then that so many people dis Gateway? I am looking for a decent mid-range laptop for my daughter for strickly college work. My budget is $800.

Also, I've been looking at Lenovo 3000 N100 series but people seem to dis those as well, i.e., cheaply made.

Thoughts?

The Lenovo 3000 is not one of their best machines. If your daughter will accept a refurbished machine, the IBM Lenovo T-41, T-42, and T43 are wonderful machines in that price range from about $475 to $800.
Nothing wrong with a Dell, Gateway, or HP in their upper half of their model range either, as refurbs.
I don't sell them but can better advise you if you email me at canyonlands@gmail.com... this is probably not appropriate on this forum.

bang for your buck

ThinkPads are a good choice right now. 400.00 dollars off T-60 series. As far as black being ugly, black will always be the new black. If you are in a coffee shop doing homework and you are using your ThinkPad people do notice what you have and it is a quaility notebook to say the least.

Buy the Lenovo Thinkpad as opposed to the Lenovo range. The Thinkpad has a better construction. If possible, go for a T series if your budget allows it, as the R series is the budget one and the build quality, although good, is not as good as the T series, which is pretty robust. There is also the Z series which includes a Titanium covered Thinkpad which is also very nice.









That machine has fantastic upgrade potential.... you can get some pretty nice SATA drives for it - Seagate does a 160GB one - and the RAM is upgradable to 4GB I believe.

Which Acer Was It. My Dad Has An Acer Travelmate 2428awxmi.he Might Buy Another One So I Could Keep The Acer

I'm not sure why people think Thinkpads are so awesome, the ones I've used (T60's) aren't the greatest IMO. I didn't think the build quality was very good for their reputation. Several panels were kinda loose and could rattle, and I didn't like the way it hinged(exposed video cable, too much pressure required to open). I also don't like the fact that they won't put a decent graphics card in any of the Thinkpads. They also are overpriced. I will say the X60 seemed pretty cool, but I didn't get to actually use it, so I can't comment too much. I also dislike that Thinkpads are manufactured by a communist company.

If I was getting a laptop, I'd get a macbook pro and dual boot os x and vista. I'm much more impressed with the macbook pro's I've used than with any thinkpad. They are overpriced, but then again, so are thinkpads, and at least the macbook pro has a x1600pro, instead of gma or x1300's. The MBP keys light up(not just a led lamp shining down like the Thinkpads), and it has the nice magnetic power connector, so no more broken dc in jacks.

I take it you mean China? Most of the hardware we use today,including the iPod, are made there.

Mexico, Hungary, Korea, Singapore, China, Philippines, India... anywhere the labor is cheap

To be a technologist (and dare I say it, hacker) you have to try to move above these kinds of things. Forget about politics - unless its standing in the way of technological progress, or its stopping someone from getting their basic human technological rights. Now, actually you could in fact say that China comes under this heading, as they have massive firewalls that stop people in China from seeing things that the government does not want them to see on the Net. And that's bad. But its not a reason to not buy their machines, unless they start to implant them with listening devices or something.... just my opinion.

I know it's not a big deal, since I buy stuff that's made in China all the time, but I prefer to support American compaines if I can. I laugh when people say they "don't buy anything from China," since it's almost impossible not to. At least Apple is an American company(unlike Lenovo), even though Apple (and many others) outsource production to China. When IBM outsourced to China before Lenovo, took over, at least IBM was an American company.

This thread is going off-course. Please keep to the subject of laptop (this means that we discuss the technology and service) companies, not regimes or hate fixations.

I absolutely agree with Nodsu.

But the above postings appear to imply that India is a communist country.

It is not.

Anyway, back to laptops.

I usually try for ones that will be easy to upgrade - you can get a mid range laptop (perhaps you spotted a good deal...) - and then upgrade the RAM and HDD to get those specs to the high range standard. No need to spend a lot of $$$ on a laptop, these things come and go, and if you start to use a portable machine, you will realise that they are transitory and will be replaced.

Much more important is the gear you get. Once you move away from a stand alone machine, your hardware purchases change. Instead of PCI cards and internal optical drives, etc, its USB devices, sound and multimedia stuff, different types of PCMCIA card, cables, etc. You get the picture.

If you are going to be mobile with the machine, try to get a 15 inch model and look for a good bag. A rucksack is best as its difficult carrying the case variety around. You need to be able to carry your machine plus mouse, power supply, cables, etc.

Since ThinkPads are so well-recommended, are there any that are durable and yet light enough to carry around all the time? I have an HP Pavilion that's quite powerful but really heavy too. Looking for another one that's powerful enough for school work (mainly stuff on Office, as well as some Maple, Visual C++ Express and MINITAB). Anyone has any ideas/suggestions? If there are any other laptops (besides ThinkPads), I'll consider those too provided they are reliable enough.

If portability is a real issue then look at the X series thinkpad, but I think some of these models have a non-upgradable HDD, which I would avoid.

I'd go for a 14" T43 or T60. The T43 is probably still on sale (its single core and therefore cheaper) and you might be able to get a good bargain on one.

The X-3x series and the X-4x series are the most rugged light weight units, but use a docking port for some functions. The T-41, T-42, T-43 and T-60 are the most rugged, most complete, and a bit heavier.

I guess I'll have to start looking around for the T-60. Thanks guys and keep the opinions rolling. I'll probably be getting it in a week's time.

I found some great T60s on eBay, brand new, and at a great price. Had 2GB of RAM, top of the range mobile Core Duo 2, etc. 120GB SATA HDD.

T60p

I Really would suggest 100GB 7200RPM if you can get it. It makes a huge difference.

But the reliability of the 100 GB, 120 GB, and 160 GB, in 7200 rpm, are significantly shorter in life span. If you want long term reliability, get the 5400 rpm.

Watch out for the T-60's. Do a Google search. There is one type number that has proved to be a problem.