Batboard

Hi all,
I'm looking to pick up a new laptop basically for vacation use to stay in touch with E-mail, run MapQuest and look up local info, attractions.
I'm seeing advertisements for a few brands in the $500. range all based on the Celeron processor. Any point in going a few hundred more keeping in mind the limited application I'll be using it for ? Any brand stand out for durability other than a toughbook ? I won't be rough on the machine other than it bouncing around in the trunk.

The Celeron based units are just fine for your purposes. My 2 year old Dell 1.7GHz Celeron laptop hums along great. I use it for everything...running all the latest CPS & a hundred other apps with no issues. Get it with 512MB of RAM to ensure XP runs smoothly & you'll be ok. As far as physical ruggedness, all our Dells seem great, and the Compaq/HP units we have seem just as good.

Todd

My job does IT consulting and resells computer hardware to our consulting clients. We've given up recommending Dell hardware because of the customer service/QA issues. We've been selling a lot of Acer desktop and laptop systems. We don't sell Toshiba systems but their laptops and tablets are also popular with some of our clients.

Acer has some darn nice laptops. I can speak from experience here. Not only have i recommended them to many customers i also have one myself. The Acer Aspire AS3005, cost about $760 shipped from Digitalhotbuy.com, plenty of others sell it to, i just happened to get mine from them because they were running a special at the time.

Thanks, a $499. cheapo is on the horizon.

What did you decide to go with then? I'm always on the lookout for good deals on them to recommend to customers.

Got sidetracked a couple of weeks, looking to make my purchase this week, here are the contenders on sale currently:
1) Toshiba Celeron M 380 @ 1.6 GHz 256 RAM 60 GB HD
DVD/CD player, CD burner 802.11b
(256 RAM enough) ? 499.99

2)ACER Mobile Sempron 300+ 512 ddr-RAM 60 GB HD
DVD/CD player, CD burner 802.11g 549.99

3) Gateway Celeron M 370 256 mB DDR2 60GB HD 802.11g
DVD/CD-RW 599.99

Suggestions ?

You can't go wrong with the Acer.. I'm becoming a large and solid fan of their laptops. I have had zero problems with mine, and others i recommended Acer to haven't had an issue at all.

If you have the option, go with an AMD based rig over the Intel.

Dollar for Dollar, AMD will outperform Intel in pretty much all corners of the market now, even where Intel previously specialized...

RadShop_Intern wrote:If you have the option, go with an AMD based rig over the Intel.

Dollar for Dollar, AMD will outperform Intel in pretty much all corners of the market now, even where Intel previously specialized...

Damn straight!!

Another reason to go with the Acer since it runs the Sempron. My Acer has the 3300+ Sempron and stomps the Intel based laptops i have compared it to with benchmark software.

kb0nly wrote:

RadShop_Intern wrote:If you have the option, go with an AMD based rig over the Intel.

Dollar for Dollar, AMD will outperform Intel in pretty much all corners of the market now, even where Intel previously specialized...

Damn straight!!

Another reason to go with the Acer since it runs the Sempron. My Acer has the 3300+ Sempron and stomps the Intel based laptops i have compared it to with benchmark software.

Semprons, such a great little unit. I got about 1.3 times the performance out of mine once I overclocked it on air cooling. Would have kept going, but I didn't want to buy a water system for a Sempron, or pay another 100$ for cooling products for it.

I'm actually going to be using an A64 Mobile 2800+ for my Car-puter/MDT proejct. Low heat and power consumption vs a comparable Intel chip. Not to mention a greater performance gain.

(HIJACK!)

Thank you men, just picked up the Acer and it came with a free printer and a D-Link router (which I know less than zero about). Nice bang for the $550. Very thin and nice size screen (15.4), a nice surprise for this price point.

The Acer's have the nicest display's on them. I love mine, i can watch a DVD on it and the resolution is so crisp it's like watching my big screen tv only smaller.