Expert: Karl Zick - 7/29/2008

Question
We are sending our son to college in a few weeks and want to get a laptop to go with him.  We are looking at Dells and HPs.  What would be a good laptop for him that would last for a while and be reliable for him.  We would like to spend around $1,000.00  Thanks!

Answer
Hi Sandy,

Stay away from HP's, Compaq's, and eMachines.  They are unstable and all have a high failure rate.

Dell makes a reliable laptop and their support is good.  If you get a Dell order it on line and do not talk to a sales person (they will try to sell you a bunch of stuff you have no use for).  

Do not get ANY computer with an Intel Celeron or AMD Sempron processor in it because they are REALLY slow.  Get a dual-core Intel or 64 bit dual-core AMD CPU for decent performance.

Any brand you buy should have 2GB of RAM in it.  All new computers come with Vista on them and even though it is a decent operating system it needs a lot of RAM to make it run right.  For the time being, it is very difficult to find a notebook that will take more than 2GB of RAM - and that is why I suggested what I did.

If you want to look around locally, Office Depot and Circuit City have occasional good deals.  Last week Office Depot had a 'loaded' ACER notebook for $450 which I would have purchased for myself if I needed one.  I also like Toshiba for a big 'bang for the buck'.

Hope this helps ~