Expert: Karl Zick - 7/30/2009

Question
hello karl !!                                         i like to buy a dell studio15.dell laptops are recently very popular in india.but, friends of me told not to buy dell due to few service centres and high parts cost.So i want to ask wats the real problem with dell OR is it fine to buy.I m an engineering student.Also suggest another best laptop(not apple/very expensive yet). thanks....

Answer
Hi Rajul,

My favorite laptops for the money are Lenovo (IBM) and Toshiba.  I have seen them on sale at Newegg.com for as little as $370 - but I do not know how they work shipping to India or support there.

The trick, of course, is to buy a computer that never breaks and then you do not have to worry about repair costs (ha!).  Dell service is pretty good here in the states but, again, I do not know how they work it in India.

A few tips on buying any computer are to stay away from Compaq, HP, and eMachine - and never buy a computer with an Intel Celeron or an AMD Sempron processor in it.  Also, try to find one with at least 2GB of RAM.

Last, a SONY is always a safe bet (but expensive) and MSI and ACER are good.  Also, I have nothing against Dell except the ones with the Celeron CPU's in them.