I'm on the market for a laptop

[diablopath]

In the month of December, I will be purchasing a lap top.
I have been trying to delay this, but having one will make keeping my school stuff so much more organized, so it's worth it to me to make the buy.

Although I try not to shop there, I'm going to be buying it from Wal-Mart. In the month of December, I can get anything in the store for 20% off, so that's really a deal I cannot pass up.

What brands are good?
The one I'm interested in was this:
Toshiba L305D-S5900 (http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10379513) for $600 ($480 after my discount)

We also have some Dells, Gateways, HPs and then Compaqs, but I'm not sure on the quality of them. My desktop is HP, but the HP laptops are all around $800, and that just sounds like a bit more than I want to spend.

[PathMaster]

I say this to people all the time, and I think it stands true. Go with the brand that you trust.

I personally run with Dell. I don't have issues, but I know others who do.

[Codicier]

I don't have any constructive input. I just wanted to note that when you say you're "on the market for a laptop" it sounds like you're willing to sell yourself in exchange for a laptop.

That is all.

[diablopath]

I don't have any constructive input. I just wanted to note that when you say you're "on the market for a laptop" it sounds like you're willing to sell yourself in exchange for a laptop.

That is all.
Well, if you're offering something...

[Psykoboy2]

Black Friday. That is all.

[PathMaster]

Black Friday. That is all.

Good point, should be quoted in order to reiterate it. ;)

[KingGorilla]

Well, it would be nice if the OP could mention a price range and typical functions that are done on the computer. You can get barebones web surfing machines for 300 or 400 dollars. If you need long battery life Toshiba has the model that takes the cake, it may also the the lightest on the market as well. Do you need something to play video while you travel? Is this a desktop replacement that will never leave an office(If so, don't buy a laptop; bad for your health and your pocket book).

[Raen]

I bought a Toshiba about three weeks ago and I love it. It's a much lower end one than the model listed in the OP, and has a short battery, but in general it's made me very trusting of Toshiba. Even the Toshiba software it comes with isn't particularly unpleasant.

[diablopath]

Well, it would be nice if the OP could mention a price range and typical functions that are done on the computer. You can get barebones web surfing machines for 300 or 400 dollars. If you need long battery life Toshiba has the model that takes the cake, it may also the the lightest on the market as well. Do you need something to play video while you travel? Is this a desktop replacement that will never leave an office(If so, don't buy a laptop; bad for your health and your pocket book).

Web browsing and word processing.
$600 is my ceiling.

[Gitaroomaan]

Web browsing and word processing.
$600 is my ceiling.

Do you need somthing very portable, or somthing you will be staying put for the most part? If you're going for the portable route, I just picked up an MSI Wind for around $300 new on ebay, which has a 10 inch screen and weighs only 2.3 pounds. If you're on the go a lot, it's perfect. If you plan to not move that much though, it'd probably be worth it to pay more for the larger screen and more horsepower. I've got a powerful desktop, so I only need a simple laptop for when I'm out and about.

[Bad Buddha]

Black Friday. That is all.

I drove my son down to a Black Friday sale at BB last year at 2am. There was a line around the building through the parking lot and around the shopping mall next door. Definitely not worth it.

My family has had very good luck with Toshiba laptops. My son's unit is about 3 years old and has XP and he has not had any issues with it. My daughter's laptop we bought in June and is running Vista. It hasn't had any issues either. My oldest daughter and my wife both have Toshiba's, also. No problems at all. All of ours have Intel chips in them.

I see the one you're looking at has a 250GB HD and 3GB of RAM. Looks good! :)

[Bad Buddha]

Web browsing and word processing.

Yeah... You say that, but I'm sure a couple of games will find their way to the hard drive; just to pass the time. :p

[Skull3r]

I've arrived at the idea of picking up a netbook for my classes. (Carrying around a macbook pro is just too heavy as well as my laptop is taking a beating. Anybody have any experience from asking apple to replace the external casing? I have the generation before this one.) I prefer to deal through my university's offerings, which are slim.

I get to choose between the : Acer aspire one, (http://www.acer.com/aspireone/) or the Asus eee pc 901 (http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=24&l2=164&l3=0&l4=0&model=2283&modelmenu=1) . Any opinions on which one to get? Also, should I go with Linux or Windows?

[Purple Santa]

I have an HP Pavillion. It's my first non-mac laptop and I really like it. I know HP is out of your range but if one does, my vote is for HP.

[Gitaroomaan]

I get to choose between the : Acer aspire one, (http://www.acer.com/aspireone/) or the Asus eee pc 901 (http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=24&l2=164&l3=0&l4=0&model=2283&modelmenu=1) . Any opinions on which one to get? Also, should I go with Linux or Windows?

I looked at both of those options (and tried them out in-store). Personally, I found both keyboards to be too cramped for me. The Aspire One is real sexy, but the keyboard (it uses 86% full I believe) just didn't work for me. I just bought, and highly recommend, the MSI Wind. It's 10 inches and uses a 92% keyboard which offers much more comfort. It's just a little bit bigger than the Aspire One, but is much more functional in my opinion. It weighs about the same as well.

As far as Windows/Linux, that should really be personal preference. I'm using the Windows Wind and it works great. I also loaded up Ubuntu onto it when I need it. If you're interested as well, the Wind apparently works flawlessly with OSX.

[PathMaster]

I've arrived at the idea of picking up a netbook for my classes. (Carrying around a macbook pro is just too heavy as well as my laptop is taking a beating. Anybody have any experience from asking apple to replace the external casing? I have the generation before this one.) I prefer to deal through my university's offerings, which are slim.

I get to choose between the : Acer aspire one, (http://www.acer.com/aspireone/) or the Asus eee pc 901 (http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=24&l2=164&l3=0&l4=0&model=2283&modelmenu=1) . Any opinions on which one to get? Also, should I go with Linux or Windows?
Is that all the school offers, or have you tried going through a PC Manufacture's website and adding your school to the equation? I know it depends on the school, but sometimes you get a nice discount vs a limited number of products to choose from.

[KingGorilla]

Web browsing and word processing.
$600 is my ceiling.

I was going to suggest Lenovo, battery life and durability, as well as more local support. I have had no problems with my Thinkpad from them. But neither have I had a problem with my old Dell, now my parent's living room PC.

If you need to transport this, try to find the best compromise between weight and battery life. If you are a student, anything less than 5 hours of battery life could be an issue. Anything over 5 lbs, including battery weight, will be a pain in the ass, shoulder, back, if you need to carry it anything farther than the kitchen. Things that can effect battery life like optical vs solid state drive, power management applications(one of my favorite parts of the Lenovo software), and the processor should be taken into consideration. If you need to lug this to class, even if you think there are plenty of outlets available, battery life is important. When I was still in school, I was amazed at how many dead outlets there were in our classrooms.

You also need to see if you want Windows or Linux. Windows, XP or Vista, is not that fun on a laptop, in my experience. Windows is designed for the office, for use on a desktop. It will run decidely slower on a laptop, compared to a desktop. Though there are ways to streamline it, I think I have it down to close to a 10 second boot on mine(Linux is much faster especially as you can install a good "mini OS" version of Ubuntu). Many of the ultra-lite and Netbook computers offer both. You will run into compatability issues between Open Office and Office 2007, if you need that for work or school.

[diablopath]

I raised my ceiling a little bit, taking into account I'm going to have a nice check after this coming one (3 weeks), and this is what I'm looking at:

http://www.officedepot.com/catalog/txtSearchDD.do?jopa=sKRmPDEjxOOeoUKSvU8wEm7&norefinement=true&searchTxt=DV2911US#reviewTab

It's abut $679 in the store, not sure why it's so much cheaper.
But yeah.

I'm not very good at laptops, so I can't really tell.
...will this thing run WoW?

I'm going to want that when I'm off to the dorms >.>

[diablopath]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834114528
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834117817

Either of these stand a chance at running WoW @ lowest setting around 30FPS?
>.>

[Disgustipated]

I have a Toshiba Satellite L305-S5885. It is an AWESOME laptop. It's only a month old.