Laptop buying advice forum: Need some help finding the right laptop within my budget...

Thank you! So helpful. : ) I built my desktop from parts I bought from Newegg a couple years back and I love their customer service. They also have great sales.

I'll look into the Sony and the Lenovo, then. Thanks again!

Mostly, I just want to know which laptop is going to get me the most value for my money.


Or, if I need to increase my price range for a laptop that can perform the functions I intend to use it for.


I know there are models out there within that price range as I've been looking for a while now, but would they perform well considering the things I want to do on them? Are they reliable? Which companies tend to be more reliable than others?

Also, I need to know if the laptops have issues with the power cords. I've had major issues with that in the past where I end up having to replace the power cord like twelve times because it stops working.

Every Dell and HP my family has ever owned goes through hard disc crash after hard disc crash. So far Gateway has been all right for us though a little slow. Sony's casings are a bit on the cheaper side for the cheaper brands we've tried but the electronics run fast and well long after they're bought. I've only owned one Toshiba and it's a netbook and it's fine for basic surfing, but I can only surf with one tab open at a time. All of these computers we've had are like three or more years old though (except the Toshiba) so I don't know if the reliability of the companies have changed since I last shopped for a serious laptop or not.

I have bad luck with choosing laptops. I always end up with a laptop that won't play older games I like (like KOTOR) even if the graphics card is supposedly good enough to run it, or it has issues with heat and shuts itself down even if I use a fan, or any other number of things like that. I understand any laptop will have its downside but I'd like to know what laptops tend to have what problems I guess??? I don't know.

I can't pick one for you. You may have other factors such as no credit card, refuse to use Amazon, newegg or other.

I can't pick this for you. I can point out the laptop pickers then you can post about your choice and see what members say about it.
Bob

are made. You have the name brands (Dell, Lenova and Toshiba) that design the systems. Then they are manufactured in the Taiwan or China (Compal, Quanta or Foxconn). They use parts made by Nvidia, ATI, Seagate, Maxtor< intel and many others. The are assembled and branded with their names and shipped to retail stores or to the companies thenselves to be configured by the buying customer. Apple does the same thing.