Author |
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Abby7
Member
07-17-2002
| Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 5:22 pm
costa, web, granny...thanks so much for your posts. JUJU!!!! i e-mailed that link to dh at his work. he'll get home about 8:30. i know he had decided he wants a 17" though. he's also looking at HP for some reason. so, before your link it was down to a Dell or an HP. i think his price will be 1,700 to 2,000 though. but for that Toshiba, it can't be beat! i'll let you know. THANKS AGAIN! (i know i have to act fast on this one). i'm beginning to think i should just buy that for myself and have him buy his own. just hope we will be able to share the wireless while one on notebook and one on desktop. or, if we are both on notebooks.
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Mak1
Member
08-12-2002
| Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 6:14 pm
We bought an HP Pavilion dv4275nr at Best Buy last week. We are happy with it so far. We researched notebooks for a month, until I was almost ready to agree to whichever one was on sale at the moment, lol! Thank you to everyone who posted here. We took all your comments into consideration, too. We finally had to decide between this one and a very similar Toshiba or Gateway. They were all the same price. The HP has a sturdier-looking outside than the Toshiba. Our friend had a hinge break on his Gateway in the first month. We had also read in Consumer Reports that Gateways have required more repairs in the first year than other brands. So, the HP won. We did have problems getting our router set up and had a friend help. He ended up having to reinstall our software to get it working correctly. It was no big deal but something we wouldn't have known how to fix ourselves. If you buy from Best Buy, be aware that it is just a little bit less complicated than buying a new car! I am exaggerating, but they do try to get you to buy a bunch of stuff to go with it. We had already decided to buy the extended warranty and knew the price. The price listed on their tag was $110 more than the price listed on their website, so we asked about that. The extra $110 covers accidental damage, spills, drops, etc. We didn't buy it. We haven't hooked it up to our printer yet. We need to buy a PCM NIC card (or something like that!) to do that. We'll do that later and will purchase a wireless mouse. This model only weighs 5 pounds. It's really fast and quiet and doesn't get real hot like I've heard some laptops do. The battery life is good, but I haven't really paid much attention to it as far as timing it because we keep it plugged in at least half the time. We're going to try it out in a hotel tomorrow. If we had 2 laptops, I think our desktop would become forgotten. That is a dynamite deal on that Toshiba!
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Abby7
Member
07-17-2002
| Wednesday, December 14, 2005 - 6:33 pm
Mak, that's what I'm feeling right now....just buy anything. lol I've been at Best Buy.com since I last posted. (I know dh will just say "get it"...but I don't think that is really what he wants. he wants a 17"). I'll post late tonight or tomorrow (dh getting home late tonight. he has week off after Christmas, so he's busy). I also checked out the accessories. There is a 10% off if you buy 3 items, 15% if you buy 4 items. I thought I would buy a mouse, an extra battery (I can't figure how long the battery lasts)...not sure what else to buy. I take it all the connectors/cables are included? (don't even know what they are called lol). Problem being you have to buy the accessories at time of laptop purchase to get the discount. So, I will worry about that later and forget the discount, I think. Don't want to add to my questions! One thing though....I noticed Big Buy does not allow returns on desktops or laptops. Is that the norm? No returns on laptops? Thanks again, everyone. Sometimes I wonder how I have made it so far without TVCH in my life! eta: i'll have to post, later, what HP notebook dh thinks is a good price. he said he put it on our "Favorites"...but can't find it. eta2: oh, i just checked Best Buys again. it's the extended Holiday return that is not applicable.
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Abby7
Member
07-17-2002
| Thursday, December 15, 2005 - 4:34 pm
well, dh wants the 17". i decided not to get my own. we have to decide today to get it by Christmas. it looks like we will be spending about 2,500 if we get HP or Dell. we have to add wireless mouse plus a few other things to this HP (the top one): http://tinyurl.com/8tk6e after customizing this Dell, it looks like about $2,500. i'm now interested in the TV tuner...have to read up on it first though: http://tinyurl.com/71q3k can't find my link to the SonyVaio, but it comes to $3,100-3,600 i think....not sure, but ouch. ------------- i've spent so much time with this. the more i look the more questions i have. especially now that i'm getting the tv tuner w/remote. i'll check back later. we'll order late tonight or early am tomorrow before dh leaves for work.
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Abby7
Member
07-17-2002
| Thursday, December 15, 2005 - 4:46 pm
eta: eek, just did a customer review search on the HP...now really confused. lol! darn, i had all my Christmas shopping done weeks ago. buying "our" gift has taken the longest.
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Abby7
Member
07-17-2002
| Friday, December 16, 2005 - 2:25 pm
okay, i'm not saying another thing about notebooks until dh and i have one in our hands. but i will ask this: anyone know of a good divorce lawyer? lol just kidding.
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Mak1
Member
08-12-2002
| Friday, December 16, 2005 - 4:12 pm
LOL! I know how you feel, Abby7. I got sick of reading conflicting reviews, too, on top of everything else. You're looking for a laptop that has lots more bells and whistles than what we were looking for. One thing we bought at Best Buy was their Reward Zone Program for $9.99. Actually, dh bought it. I was in the "no to everything extra" mood by that point, lol. It is going to be a good purchase, though. We had our laptop purchase credited to it, which gave us something like 120,000 points, which converts to a $40 Best Buy gift certificate. I think we receive the gift certificate 30 days after purchase and need to use it up within 90 days from then. I plan to use the gift certificate towards the mouse and some other little thing we figure out we want. The more you spend, the more points you earn. Even if we never earn another one, we've made $30 on it, so dh was right. Yes, your cables will come with your laptop. I'm betting you'll have fun with whichever you end up buying. Good luck!
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Taterheadtwo
Member
09-29-2005
| Friday, December 16, 2005 - 5:00 pm
i would highly recomend if you dont know much about t4echnical things to get a computer/laptop that has stateside ( usa) tech call in help. it will really suck if you have to call for tech help and the call centers is over in india ( where the pay their tech crew 3 dollars a day for 10 hours, who read solutions off a databank in a computer themselve and probably dont own a computer and have little concept on what they are sujesting to you) ( 3 dollars a day for them is big bucks, so they are happy to have that job).. but if you think you might have to get tech help for issues, think ahead and buy a computer that has stateside help.....the stats say the average computer user needs tech help several times a year are more for problems popping up. so it might be very worth to pay more to get a product with a good backup policies if you need help.. take hp for instance their tech support is now outside usa, last time i called to get a replacement disc, ( this was 4 years ago it was in india, the guy who called told me he was a proud muslim, muslim that, and i was stuck hearing this trying vainly to get a live person to order a disk, so for me i know build my own computers( ive learn alot last couple years becuse i never could get good info if i called in) so before you purchase a computer go online and look hard at the service side, where is the help sections located, what if you need a disc are even to send it back are for repairs?( and alot of the repair places have one are two trained people and then many want a bee who are doing the up front repairs under the supervision of the schooled tech, with poor repair outcome. ( for example, i had a new hp laptop 5 years ago, took back to circuit city, they shiped off , it was gone 5 months, came back with yeah a new display screen, that had a crack in a different spot then before, so i forced them to let me get a store replacemet before the original purchase garentee ran out, wasnt about to wait 5 more months........
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Mak1
Member
08-12-2002
| Saturday, January 07, 2006 - 10:57 am
Abby7, what did you end up buying? I'm still happy with our HP. We have to learn how to link it to our PC. A friend who has done this said we need a PCMI/NIC card (I think I got all the letters correct). DH doesn't think we do, but he has no alternative solution.
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Eris
Member
01-06-2006
| Saturday, January 07, 2006 - 10:58 am
hahaha...Im so damn tired still that in my sleepiness I read the title of this thread as "whats the sexiest way to buy a computer" Lol...now that would be an interesting thread
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Mak1
Member
08-12-2002
| Saturday, January 07, 2006 - 1:13 pm
Well, SillyEris, easy could be sexy. 
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Abby7
Member
07-17-2002
| Sunday, January 08, 2006 - 3:03 pm
i was going to wait until the laptop was in my hands to post, but we ended up getting Inspiron 9300. These are the details: (mods if this is too long just delete the details). Inspiron 9300,Pentium M 740 (1.73GHz/533MHz FSB) Inspiron 9300,Pentium M 740 (1.73GHz/533MHz FSB) Qty: 1 Unit Price: $1,903.00 Inspiron 9300,Pentium M 740 (1.73GHz/533MHz FSB) SM17HN 17 inch True Life Wide Screen UXGA for Inspiron 9300 17UXGAS 1GB, DDR2, 533MHz 2 Dimm, for Inspiron 9300 1GB2D 128MB ATI and Mobility Radeon X300,for Inspiron 9300 128ATI Dell 924 Printer Driver 924DRV 80GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive for Inspiron 9300 80GB Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 2, English, for Inspiron. Dell Owners Manual installed on your system,click on icon after system set-up to access. Image Restore. Windows Media Player 10. Dell Media Experience,v2.1. DELL SUPPORT 3.0. Complimentary courses: Look for EU icon. Dell Direct Download. Internet Search and Portal WPXP Integrated 10/100 Network Cardand Modem, for Inspiron INTNIC Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0, for Inspiron ADOBER 8X DVD+/-RW Drive for Inspiron9300. CyberLink PowerDVD v5.5 Decoding Sofware for DVD Drives 8XDVDRW Intel PRO/Wireless 2915 Internal Wireless (802.11a/b/g54Mbps) for Inspiron 9300. Internal Dell Wireless 350 Bluetooth Microsoft Office 2003 Basic Edition,Inspiron IBASICC Network Associates McAfee 7.0 English, 3 Year Subscription 53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery,for Inspiron 9200 6BAT 4 Year Limited Warranty. Soft Contracts - Qualxserve. Type 15- Third Party At Home Service with Nights and Week ends, 24x7 Technical Support, 3 Year Extended. Type 15- Third Party At Home Service with Nights and Week ends, 24x7 Technical Support, Initial Year. Warranty Support,3 Year Extended. Warranty Support,Initial Year. Thank You for buying Dell. Please visit WWW.Dell.COM. 72105 ($50 MAIL-IN REBATE) Redeem within 30 days of ship at dell4me.com/rebates NETZERO ISP. Broadband Icon for Inspiron. AOL for Broadband. Netscape ISP Thank you for choosing Dell. Basic digital Music,Photo and Game experience. Quickbooks 2005 Special SimpleStart Edition. PC Restore Recovery System by Symantec. Special Offer - $150 off Dell Photo All-In-One Printer 924 Qty: 1 Unit Price: $89.00 Dell Photo All-In-One Printer 924 No Warranty, Year 2 and 3. Warranty Support,Initial Year. Type 11 Contract-Printer Advance Exchange Limited Warranty. PocketMouse Pro Wireless Qty: 1 Unit Price: $36.00 Sub-Total $2,036.00 Shipping $ 32.00 Tax $169.96 Total $2,237.96 ----------------------------------- we received an e-mail that it was shipped jan. 5, expect 3-5 business days for delivery. (ordered it December 29). i had dh just do the ordering. apparently this is $500 off (??????). dh bought 4 year insurance but didn't get insured if it gets damaged (dropped) accidentally...so, i guess i'll add that once we get it. i want to thank you all again for helping with this order. your time and information...i truly appreciate. also, months ago, someone here, sorry i can't find the post and don't remember the name...advised me about keeping my Earthlink account (since Wayport wireless, which i'm now on, doesn't have e-mail service). i was told earthlink would keep my account with just e-mail for a small charge. well, thank you! i will find your name soon. i called earthlink and now have their e-mail service for only 3.95 a month.

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Abby7
Member
07-17-2002
| Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - 7:40 pm
hi. just sneaking it with nothing much to report YET. but wanted to let you know the laptop (are laptops called notebooks now?)arrived at my door around 6:15pm today. i wasn't notified that the delivery was made to the OFFICE on Jan 6!. anyway, i won't have time to use/try out the laptop until next week...monday at the earliest. i'm going to make this thread the "virgin thread" on my new notebook. my first post on it will be here. i'm sure you are all excited and interested in this info...lol....thanks again.
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Juju2bigdog
Member
10-27-2000
| Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - 10:23 pm
Abby7, I think they are called both. Not sure what the distinction is between the two. Glad you got your new toy, I mean tool.
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Max
Moderator
08-12-2000
| Friday, January 27, 2006 - 6:11 pm
If you're in the market, check this out. I got a coupon code from http://techbargains.com for Dell Home computers and today I ordered this system: Dimension E310 - P4 Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 630 w/HT Technology (3.0GHz,800FSB), Genuine Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition Qty: 1 Unit Price: $1,339.00 Dimension E310 Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 630 w/HT Technology (3.0GHz,800FSB) Memory 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 400MHz -2DIMMs Keyboard and Mouse Bundles Dell USB Keyboard and Dell 2-button Scroll Mouse Monitor 19 inch Ultrasharp™ 1905FP Digital Flat Panel Video Card Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 900 IV Hard Drive DataSafe 160GB (Includes main hard drive plus a hidden reserve hard drive) Floppy Drive and Media Reader No Floppy Drive Included Operating System Genuine Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition Network Interface Integrated 10/100 Ethernet Modem 56K PCI Data Fax Modem Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 6.0 CD or DVD Drive Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/dbl layer write capability Sound Integrated 2.0 Channel High Definition Audio Speakers Dell AS501 10W Flat Panel Attached Spkrs for UltraSharp™ Flat Panels Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed) No Productivity Suite - Corel WordPerfect® word processor only Hardware Warranty 1Yr Ltd Warranty, 1Yr At-Home Service, and 1Yr HW Warranty Support Dial-Up Internet Access 6 Months of America Online Membership Included Operating System Backup & Recovery PC Restore recovery system by Symantec Dell Digital Entertainment Starter Entertainment Pack -Basic digital Music, Photo, and Casual Gaming With the coupon, I got a 30% discount AND free next-day shipping (just a $24 handling charge) which brought the total to just $961.30 Sweet! Oh, it also could have included a Dell 730 color printer, but I don't need another printer, so I opted out of that. The Techbargains website has all kinds of high-tech deal information. A good resource if you're looking for a deal.
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Chy
Member
07-19-2003
| Friday, January 27, 2006 - 9:07 pm
Max, how about this one? Dimension E510 Award Winning PC Balanced Performance Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 630 w/HT Technology (3.0GHz,800FSB) Genuine Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition 128MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon X300 SE HyperMemory Free color printer Featured at $799, $599 After 25% Off Instantly! I don't know a thing! I'm all confused bu all the GB, Memory jumbo??? The value code from your link won't work for me, I wandered around in dell's site myself and found this under the Entertainment ones. I really only need to read Chinese papers, come to message boards, but my teenagers said we need the E ones.... My current one is very old, Window 98, HAHA! It always alerts me that I don't have enough space on drive c, 518 MB left right now. I know I need a bigger something, but what's all these:GHz, FSB, GB, X, whatever. My own brother who works within the computer field won't bother to explain all to me, just told me not to waste my money getting expensive toy for the children--it's probably a Chinese refugee mentality .... I know I need a bigger one to hook up to the Road Runner, and I know I won't be buying another one too soon, that's why I am willing to go beyond basic. But what's all these other hoops I got to jump through? Do I need to buy the extended warranty? Do I neeed to buy any thing extra even though this is supposed to be a bundle deal? Thanks to whomever that could take the trouble to help me!
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Wendo
Member
08-07-2000
| Saturday, January 28, 2006 - 2:16 am
Max, if you plan to play games or do any type of media work, you may want a different system. The system you posted does not have a graphics PCI express slot and only has two memory slots. It's very limited when it comes to upgradability. The E510 system that Chy posted would give you more options; comes with the PCIe slot for graphics and four memory slots. Chy, what are you specifically looking to do with the computer and how much are you looking to spend? Do your kids want to play games? I always recommend to people to first determine how much money they want to spend. Once they do that, then we can fit a system into that price range. Feel free to email me, my email addy is in my profile.
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Max
Moderator
08-12-2000
| Saturday, January 28, 2006 - 7:57 am
Wendo, the only games I play are solitare and some Pogo. I work on my computer doing editing and transcription from home. My employer gave me an $800 allowance to upgrade or replace my current computer (2 years old) because I'll soon be doing more editing and mentoring of other transcribers and needed a system that could handle a larger volume of audio files than I'm currently handling. I need the 1GB memory and 160GB hard drive, but graphics isn't as important. I opted to add some $$ to it and get a new system with a faster processor, etc. than try to upgrade my current system. You're right about the better expandability of the E510. I looked at it, but it came out to more money (once I configured it the way I need it) than I wanted to spend and I don't really need the expandability. Chy, the coupon I posted about from Techbargains will work on any Dimension system from Dell Home (as long as it's still valid anyway) and gives you 30% off, so if you're going for the E510, try that and see if it works. Just go to the shopping cart and put the code in to see if it works. It won't commit you to anything to do that part. I'd recommend getting AT LEAST 512MB of memory. Programs today are memory hogs. 
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Chy
Member
07-19-2003
| Saturday, January 28, 2006 - 9:27 am
Wendo, thanks for the offer, I just e-mailed you. Hope it's not waaaay TMI. Max, that coupon/code from Techbargains had more digits than dell's site ask for. It also included a "?" which won't fit. At least not when I tried it. It worries me that, at Dell's site the cover cost is $599, why does it come to $999 at the coupon site?
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Chy
Member
07-19-2003
| Saturday, January 28, 2006 - 9:44 am
Uhhhh.... Just went to check out upgrading memory from 256 to 512 like Max suggested. Now kids say !GB, what's that? Dual...."1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz (2x512M) [add $75 ..." Up to 512 costs only $35 more. I thought that'd be enough.
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Max
Moderator
08-12-2000
| Saturday, January 28, 2006 - 9:56 am
Chy, I'm not sure where you are entering the coupon code, but the TechBargains one works when you get to the shopping cart page and put it in the Coupon Code box. HOWEVER, I forgot that the coupon only works on systems priced $999 or more. So the 25% off that Dell is offering on that system is the best you'll do (for a total, with no modifications to their configuration of $599). If you make changes during the customization process that increase the price to $999 or more, then the coupon should work. "1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz" means. . . 1GB means 1 gigabyte of memory (1 gigabyte = ~1,000 megabytes or MB) Generally, the more memory the better. I need 1GB for the stuff I do, but you may be able to get by with less. Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz is the type of memory chip that the system has. Dual Channel means that there are actually two chips that work together (each having 512MB of memory). DDR2 means double data rate and is a way that memory is used on the chip (has to do with clock cycles and such as well as how power is consumed on the system, blah, blah, blah). SDRAM means synchronous dynamic random access memory and 533MHz means that it operates at a rate of 533 MegaHertz. Aren't you glad you asked? 
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Chy
Member
07-19-2003
| Saturday, January 28, 2006 - 11:49 am
Wow, that's very easy to understand coming from you. Thanks for the trouble, Max. I'm going to fool around w/ that add-on and see what happens. In fact, I was just at a quicky rehearsal. The guy explained to me that, 1GB means I'd be able to downlaod the whole "Elijah" (Oratorio) a lot faster than I ever could.
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Chy
Member
07-19-2003
| Wednesday, February 01, 2006 - 7:34 pm
Well, guys. I ended up getting that Compaq from Staple's. It's on sale this week. After an extra $70 to upgrade it to 160 GB, 512MB(memory), DVDXRW DL..... It still only costs me less than $440 after rebates. My accountant told me that's what's good enough and big enough for me. I figured, for that price, I won't mind having to get another one in a couple years. In fact, I wouldn't mind getting a second one right now, but I'm going to have to save up for a NoteBook soon. My 10th Gder made a deal with me to stay on Honor Roll and stick with Violin.... Thanks for all your helps! That was great to be able to use the right lingo in store and all that Jazz!
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Juju2bigdog
Member
10-27-2000
| Thursday, February 02, 2006 - 10:11 am
Sounds like an excellent deal, Chy!
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