Reading mode: Light Dark

Buy new laptop or fix old? Help...

Go to last post
I didn't realize Emachines made laptops too. I was at Best Buy and they showed me the Sony 12 inch and a Toshiba 15 inch. Do you know how much your 14.7 inch one weighs?

Guess I'll have to go back to Best Buy...

MF
carguy84 said:
I couldn't imagine spending more then $800 on a laptop, or $2000
for that matter, if it wasn't going to be my primary computer. It
doesn't sound like you're going to be doing any gaming or 3D
animation on it, so get one that fits the size you are looking at.
Last December I bought a eMachine laptop from Best Buy for $750
which also had $250 in mail in rebates, $550 out the door after
taxes. Intel Celeron 2.4 GHZ, 256 Megs of RAM, 14.7" WIDESCREEN,
good size keyboard, not at all heavy, and a 40Gig hard drive. I
can run IIS and SQL Server on it no problem. Photoshop runs almost
as fast as my desktop for the times I need to do work on it.
Click to expand...
Wow, that was a great deal!
carguy84 said:
Buying name brand isn't getting you anything more then a higher
price, and perhaps more software. Only a few companies actually
manufacture laptop parts, especially screens, so if it's not going
to be your primary computer, I'd look around for the bargains, and
not worry about buying a Sony, Dell or the like.

FYI eMachines has the $250 in rebates again going on at Best Buy.

Chip-
Click to expand...
 
Thanks much, Dr Nikon, for the link. I've checked and we have a Sam's Club here that has them in stock so I can go look at them.

Some of my concerns about this laptop are:

1. The screen on the new Sony is incredible. You can virtually tilt it anyway and see it well. I do show my photos to lots of people via the laptop. Course, I don't think I'm willing to pay an extra $1000 for this feature...

2. No parallel port so I can't hook up my Epson 1270 printer...course I never did on my last laptop either.

3. The screen has 1024 x 768 instead of Sony's 1280 x 800. Will that make a difference?

4. At Circuit City website, people's major complaints are the keyboard and the battery life & heat. Indeed the battery is only warrantied for 6 months (why don't they warranty it the same as the computer like everyone else?). Again, probably not worth another $1000, but would love your comments on it... One guy said the manual says the "battery must be trained the first 8-10 hours by going into the BIOS and training mode out of the box". Did you do this? Was it difficult? Also, he said the battery then needed to be "trained" every 3 months. This sounds like a pain...

Thanks much....

MF
dr_nikon said:
They sell smaller laptop for $999. Excellent light weight for travel.
http://www.averatec.com/notebooks/3200series.htm
Click to expand...
 
Hi Dale,

Where did you find it for $699. Can you give me the name and number of the store (perhaps they'll ship one to me).

I checked on the web and Microcenter says $1049...

Thanks,

MF
Dale Brownh said:
I just bought an Averatec notebook, 12 inch XGA screen, 40 GB,
CD-RW burner and 4.5 lbs at Microcenter for $699, what a deal. I
downloaded my D100 pic's with a USB 2.0 reader and they look great
on the screen. Dale
Click to expand...
 
Many:

I'm in the same position. My Toshiba died after two years of very light use. Toshiba manufactured this model with a known defect well documented on the Web by other users, but they chose to ignore users and say tough luck.

O.K. Tough luck to you, Toshiba, because I'll never buy another one of your products and I will tell other laptop buyers that Toshiba does not take care of its customers.

My next laptop will be a Power Notebooks C 3:17. Check out their website at powernotebooks.com. This company really cares about their customers, their products are great and they have many more features for the money than the big guy manufacturers.

Don't buy a notebook until you've looked at this Web site.

Carl Feather
 
Have you looked at Fujitsu? They have pretty good screens. Unfortunately none of the usual retailers carry them.

I myself was looking at C2310. Some of the configurations come with Super-Multi DVD drives. DVD format is not yet standardized, so usefull to get both the formats in a drive.

Here are a few links for you:

http://webshop.fujitsupc.com/fpc/Ecommerce/productoverview.do?type=NB&pgid=Notebooks

http://www.notebookreview.com/forums/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=7

These come with one year international warranty. A good place to buy these is http://www.portableone.com . Sometimes they extend the international warranty to 3 years.

This is where you can get some user reviews on laptops:
http://www.notebookreview.com/forums/default.asp?CAT_ID=2

cheers
 
Have you considered Panasonic Toughbook W2?

http://www.panasonic.com/computer/toughbook/learn_more_tbw2.asp

12" screen, Pentium M 1.1 ULV (about same speed as P4 2.4), shock mounted 40 GB HD, integrated DVD/CDRW.

Stronger than Sony, bigger anti-glare screen, better battery (7hrs), and $1000 cheaper than Sony. 2.8 lbs (4 lbs travelweight).

Despite my Dell Precision Desktop I have used my notebook (HP7000 15.4) as my main PC as I have my "office" setup in my coffee table (wireless keyboard/mouse) but due to the weight I have been looking for a smaller model (+ external monitor) to carry around and since I drop things easily I was planing to get the W2 (+HP2304) as soon as they upgrade the CPU (it is about time for them to upgrade it).

I hope this helps.

Daniel
nikonguy said:
Have you looked at Fujitsu? They have pretty good screens.
Unfortunately none of the usual retailers carry them.

I myself was looking at C2310. Some of the configurations come with
Super-Multi DVD drives. DVD format is not yet standardized, so
usefull to get both the formats in a drive.

Here are a few links for you:

http://webshop.fujitsupc.com/fpc/Ecommerce/productoverview.do?type=NB&pgid=Notebooks

http://www.notebookreview.com/forums/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=7

These come with one year international warranty. A good place to
buy these is http://www.portableone.com . Sometimes they extend the
international warranty to 3 years.

This is where you can get some user reviews on laptops:
http://www.notebookreview.com/forums/default.asp?CAT_ID=2

cheers
Click to expand...
--
Daniel Oh
 
I never think about parallel port. Many new printers have both USB or Parrallel.
Look at Circuit City's website. I seem most people gave 4.5 ouf of 5
Just checked warranty at Averatec. They said 1 years except battery for 6 mo.

I own Panasonic Toughbook CF-37 which was belong to US Army. Almost 3 years ago, I paid ($200) used Panasonic Toughbook at Trading Post. Then, I did upgrade 30gb HD for $80. Great work except minor problem with "C" keyboard. I have to little harder press on "C".
Sometime, I think about buy new or used laptop.
Many Feathers said:
1. The screen on the new Sony is incredible. You can virtually tilt
it anyway and see it well. I do show my photos to lots of people
via the laptop. Course, I don't think I'm willing to pay an extra
$1000 for this feature...

2. No parallel port so I can't hook up my Epson 1270
printer...course I never did on my last laptop either.

3. The screen has 1024 x 768 instead of Sony's 1280 x 800. Will
that make a difference?

4. At Circuit City website, people's major complaints are the
keyboard and the battery life & heat. Indeed the battery is only
warrantied for 6 months (why don't they warranty it the same as the
computer like everyone else?). Again, probably not worth another
$1000, but would love your comments on it... One guy said the
manual says the "battery must be trained the first 8-10 hours by
going into the BIOS and training mode out of the box". Did you do
this? Was it difficult? Also, he said the battery then needed to be
"trained" every 3 months. This sounds like a pain...

Thanks much....

MF
dr_nikon said:
They sell smaller laptop for $999. Excellent light weight for travel.
http://www.averatec.com/notebooks/3200series.htm
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If, you got lousy pictures. Do not blame lousy camera
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.photosnapper.com/modules/Gallery/showphoto.php?photo=60
 
Daniel Oh said:
Have you considered Panasonic Toughbook W2?

http://www.panasonic.com/computer/toughbook/learn_more_tbw2.asp

12" screen, Pentium M 1.1 ULV (about same speed as P4 2.4), shock
mounted 40 GB HD, integrated DVD/CDRW.

Stronger than Sony, bigger anti-glare screen, better battery
(7hrs), and $1000 cheaper than Sony. 2.8 lbs (4 lbs travelweight).
Click to expand...
Hi Daniel,

This looks very interesting. The Y2 also with a 14 inch screen and only 3.4 lbs! They don't look cheaper than the Sony's though at about 2,000 for the W2 and $2500 for the Y2. Am I seeing something wrong? (The 13 inch Sony is $1999.)

Thanks much,

MF
 
Carl Feather said:
My next laptop will be a Power Notebooks C 3:17. Check out their
website at powernotebooks.com. This company really cares about
their customers, their products are great and they have many more
features for the money than the big guy manufacturers.
Click to expand...
Carl Feather said:
Carl Feather
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info Carl. I checked out the website and couldn't find any in the 4 lb range. Do they make any that light?

MF
 
I'm very interested in these. Sound just about perfect. 13.3 " screen.

Do you know if the Crystal View XGA screen is the same as Sony's Xbrite or Toshiba's TruBrite? These 2 surely are better than the regular laptop screen...but I can't see these Fugitsu's. Also, being that I can't get a new screen (through LCDS 4 LESS) for my Sharp, I'm a bit worried about buying an off brand again. Guess I'll call LCDS 4 LESS and see what they think about these screens...

I like that I can configure it exactly the way I want...but then I can't return it in the 15 days if I don't like it. They have 4 configurations for the one I'm interested in though... the S6000. Cool looking...

On the Fujitsu Direct Store, it indicates there is a Screen Protection Plan, but I don't see anything on how much that costs. You have any idea?

If it needs to be serviced, where does it have to go. Once it's out of warranty, do local services service?

Thanks again for all your help...

MF
 
Check on Ebay for your exact model in non-working condition with a good LCD... It is much easier and cheaper to fix it that way!
Many Feathers said:
Oh dear. This is not good.

I have a 1 1/2 year old Sharp laptop that I use for my business
(mostly the calendar) and photos. I transfer all my NEF's to the
laptop. From there, I burn them to a cd and batch change them to
Jpg's. When I'm going to print, I bring up the NEF from the cd to
my desktop and print from there.

About 6 months ago, I dropped the laptop and about an 1/8th of the
screen on the lower right hand side turned white. I just used it
that way. Yesterday, 2/3rds of the screen turned white...now
unuseable. I have called several places for estimates to fix...
$750 - $1000!!!

I went laptop shopping yesterday and found a 13" Sony for $1899. It
has a WXGA XBRITE display which is much better than my current LCD
display. It weighs only 4.1 lbs (I like the less weight...I carry
my laptop everywhere with me...it's almost like a purse).

The other one I found is a 15" Toshiba with the same WXGA
display...although I must say, it looks a bit sharper than the 13"
Sony. It is $1999, but weighs 6.17 lbs. It also has a DVD
multidrive.

1. Do I fix the Sharp or buy a new one?

2. If I buy a new laptop, which one? :-)

3. Are DVD's standardized enough yet to start archiving on them?

As always, thanks much for your comments...

MF
Click to expand...
--

'The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me.' -- Abraham Lincoln
 
Hi Pete,

Yep, I tried that last week and looked again now. Nothing. Darn. I think that's the problem with having a less popular model...

Thanks for the reminder.

MF
Pete Perry said:
Check on Ebay for your exact model in non-working condition with a
good LCD... It is much easier and cheaper to fix it that way!
Click to expand...
 
I found infomation:

6.5 Pounds Light, 1.3" Thin
Combo 2X + - DVD R/RW - CD R/RW available
MemoryStick Pro and Secure Digital (SD/MMC) memory card reader
10/100/1000BaseT Ethernet LAN Port
http://powernotebooks.com/specs/PowerPro/c3-17.php
Many Feathers said:
Many Feathers said:
My next laptop will be a Power Notebooks C 3:17. Check out their
website at powernotebooks.com. This company really cares about
their customers, their products are great and they have many more
features for the money than the big guy manufacturers.
Click to expand...
Many Feathers said:
Carl Feather
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info Carl. I checked out the website and couldn't
find any in the 4 lb range. Do they make any that light?

MF
Click to expand...
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If, you got lousy pictures. Do not blame lousy camera
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.photosnapper.com/modules/Gallery/showphoto.php?photo=60
 
upgrade parts
http://www.powernotebooks.com/configure.php?special=32
dr_nikon said:
Many Feathers said:
dr_nikon said:
My next laptop will be a Power Notebooks C 3:17. Check out their
website at powernotebooks.com. This company really cares about
their customers, their products are great and they have many more
features for the money than the big guy manufacturers.
Click to expand...
dr_nikon said:
Carl Feather
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info Carl. I checked out the website and couldn't
find any in the 4 lb range. Do they make any that light?

MF
Click to expand...
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If, you got lousy pictures. Do not blame lousy camera
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.photosnapper.com/modules/Gallery/showphoto.php?photo=60
Click to expand...
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If, you got lousy pictures. Do not blame lousy camera
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.photosnapper.com/modules/Gallery/showphoto.php?photo=60
 
Hi MF,

I have compared Fujitsu and Sony side by side and Fujitsu's screen was much better than Sony's XBrite IMHO. The only retailer, that I have found, carrying them is Frys.

I am not sure about the warranty, I personally have not dealt with them. Sorry could not help you there. You might want to call Fujitsu direct and check with them.

Also for price, if portableone has that configuration, they might come out to be cheaper. They order direct from Fujitsu, the machine is shipped direct from Fujitsu. They might even extend the warranty for free, no sales tax. With Fujitsu direct store you will end up paying tax.

And don't forget 5% student discount if you know anyone that has a valid student id. (portableone will also honor it.)

cheers,
Many Feathers said:
I'm very interested in these. Sound just about perfect. 13.3 " screen.

Do you know if the Crystal View XGA screen is the same as Sony's
Xbrite or Toshiba's TruBrite? These 2 surely are better than the
regular laptop screen...but I can't see these Fugitsu's. Also,
being that I can't get a new screen (through LCDS 4 LESS) for my
Sharp, I'm a bit worried about buying an off brand again. Guess
I'll call LCDS 4 LESS and see what they think about these screens...

I like that I can configure it exactly the way I want...but then I
can't return it in the 15 days if I don't like it. They have 4
configurations for the one I'm interested in though... the S6000.
Cool looking...

On the Fujitsu Direct Store, it indicates there is a Screen
Protection Plan, but I don't see anything on how much that costs.
You have any idea?

If it needs to be serviced, where does it have to go. Once it's out
of warranty, do local services service?

Thanks again for all your help...

MF
Click to expand...
 
even though they didn't have the screen I needed, they continued to talk with me about how I might fix my screen. I would definitely use them in the future (although I hope I never need to.... :-)

MF
 
Many Feathers said:
Thanks much for all your info... it, and you, are greatly
appreciated :-)
Click to expand...
Sure thing! Did you figure out how to hook up? I have been (still am...just getting back to civilizaion) out of town.

There should be a FN + Key combo to cycle through the monitor modes. On my labtop it is Fn + f5, and it takes me through a series of lcd, lcd + external monitor, external only, back to LCD only.

There is a small chance you might have to try something else. Let me know.

--
Drew
http://www.pbase.com/lokerd
 
Hello Drew!

Welcome back! :-)

Yep, I even got it where I can move the palettes in PS now. Although, I don't know how much I'll do that. I am so used to working Full Screen in PS anyway. I have the palettes on function keys, so I just press the function key for the palette I want to see. I'm going to play around with the dual monitors though.

Thanks again!

MF
Drew Loker said:
Many Feathers said:
Thanks much for all your info... it, and you, are greatly
appreciated :-)
Click to expand...
Sure thing! Did you figure out how to hook up? I have been (still
am...just getting back to civilizaion) out of town.

There should be a FN + Key combo to cycle through the monitor
modes. On my labtop it is Fn + f5, and it takes me through a series
of lcd, lcd + external monitor, external only, back to LCD only.

There is a small chance you might have to try something else. Let
me know.

--
Drew
http://www.pbase.com/lokerd
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Keyboard shortcuts

f
Forum
m
My threads
Mobile site
About
Editorial content
Cameras & Lenses
Community
All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1998–2025 Digital Photography Review All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
When you use DPReview links to buy products, the site may earn a commission.
©GPS Media - Guides, Products, Services.
Back
Top