Laptop Suggestions

[joker_927]

My friend is looking to buy herself a new laptop and is asking me to, basically, buy one for her since she knows practically nothing about them.

Well, I don't do laptops that often so I was looking for reccommendations on what Companies make good laptops, and advise on buying them online vs in-stores. I know Best Buy offers 3-5 year (optonal) warrenties on their laptops and if ANYTHING goes bad, they fix it for free.

Thanks.

[VHockey86]

I've been happy with Dell's in the past.
Pretty much all tech support has gotten crappier lately with outsourcing, however Dell still much sends you replacement parts no questions asked (After they do like 3 minutes of completely worthless troubleshooting)
"Gee you hard drive is making a clicking noise and not booting, try shutting it down and holding the power button for 30 seconds. Didnt work? Ok, replacement drive should arrive in 1-2 business days." (not making that up either).

All that aside, Dell's got fairly decent deals going on now too, 5-15% off laptops depending on what model you get.
I guess a target budget is going to have to be given for anyone to make a good suggestion though.

I'd prolly steer away from Compaq/HP. All the ones I've dealt with have seemed like crap.

[Tekk]

Powernotebooks have always received great reviews from customers and they seem to have really excellent prices.

[Vagabond]

I had 2 Armada laptops and liked them both and beat them up and they sill worked...

now i have a Sager (it is big, i mean real big) but it plays all my games)

[Makaveli_786]

I have three laptops currently, my Acer hit the bucket, bad design, the buttons are crap and its just horrible.

My VAIO ive had for 2 years, great screen and better design, never had problems and the Toshiba has nowhere as much posing power, in fact its pretty ugly but its got some nice features, a lot heavier.

If she wants a real portable laptop that looks great, VAIO is the one, a sturdy laptop without so much posing power but a few extra features then its Toshiba.

[Mr.Macintosh]

How about an ibook? It got good reviews where I come from. Apple tech support is up there near the top. You just have to be polite to them. You may encounter a bad egg but, every company has them. She would love the no viruses thing. She will get used to Mac OS X if she is a quick learner about things.

[Makaveli_786]

Assuming she doesnt want to play games... yeah then definetly go with mac, we got some G4 Notebooks at the shop yesterday, they run like heaven and they look sexy as hell, pretty portable too I was up 6 in the morning playing around with it(the notebook).