My wife is in the market for a new laptop for when she starts school in January. I'm pretty much clueless here, and there is just an infinite amount of information & reviews to wade through on the internet. Not looking to cheap out, but don't necessarily want to spend 1000+ either. There aren't too many requirements, just that it be able to connect to the internet and she takes a lot of pictures (insert joke) so it should have a decent size hard drive to store a lot of them. Just wondering if any of you have any advice-

-is there any particular brand(s) any of you endorse or that I should stay away from, and why?

-is there any place (geeks.com, compusa, amazon, etc.) that has better deals, or again, that I should avoid? I already know to avoid Best Buy like the plague

-is there any stuff that I might not necessarily need that will increase the price. example being I don't really care about having Vista, or webcams or shit like that

Any advice any of you have, I would really appreciate it. I've never bought a laptop before and neither has she, she had one her work supplied but that's it, so just want to make sure we don't make a big mistake.

I would avoid Toshibas. They tend to have an overheating problem and shut down suddenly (my wife has one and hates it).

Two "bargain" sites I like are:

http://www.stealdeals.net/
&
http://www.techbargains.com/

They post deals and bargains on various products. Chances are, whatever you decide to go with, you can find a deal on one of those sites.

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Office Max carries some cheap Acers. They look pretty decent based on specs.

A month or so ago I got a ThinkPad T61 (NSJ, Hawkeye - thanks for reviews). This fu**er is on steroids. I paid a little under 1,500 but it's much much much faster than my 12-inch $3K work laptop.

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"It's not exactly a rocket surgery." D.J.

I've heard some bad things about Acers

My Dell works great it's an Inspiron 8600 15 inch screen which is a bit much if you have to carry it around a lot. It's 3 years old now and still going strong. It was a little over a grand if that helps.

Acer laptops are actually pretty nice, especially for the price. I know some people who've bought them in the last year or two and they work great. If you're looking for something higher end and durable with the best warranty in the industry IBM ThinkPads are the only way to go. Not Lenovo ThinkPads, IBM. The T61 is a great system. You'll pay more but it's well worth it if you want high quality and durability.

My wife has a Dell Inspiron and it does good. I think we paid about 750 for it. You can walk into a deal on Dell pretty easily. Make sure you get more memory than you think you need because every version of Windows is a hog. Also the same with disk - it's cheap and easier to do it up from than waiting til later.

Here's Coach's thread, Baku.

http://score670.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php ... t=thinkpad

Thanks. I figured there probably was a thread already but I took the gamble

I myself just ordered a T61 from lenovo. BTW, if you order from lenovo, do NOT order from their main site! Go to the Contractor Purchase Program

www.lenovo.com/cpp
password: 992299

you get 20% off the top on any computer they sell. I know lenovos are not cheap but they ARE the best, hands down. At least the thinkpads are. the 3000 series are crap. avoid like the plague.

Impossible. IBM sold their computer manufacturing business to lenovo back in May of 05. All thinkpads now are branded Lenovo, with a little IBM logo on the top cover so people don't freak out.

The 3000 series is the first laptop after the acquisition that was designed end-to-end by lenovo, thus the lower quality. The thinkpads still have the same linchpins they always did, don't get hung up on the name for those.