Deals.Woot

I plan on getting:
Windows 7, 64-bit
i3 or i5 - not sure yet

I need to play and maybe burn Blu-ray DVDs.

Looking to spend around $1200 or less, not including Office. My thought process is currently to buy the less expensive machine, because I will probably want a new one anyway in 2 years. This Dell was $2600 with everything, and it has been less reliable than the little HP I bought used off of eBay way back when.

I really don't care about brand names - the parts come from all over anyway so it is really hard to claim that one is much better than another. (Healthy dose of skepticism here) I do like the Dell keyboards, but even that is not enough to make me want to jump back in the Dell pool I think.

@hobbit: Well I see that on Sponsored Deals, but I'd really like to see more positive comments than some of the ones on there before I jump in.

@sand4me: I like the Dells. I am on my 4th laptop. All 4 are still working fine. Like you I just need more power. As Hobbit pointed out I always have Dell build them for me. My last Studio 17 was purchased in November 2009 for $950 with Win7/64 and really works well. I know the Blu-ray will add a little more.

@tazz49: You have 4 Dell laptops?!?!?!! Each one has a separate purpose?

@tazz49: I bet @shrdlu has you beat on computers although I am sure she won't give you a total count.

@hobbit: I used to have more but I have been supplying the relatives with my old systems. I have been building systems since the 80's. I am trying too clear out some of the old stuff. I forgot the desktop that my wife uses for her embroidery machine.

HP dv7t: http://bit.ly/9JCWTl
Intel i5-430M
4 GB Ram
320 GB Hard Drive
1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 320M

$999.99

If your unhappy with your current Dell, I don't think buying the same model with newer hardware is going to solve your problems.

If you wanted to throw more money at this $1500 for the HP Envy 15 would be the best thing.

@faughtey: ??? Of course I have a computer room in my house. Doesn't everyone? Well, at least everyone that I hang out with, in real life. While I don't do the work that I did, you never know when I'll want to play in the pond with the rest of the scum, and the computer world moves VERY fast. It's not all fe80::%lo0/64 you know.

@shrdlu: I understated by saying computer room. Now I'll overstate by saying Data Center. It's somewhere in there! Up until a few years ago, I worked in a Data Center as a Computer Operator, but don't know what fe80::%lo0/64 is.
Edit to add, yes, when I was a homeowner I had my computer in one of the spare bedrooms. And it was the computer room!

@faughtey: I really wasn't kidding when I said that having that many (or more) computers was the norm for the people I hang out with in real life. It doesn't seem unusual to me. I have two KVMs, and everything goes through one or the other. Most of my machines are running some variety of Unix, a couple are Linux, and there are two XP machines (one home, one professional), and a Vista.

It is definitely NOT a server room (although at least four of the machines would be considered servers; two DNS, one NTP, and one doing other things). Certainly the windows machines are not servers, although I've had a Windows 2000 Server in past, and ran Windows 2003 Server for a time also (active directory has been interesting to me, now and then).

I was rather hoping that someone would have recognized "fe80::%lo0/64" but not particularly surprised that they did not. Here's a couple of hints:

That format is IPv6

Back later...

@shrdlu: I found this after you said "That format is IPv6."
Stateless address autoconfiguration
A node automatically creates addresses on startup on each IPv6 enabled interface—apart from addresses that are manually configured or obtained through DHCPv6. It does so independently and without any prior configuration in a process called Stateless Address Autoconfiguration,[14] which employs the Neighbor Discovery Protocol.
At least a link-local address is created with network prefix fe80::/64, and, when a router responds to router solicitation[15] (ICMPv6 type 133), a global address is formed with each /64 network prefix the router provides.
Continued...

@faughtey: Sure, but the funny bit is that it's the equivalent of saying it's a single machine. I thought about just posting the "::1" but decided that one was so obscure that it would NEVER have meaning (it's the exact equivalent to 127.0.0.1, aka localhost, aka lo0). I was under contract for a while to do a book on IPv6, but I just can't maintain the focus. You never know, though. Stranger things have happened.

@dcalotta: Thanks - I will check it out.

Oh yuck, sorry, I could've sworn I saw an Ideapad with a 17 incher :(

@catbertthegreat: My neighbor has let me use her new HP dv4. It is speedy and I set up her router and printers in exchange for trying it out. It is smaller, but seems quite nice. My cousin is going to let me try out her Toshiba. Not sure what the specs are on it. More later.

FWIW, I am a partisan of the venerable ThinkPad line. It will cost a bit more than the same configuration at Dell or HP. But I don't mind paying a bit extra, and here's why:

1) No one makes a keyboard that feels as nice as the ThinkPad's. And if you type a lot, it makes a big usability difference.

2) The ThinkPads are more solidly built than many other machines. In fact, a number of models meet a military spec for "semi-rugged" computing: http://www.lenovo.com/news/us/en/2009/02/rugged_computing.html

3) When Lenovo bought IBM's personal computing division, it (at least initially) retained IBM as the tech support provider in the U.S. So the one time I had an issue with a ThinkPad, I spoke to an IBM employee in Dallas who did actual troubleshooting (didn't waste an hour of my time reading from a script).

4) No crapware to clean off before I get down to work.

I equate points 2-4 with lower total cost of ownership, even if there was a greater monetary outlay at the front end.

Okay, I am looking at a Lenovo Thinkpad T410 right at the moment. It is a bit smaller than what I think I wanted, but I did like the smaller HP. Did not like the Toshiba so much - keyboard felt different. Still thinking.

i got a dell studio a while back. along with Dell's service, it can join the lemon basket.