I bought this laptop in 2004 and thinking about getting a new one. It needs a new battery and is running hot.
I am not computer savvy at all. Anyone have any suggestions on a new one?

I'm happy with my acer so far.

I also have an Acer Had it about 3 years. Works fine. I bought it at Walmart.

Dell is very competitive and has decent product support. Gateways are better for expandability and also have good product support.
Acer's product support is so so.
STAY AWAY FROM HP LIKE IT HAD COOTIES, AIDS, AND TWO OTHER UNPRONOUNCEABLE ILLNESSES!
Most of the others are not all that. Alienware is just way over priced for what it is. I can take a basic laptop and with some additions come up with the SAME computer for less than 2/3rds of what it costs to get a Alienware.

AVOID MAC AND APPLE ANYTHING! Their product support is terrible. They are after your wallet! Repairs are excessively expensive. Their computers are not expandable at all. They are also pricey as it gets like Alienware.

Also bear in mind if you want premium features like a 17" monitor and blue ray burner get ready to pay. If video is what you want it for or are doing like you watch movies go for the fastest CPU you can afford and also the most RAM you can get in it. If you are looking for just internet you can get a budget machine.

I bought a Dell around Christmas because it was a pretty good deal. I've been happy with it since. I also have an HP for work, but I like the Dell better.

Hi there . I've seen and worked on alot of computers and find for the money , value and performance , that The Toshiba's are really really good . My other favorite is ASUS .


Usually with the laptops I find if you buy the middle of the road . Don't worry about how much memory it has unless it has vista on it witch needs a minimum of 2gb. of memory . Hey you can always upgrade memory and it's usually cheaper . same goes with the hard drives .

Best things to have when deciding for the right value

1)buy better laptop motherboard

2)you can always upgrade memory (use the money you save buying less and add to get better motherboard)

3)If you don't need a big hard drive to start with you can always get a bigger one later and can get a better speed than what comes in an oem laptop .

Hope this helps .

Thanks for all your replies. Anyone else really like their laptop?

I used to like mine until it quit working. Macbook coming soon :)

To be honest most are made from the same components anymore. The bigger companies are better with there warranties. Acer, HP, Dell, Etc....... Asus has great products but I have never worked on one of there laptops. Great motherboards. I have a Gateway laptop that I haven't had any problems with. Yeah stay away from Vista.....

Vista really isn't that bad if you know what you're doing, but for the average user, yeah, go with XP or Win7. For the aspiring techy, start fresh with Linux lol

Sorry bro I have to disagree Vista sucks.........

I'm not just a big fan of Windows myself, but I have to use something for gaming, and they support more than the rest :D
^^
Is that what I think it is? You gonna pass it my way?^^

I ain't passing anything your way brother I just don't care for Vista. I am not a gamer so I don't know about the support on that end. All I know is an operating system on a pc should not take up that much RAM...........

I have to concur with Toshiba being good. STAY AWAY FROM SONY VAIO!
I have an OLD Satellite 2100CDS I use for work and it still works! It is an old 400MHz Dinosaur but it is a field computer and serves its purpose. Always shoot for the better tech support too. If the unit fails you do not want to go without your computer more than two weeks. Unless it is an RMA return Apple can take over SIX WEEKS to service your computer EVEN FOR WARRANTY WORK. STAY AWAY FROM APPLE! Dell, Gateway, and any other quality computer will have an easy to access service by net or phone and promise two week turn around! Anything less and you are jerking off.

Fine... I'm feeling the love now, lol. Yeah, it is quite the RAM hog

Vista does suck and is a cheap ripoff of OS-X!! It is supremely memory intensive, Has WAY too many bells and whistles for the average user, and on top of that has all the same security issues of past flavors with other odd little "back doors." I will not go past XP. Why do you all think Microsoft was so eager to get Windows 7 out? That flavor is better than Vista. If you need greater than 4GB of RAM then go XPx64 Bit? I have that and it does recognize more than 4GB of RAM.

If anything give Ubuntu Karmic Koala 10.1 a spin. It emulates the XP environment. It is also bonehead. You can add the features you want to have and leave the rest out so it is customizable for an OS. It is very feature rich and on top of that the WINE add on allows you to play Windows based games or use Windows based software on the computer even though it is a LINUX machine. I miss the bouncing cow screen saver though. It was in an earlier version and hope they brought it back!I have played with Ubuntu and like it so far. Some of it is not for any beginner so there are sticking points to it as an OS for the average user but if you are willing to learn they have great support and excellent forums. On top of that the developers love getting good suggestions for improving the OS. It just keeps getting better all the time! They revamp it every six months. Best part is it is free.

I used to build Linux firewalls for clients years ago. Not much experience with it past that. They were stable. I do like XP. I have always heard with the Linux OS that drivers are hard to find.

My sons have Toshiba's and Lenovos and like them a lot

I like Vista - MS has sent out a lot of patches. I like what I've seen of 7 too. but I really don't need things like finger print sign on and voice rec - tho they are pretty cool features - I'm told it's lighter weight too


I like Vista's multimedia capacities-

Get a Mac. Yes, they're pricey, but they're also ELEGANT and WAY more fun to work on than anything with the letters 'PC' (say 'Windoze') in its name ... I learned on a PC and couldn't wait to get away from it and onto a Mac - never looked back since then ...