Quick laptop question

[ellenmillion]

Got a quote on the machine I'd like, and wanted to poll my wise LJ friends resource before I plunked down the cash.

It's admitedly more machine that I strictly need, but I'm looking ahead and don't want to try to add more to something. Particularly a laptop.

17" (I don't think I'll budge on that, and that's going to set a lot of my pricing, I'm sure...) SVGA Active TFT Matrix Color Display

Pentium IV, 2.8 GHz

512MB DDR Memory

AGP Video Chipset Intel 82865G Extreme Graphics

80 Gig Hard drive (the next model down came with only 40, upgradable to 60 for $60, upgradeable to 80 for $300 or something ridiculous, which just about put the two laptops in the same pricerange... and I NEED harddrive space.)

DVD-rom, CD-RW

Wireless ethernet

Norton Anti-virus, Windows XP-pro

Other standard stuff that doesn't much matter (speakers, soundcard, MP3 player)

Weight ~11.5 lbs.

Is $1699 a reasonable price? Any warnings, etc?

Comments

[renatus.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a good price to me. Who makes it? If you don't have a manufacturer in mind, I know Toshiba makes a good product, the few times I've seen problems with them it was right out of the box and the manufacturer replaced it ASAP. I will echo the cavet on Gateway - they make a shoddy product, no matter what you get. I'd also beware of eMachines.

(The repair geek in me has to say that there is very little difference between hard drive brands, so it really doesn't matter what they put in there. Not worth fussing over. Going with an 80GB drive is a good idea, though.)

Make sure you can upgrade the RAM a fair amount. 512 is okay for an XP machine, but if you use RAM-intensive programs a lot (photoshop!) you'll be better off with 1GB. Keep in mind, though, it may be cheaper to buy the extra RAM after the laptop and install it yourself, so make sure you have expandibility.

Laptops all come with built in speakers and soundcards. They're integrated in, so you get what you get, although you can always attach other speakers too, they have speaker ports.

Keep in mind that a laptop weighing that much is going to be an absolute BITCH to carry around. Doesn't sound like much until you actually have to have it on your lap - and they get hot, too... Speaking of the heat, if you don't use it with it on your lap, keep it on a hard surface for good ventilation. There's not any way I know of to get a lighter laptop with the screen size you want without going to a 17" powerbook, and that means switching operating systems, but more importantly, it also means paying a lot more, so... But at any rate, if you do carry it around, take care of your back when you do so. Again, 11.5 lbs doesn't sound like much, but it's surprisingly dense and awkward when it's all in a laptop.

[renatus.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah - if you play mp3s on the laptop you can either use windows media player, or download a different program (iTunes, WinAmp, Sonique, etc) for free. Again, that's not something that should be worried about in the included features as it's just sort of there.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

It's an Acer. (I wouldn't DREAM of buying a Gateway...) And I think I'm looking more for a portable computer than technically a laptop... something I can bring from home to the EMG office, but not something I'd take on an airplane or camping or anything. Thanks for the juicy advice! I'm thinking I will see about upgrading it to 1 Gig Ram.

[renatus.livejournal.com]

Acers seem to be pretty decent, all told.