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I love my laptop, I couldn't function without it! But a word of advice, spend the extra $$$ to make sure it has everything you'll need, many people make this mistake when buying their 1st laptop.
Refurbished laptops can be just fine if they were taken care of properly, however many aren't and I'd be a bit leary. But you can find new laptops for $500 and they're pretty damn good.
But whatever you buy; MAKE SURE if has AT LEAST 512 mb of memory (try to get as much memory as you can) and make sure you have a large enough hard-drive if you plan on storing music/movies/pictures etc. Periodically, Best Buy has a good sale on laptops and you can find a great one for $400-$500. Look around and do your homework.
Refurbishment is the process of major maintenance or minor repair of an item, either aesthetically or mechanically.
Remanufactured rebuilt using the best replacement parts.
Normally I wouldn't be afraid of buying refurbished things. However off ebay, there isn't anyway I would buy refurbished. Or anything. I'm not a big ebay person at all.
I agree make sure it has at least 512 Megabyte of memory, if not you'll put one huge load on your system.
Notebook normally means a portable computer.
And computer people usually think of a desktop computer.
If you do buy one that is a bit older I'd suggest you stay away from Intel Celeron chips.
I know some people really like AMD laptops (notebooks) but I've never had one so I don't know. Mine is a Centrino low voltage. If you don't plan on doing anything heavy with it because writing documents and what not an occasional movie, I'd suggest to try to find low voltage processors. Otherwise battery life can be very minimal. For hard drive size how much physical storage it has, 40 Gigabyte is usually sufficient for most people. But if you do plan to throw anything and everything on there I'd try to get more.
If you do plan to go to a store
Sadly enough Wal-Mart has some nice Toshiba ones.
I don't really shop at Best Buy so I don't know.
However if you plan to order online.
http://www.tigerdirect.com
(they use to be pretty good, I still think they are but it would be up to your own judgment to trust them.)
http://wwww.geeks.com (broken link)
(they sell old and new things, as well as refurbished and remanufactured things.)
Deciding on a laptop, there are refurbished ones on ebay for less than $400 I imagine u are taking quite a risk with those, or not?
I am not electronic savvy so I don't know what "notebook" means vs. "computer" they both look alike to me. Do the notebooks do less?
There are so many out there, how do I choose?
I need a computer badly and thought I would just go ahead and get a laptop this time around.
I would avoid eBay for refurbished laptops like the plague, unless its actually the computer company (Dell, Acer, IBM etc) actually selling hte refurbs.
A first time buyer would be advised to read up a bit about computers. cnet.com would be a good place to start. Or go to a bookstore and browse the computer magazines...
I'll also take a minute to support the suggestion to make sure the computer has enough memory. People who are new to computers often understandibly confuse "memory" with "storage". It's important to understand the difference - Memory is typically called RAM, and having enough can be the difference between having programs run properly and having programs run agonizingly slowly. Don't confuse RAM with hard drive space. The smallest hard drive available on a new computer will be more than enough for 99 percent of users. But it's hard to get enough RAM and it's worth every penny. That's because the newer the operating system, the more RAM is required to run the computer. Most new computers are going to be sold with the new Microsoft Windows operating system called VISTA. I believe VISTA requires a bare minimum of a GIGABYTE of RAM, and many new computers have recently been sold with 512 megabytes - roughly half that.
Spend extra money on RAM and you'll be happy. It's simply the cheapest way to ensure the computer works efficiently and is up to the task of running the software that will be used over the life of the computer. Skimp on Ram and you'll regret it. My computer consultant strongly suggests my next laptop/notebook computer have 2 gigabytes of RAM in order to properly run the version of Windows vista I'll be running .
btw - If you can buy a computer running a prevoius version of windows - there's no reason I can think of not to go for it. Microsoft XP runs just fine with 512 megs of RAM.
Na, Vista has a minimum with 512 Megabyte RAM, it recommends 1 Gigabyte for all the colorful features.
Agreed. It will "run" with 512, but no better than you will run on bread and water.
I'm partial to IBM/Lenovo notebooks myself. They're extremely durable. As a close second, HP business grade notebooks are great as well. Of course, if I had a blank check I'd buy a Panasonic "Tough Book".
If you just want a consumer grade notebook, Acer believe it or not has always worked well for folks I know. Dell isn't too bad, but the casings are weak and I know several people with cracked screens as a result.
I loved my Dell laptop. Bought an Acer a few months ago and not very happy with it. Doesn't "remember me", freezes up. Screen is too reflective. And when I close it, I sometimes have to push harder than I think I should- just doesn't seem to catch very well. I had heard that they had gotten better, but I regret the decision.
I just bought a Dell. I'm hooking it up tomorrow .
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