I need to buy a laptop. My employer will pay for it, but I am to choose it.
I've no idea.
I need it to be pretty fast as I 'll be using it in my spare time to search for thing on the net.

ANy suggesitons?

A relative just purchased a Dell Inspiron 1521 notebook yesterday for $769.00. I believe the sale price goes through tomorrow - if you want more info, just personal message me, and I'll get it for you. Included in her machine was the AMD Turion processor, Windows Vista Home Premium edition, 160GB hard drive, 2GB memory, read & write cd and dvd ability, a nice webcam, and free shipping. Not bad at all for the money, IMHO - particularly nice to have the 2 Gigs of memory, which should be speedy.

I have a bank full of Dell pc's with extremely minimal problems, so I'm quite happy with Dell right now - I used to say I'd never buy a Dell machine, but I firmly believe Dell is a company which has improved tremendously over the past few years. I'm strongly considering purchasing one of the Inspiron notebooks for my personal use... probably will be my Christmas gift to myself this year.

I have a Sony Viao and it's a good laptop.

Do you have an IT department at your bank? Are there minimum standards you need to have, such as processor type or speed, memory, hard drive storage, DVD, software used, etc? Does it have to be a PC? Or would a Mac work? If you have an IT department, I would start with them, they can give you great guidance. If no IT department, I would buy the biggest, baddest Mac available...

If I was to get a PC (vs. a Mac), I'd probably get a Sony Viao or an IMB ThinkPad.

And I'm pleased to say that happygilmore and I *can* agree about something. If you have the option of getting a Mac, get a MacBook Pro.

Stay away from Sony's, I've heard nothing but bad things about them. That being said though, most laptops are gonna come loaded with Vista, make sure IT is okay with it and that it will work with all your old programs. I just bought a Gateway MT6840 a few weeks ago and I love it so far, the only drawback is the onboard video solution. If you plan on playing some of the newest games you may want a better graphics processing unit.

Oh yeah, get as much memory as they can cram into the laptop at time of purchase. Vista loves memory.

Also Dell(and maybe some others) will still load XP on your machine if you specify that you want it.

It's not my intention to hijack this thread, but I too am thinking laptop (for home/school use for the kids - very very cheap) and have heard that Vista Home Basic has MS Word, Excel, and PP on it and I won't have to buy it. Does anybody know if that is true? I did some brief online research and couldn't find anything that agreed with that opinion.

Someone else mentioned that programs that are "fully compatible" with MS Office are available for free download on the net. That too seems odd -- if that were true, why would anyone buy MS Office?

Thanks for any info.

come on Buigs...we agree on many things...it is the few things we disagree about that just gets all the press...

I just purchased a new Gateway w/Vista and NO, it does not have the full versions of Word, Excel, etc., it only has "trial" versions that expire after something like 3 mos.

Honestly, had I realized this (I was in a hurry when I bought it) before purchase, it would have significantly influenced my buying decision. Buyer beware.

mine didn't have Microsoft Office either...had to buy it

Glad to hear you say that, happy. I think we have more in common than in what we disagree upon.

P.S. I would like to publicly apologize for calling you a moron and ugly. Name calling is just plain dumb and I shouldn't have stooped to that level.

3 month "trials" of the Office products seems to be becoming the norm. My dad discovered that's what his new pc had on Day 91, when BAM he could open but not edit, print, or copy his files. Buyer beware is sure right! And those free "compatible" alternative-to-Microsoft-Office products are anything but a seamless, smooth transition in my humble experience: I've tried a couple and not liked them and not found them easy to use.

The comment about making sure your IT department gives the ok about Windows Vista is a very good point. My bank's core sofware will not run with Vista until the next revision of the software, so this would be a large consideration for us right now were I considering any work-related laptop purchases; we would have to go with Windows XP.

If you work for a large company and use MS Office, check to see if they participate in the MS Office home use program. As long as you work for the company you can get Office for your home dirt cheap. I think I paid $20 for Office Home edition.

Thanks for the tip Comp Guy - I will check that out. I thought the "complimentary" MS Office was a deal too good to be true.

My employer also participates in the Microsoft Office HUP. Like Comp Guy, it was $20. The cool thing about it is that you get most of the office suite (I don't think you get Project, Live Meeting, or Visio and I'm not sure about Access).

My only complaint is that the HUP doesn't exetend to Office for Mac.

I had the choice of PC or Mac through my HUP. The Mac version was more expensive though.

Really. Huh. It's been a couple of years since I last checked. I think an email message is in order. Thanks, Comp Guy!

Hey, guess what! I *can* get a Mac version under our HUP. Thanks again, Comp Guy!

Anytime Bugs! Glad I could help!

Openoffice.org FTW.

Offers everything that Microsoft Office does, but at a much better price(FREE).

The second thing I did on my laptop after updating was to uninstall Microsoft Office. Openoffice is every bit as good.

Yeah, I've been thinking about Open Office too. Maybe I should check it out. Thanks, Max.

I swear by Openoffice.org. I figure it's my little way of sticking it to Microsoft.


My buddy was like I could have gotten you a key for it. I was like thanks, but I'll go with a program thats smaller on my hard drive and works just as well.

Thanks for the tip Maximus -- I will check it out. We don't have HUP.

No prob, anytime.