laptops on a budget..........

[quote="2-smoke":ny2sl90c][quote="axo1961":ny2sl90c]Anyone shopped for one lately?? Was looking at an Acer in circuit city,649.00,2gb ram,250gig hard drive w/ a intel centrino duo core processor.What is a good one?? Also do you really need to buy all the expensive antivirus and spyware crap,or are there any free ones to download off the Internet that are as good or better??[/quote:ny2sl90c]

Go to Tigerdirect.com and check out some of the refurbished Gateways. Great deals. I bought a refurbished Gateway desktop and I am totally happy with it. These are computers that are brand spanking new that had a part replaced. They are not computers someone had for a year. They have other refurbished brands also but I would stay away from Toshiba or Acer.[/quote:ny2sl90c]

Hahaha............Acer is one of the major laptop component producers. Very few laptops on the market, regardless of label, that do not have Acer manf. components.

BTW, I've bought 4 laptops from this guy in the past couple of years.........all worked 100% and are still working with zero issues.

http://motors.search.ebay.com/_W0QQsass ... artQ2dsale

9 mos ago I bought a Lenovo and am very happy
Lenovo is the IBM Thinkpad. Lenovo took over their laptop division

I bought a HP from Samsclub. It seemed like a good price.

BTW, have you considered a Mac Book?

That'll be my next laptop

Go to an Apple Store and look at them.

Oh yeah...forgot that part

I got my Lenovo at Circuit City
Works well
Shop around a bit

I second the Dell suggestion. I've bought 4 Dell laptops and a Lenovo the last several years. Overall the Dells were a better buy, especially the refurbs.

Regarding anti-virus solutions - the free software will provide some level of protection but all the ones I've used are inferior to the paid-for applications. So it just depends on how exposed to virus/spyware one will be versus how protected one wants to be. For example, Kaspersky works well but does so by blocking access to many sites, legitimate and otherwise. Wrestling with that blocking can be a pain and maybe that level of protection is unnecessary.

Dell has a $500 laptop about every six months. The one I am using now I got two years ago for $500. For the net and email it works great. I would avoid the Asian laptops like the plague. A Open, Acer Emachines. All low budget.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/ca ... l=en&s=dhs
$499 starting price.

Last week I bought a Dell inspiron 1526 from Best Buy. It was $699. They were $899 the previous week, so watch for sales. The idiots in the store didn't even know they had them till I showed it to them.
It has Vista, which I don't like much, but is a very nice machine.

In preferences take Vista off "Aero" view and into "Classic" view and it's much better and uses far less resources

Apple has some refurbished macbooks on sale right now for between $850 and 1,000. Free shipping included.

[quote="2-smoke":2dq9yl1v][quote="xewbx":2dq9yl1v][quote="2-smoke":2dq9yl1v]

Go to Tigerdirect.com and check out some of the refurbished Gateways. Great deals. I bought a refurbished Gateway desktop and I am totally happy with it. These are computers that are brand spanking new that had a part replaced. They are not computers someone had for a year. They have other refurbished brands also but I would stay away from Toshiba or Acer.[/quote:2dq9yl1v]

Hahaha............Acer is one of the major laptop component producers. Very few laptops on the market, regardless of label, that do not have Acer manf. components.

BTW, I've bought 4 laptops from this guy in the past couple of years.........all worked 100% and are still working with zero issues.

http://motors.search.ebay.com/_W0QQsass ... artQ2dsale[/quote:2dq9yl1v]

Yea and Kayaba is also one of the leading fork manufactures for the big 4 but they are built to manufacturer specs. Just like computer parts. Same with VCR's , there are only 2 major manufacturers of VCR's in the world. But they are far from all being the same.

Who's Ell oh Elling now?[/quote:2dq9yl1v]

I'm laughing even harder now at some of the crap on this thread. Computer threads on moto boards always make me smile.

[quote="2-smoke":zu7lhkzt]

As usual, I've got nothing[/quote:zu7lhkzt]

Fixed it for yah.

[quote="2-smoke":5grpv6re]

My wife had me fixed.
[/quote:5grpv6re]

Whatever gelding.

[quote="2-smoke":d6aoug4x][quote="axo1961":d6aoug4x]Anyone shopped for one lately?? Was looking at an Acer in circuit city,649.00,2gb ram,250gig hard drive w/ a intel centrino duo core processor.What is a good one?? Also do you really need to buy all the expensive antivirus and spyware crap,or are there any free ones to download off the Internet that are as good or better??[/quote:d6aoug4x]

Go to Tigerdirect.com and check out some of the refurbished Gateways. Great deals. I bought a refurbished Gateway desktop and I am totally happy with it. These are computers that are brand spanking new that had a part replaced. They are not computers someone had for a year. They have other refurbished brands also but I would stay away from Toshiba or Acer.[/quote:d6aoug4x]

Somebody claiming that they would buy a Gateway and stay away from Toshiba or Acer is pretty funny!

newegg to me seems to have great deals and they rock too.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory ... -Notebooks

zip zoom fly kicks ass too

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/powerSear ... yCode=1002

remember when zipzoomfly was Googlegear?

Good ones:
newegg
zipzoomfly

My Gateway laptop has given me no issues after two years of work. I use it for web design and general photoshopping. It's a Centrino Core Dou processor. I carry the damn thing everywhere I go in my backpack, no failures yet. I bought it from Best Buy for around $800. While it is nice and still use-able, I'm looking at a new Macbook pro to replace it.

Check the dell outlet section of dell.com for some killer deals on refurb and scratch n dent laptops, but know in advance what configuration you are looking for cause they go fast.

Define budget...You can get one of these for like $200. Actually they'd would be great for someone who traveled a lot or needed to pack a lapper around all the time.
http://eeepc.asus.com/global/product.htm

don't remember that cr rider, i do not use zzf much except for work. i always use negg though.