I have a Dell, HP, and a Toshiba. The

Dell is a piece of *rap.  I've had to replace every major piece, fortunately the majority was when it was still under warranty.   I've had an HP for 5 or 6 years and other than a hard drive crashing it has been a very good computer.   My Toshiba is the newest, just a year old, and I don't like it near as much as my HP and I'm probably going to switch back to my HP as my main computer.

I don't know about Acer laptops, but we had a desktop and we had so many problems with it, we got an HP computer under the lemon law in exchange for the Acer. 

I would recommend getting an extended warranty on whatever you get.   Check to see if you can get your computer serviced locally if it is still under warranty or if you need to ship it off somewhere.  Dell's customer service is in India, don't know about other companies.  When I dealt with HP they were not offshore and I haven't had to deal with Toshiba yet. 

• Any advice on laptops? sm - Just me
  • I've worked on a Dell Inspiron 8600 for 3 years - KentuckyMT
  • Family member got an Acer recently. Working great for her. My PC - is an Acer, too. nm
  • Wow! Thanks for all the input! :) - Just me
  • I've had two dell laptops and 5 Dell PCs. Here's the thing... - Jo (sm)
    • Car power supply. - sm
  • I have an HP laptop and a desktop....sm... - everydayearthling
  • RUN FROM DELL LAPTOPS - had a desktop and a laptop, hated both
  • I have a Dell and love it. No problems at all. - nm
  • I have a Dell, HP, and a Toshiba. The - me
  • laptops - sienna
  • I have an HP and the power jack broke in less than a year - sm

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HP has been the best, but brand isn't that important. I wouldn't get a Gateway and  I wouldn't get a Celeron processor.   My Dell didn't have the speed that the HP you linked does and I was able to work fine, but I would definitely agree to get faster.   I download and then work off-line.  If you worked on-line you would definitely want/need faster. 

I am using a Toshiba Satellite and it has a lot more RAM, a  much faster processor, and a 17'' screen and I paid less than the HP you linked. 

and an HP desk top.  The Dell is a piece of junk and I'm fixing to piece it out.  I haven't had any problems with the Toshiba but I still prefer my HP and if I were to get a new computer it would be HP. 

The cheaper computers of any brand tend to have Celeron processors and they are really a cheap processer and I personally wouldn't buy one, but otherwise there is nothing wrong with the computers, they just don't have all the bells and whistles.  If they last 2 years you've gotten your money out of them and they have become practically dinosaurs by then anyway. 

Make sure you get the extended warranty, again, MAKE SURE YOU GET THE EXTENDED WARRANTY. And, here is why.

My first laptop went out on my, though it was a couple of years old.  Because I had the extended warranty, a service tech came to my house, replaced motherboard, hard drive, heat sink, and keyboard.  He was able to back up everything first and restored it once all the new stuff was in place. 

One of my PCs kept giving some weird blue screen error and I couldn't get to go even in safe mode. I called up Dell, told them the problem, they looked up my extended warranty and they sent someone out to repair it.

Overall, I have been happy with Dell products.  The only drag is that everything Dell sells regarding accessories is proprietary and you have to order it through Dell.  No generic accessories will work.  My suggestion is if you decide to buy a Dell laptop, make sure you get the car power supply and you might even get a 2nd regular power supply because I have been known to leave town and forget the power supply at the house.  Now, I have everything in my laptop bag for when I go out of town and can just throw my laptop in the bag and know everything is there.

Lastly, some Dell laptops require a special aircard to connect to the internet.  I ended up getting a 2 cabled USB air card and I'm glad I did because 2 USB plug ins give better reception than one.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask. I'm happy to help.

was a piece of junk, so I'm not the one to ask if you should buy a Dell.   I'd get at least double that processor speed.  My computer is about 10 months old and I have 5 times that, which means that there is probably something faster out now, or soon will be.  It is more than I need for work, but I also use computer to download music/pictures, and a bunch of other stuff.   The Dell I had had 650 mHz and it was slow and that was almost 6 years ago.   You may have to customize anyway to get XP unless you buy one previously owned, which you can also buy from Dell.   It is always a good idea to buy bigger than you need currently just to allow for updates to any software or new software you may add.    You need to also think about tech support.  I know Dell has tech support in India, which can be extremely frustrating.  I don't know that other computer companies don't offshore their tech support, but that would be a question I would ask and find out if there is a locally authorized dealer to handle warranty repairs or if you need to send off the computer.    I would not recommend a Gateway computer and I would not recommend any computer that has a Celeron processor.   They tend to be in all the lower end computers. 

that also has the number pad on the side and the keys are enough out of position that the times I have used the keyboard I backspace half of what I type. 

I use an external keyboard the majority of the time. 

I have LOTS of peripherals on both my laptop and desktop Dells and they certainly didn't come from Dell. You've been misinformed.

I love my Dells.

My computer is an Inspiron 5150... it ran about $1200 and I have had it going on 3 years  now.  Probably more computer than I needed, but I figure if you can afford it  try to get the best, especially since I use it mainly for work and got a tax write off for it. Mine has a CD burner and other stuff which I probably could have done without, but I have been very happy with it.

Dell has been a lemon, no problems with HP.  I do not have a docking station, not really needed unless you plan on moving the laptop a lot without using any of the peripherals such as foot pedal, external keyboard.

Just about any laptop you buy off the shelf will have 256 RAM, I would recommend more if available.  I have a 15" screen, which is pretty standard, although I have seen some with I think 17" screen.   I have a serial port, game port, and USB port.  These are pretty standard too, but you can get adapters for any of these if your computer doesn't have them.

I don't understand why laptops confuse people.  They perform all the same functions as a desktop, come with the same options, just in a smaller package. 

I ordered an XPS400, over $1,000, with extras.  I was assured this had a 15-pin game port for transcription, did not need to have it added on.  Get it in the mail today and no game port.  There is a 15-pin port, but the monitor is on it.  They said it included a DVI adaptor for the monitor, said it was included, but it is not.  So I tried Delll Chat and was not able to get through, was told I was not a customer.