Which laptop to purchase

[Photo601]

Greetings. I am in the neighborhood for a Laptop. Our local Best Buy store has a Toshiba Laptop A665-S6050. among other things it comes with a 12 cell battery, 500 GB HDD, Core i-3 proc, 4 GB DDR3 RAM.

From what I have been told to look for, this has it all. The tech guys at work favor Dell or Toshiba. Consumer Reports shows favorable ratings for Dell, HP and Toshiba.

I am at the point of having over analyzed laptops and am temporarily burned out from looking.

My biggest concern is Customer Service/Tech Support. Toshiba has been beaten up since moving CS to Manila.
(My cynical side says all CS departments are likely equal depending on day and rep you talk to...)

 

[tipstir]

I've you looked at QVC and HSN for laptop deals. They offer more CS/TS than you get from retail. QVC is more upscale they feature HP /DELL/ ACER as HSN ACER/Gateway. HSN is cheaper, price are 599 to 799 and QVC prices are 699 to 1099. Great part about them you don't have to pay full price if you got on the 4-6 months no interest flex pay deal and most have shipping for free and no tax depends on your state and if you order online. Delivery is quick!

HP are no. 1 in laptops sells followed by ACER (acer makes Gateway and emachine), then DELL and the rest.

What you're looking for is:

Intel i-core 3 or 5
500GB or better HDD
12-13 cell battery
4GB min 6GB for RAM
10/100/1000mb/s for wired NIC
802.11(a,b,g,n) for wireless NIC (note 802.11a is rare in a laptop and dual band also)
web cam
HDMI port
4 USB ports
15.6 min or 17.3 (1080p full HD)
LED/LCD Ultra-Brite Screen than the Matt type. On Blue-Ray laptop the screen is sharper
DVDRW or Blue-Ray

Get extra battery and power supply they do come in handly.
Also retail price deals not always as good as online or HSN or QVC deals.

If you going to buy it from BB, get HP or ACER. DELLs are good for business model Latitude.