About:Y-aji

Well, the day has arrived. It’s time to buy yet another computer it seems. As computers are getting cheaper and cheaper every year, it is becoming less painful to upgrade regularly. However, we all still want to make sure to get the biggest bang for our buck.

Don’t fret! There are a number of choices that make sure you get the job done, as well as keeping your wallet from getting any lighter.

Laptop suggestions

Dell

Dell is a well known and well trusted brand. They have good quality PCs at reasonable rates and technical support is extremely good. To users that argue this, due to their reputation regarding poor technical support, they recently brought technical support back to the US after a huge number of complaints, to ensure customers were getting the help they need. Unfortunately, it hurt their reputation pretty badly, and it has been an uphill struggle for them ever since. Dell is definitely back in full swing and ready to make sure you are as satisfied as you can be.

If you are out to save some cash, the most attractive section to access is their clearly labeled Dell refurbished line. The Studio 17 -1737 laptop has gotten great reviews and can perform pretty much any task that the any campus would ever require. Refurbished, you can expect to pay about $600 to $800 for the Studio 17 – 1737.

The refurbished section gives users the same warranty and the same quality of machine. Many of these are orders that were canceled before they were even shipped, or immediately returned because users did not find them satisfactory for their needs. Aside from a ding or scratch, you will find absolutely no difference. Getting one refurbished will save $100 to $200 on the machine.

IBM/Lenovo

My business directly works with IBM/Lenovo products, however, they are pretty pricey in contrast to other choices, and most users usually don’t like them because they look kind of boring.

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/notebooks/thinkpad/t-series

Toshiba

I see quite a few people with Toshiba laptops that seem to really like them as well. I personally haven’t used them much, but hear great reviews from most students.

http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/laptops.to?Screen%20Size=17

Asus

If you are a little more “techy”, you may prefer an Asus. Younger people like these models because they are easier to open up and work on. The tech support is pretty good from what I have heard, and they sell laptops for a pretty good price.

These laptops work quite well for the non-techy side of the world as well. They are quite easy for us to work on and tend to hold up very nicely with quality parts.

http://asuslaptop.com/

Mac

Many younger kids and designers are heading towards Macs. Though Macs are attractive and a lot of fun to play with, there is little advantage they give over a PC. In the end, the cost of ownership is significantly higher, and they are much harder to get to interact with some of the products the school offers. Refer to some of my previous posts in regards to my 3 week review of a Mac.

Also, most IT departments offer no support for Macs. They normally have to be taken into a Mac store to be fixed when something goes wrong. As long as it is under warranty this is no big deal, and could actually be seen as a convenience, but after the warranty runs out, it can be very costly.

If you do decide to go with one, the basic model, the MacBook, will suffice for all your needs. This will offer a basic system for you. Macs have very limited system specs, but due to how they are made and the fact that there are very few computer types to support (in contrast to the seemingly infinite number of choices you have that Microsoft has to support) Macs do not need as much hardware to operate at an efficient level.

Software is very directly managed by Mac as well, making it a little more expensive if you decide to buy any mainstream applications. However, just as with PC’s there are free alternatives to pretty much everything.

Software

Avoid purchasing any software up front. We can provide free alternatives to pretty much all basic software. You can view a lot of information on some great software by taking a look at osalt (http://www.osalt.com).

You can easily avoid the purchase of antivirus, office development, photo editing, video editing, video conversion, spam and malware protection, etc. There are a huge number of items available free at cost.

Extra suggestions

Along with a lot of our primary suggestions on what to buy, I also want to emphasize what I suggest avoiding. There are a lot of companies that do not currently have the best reputation of customer care or quality. It’s important to make sure that you are aware of some of these problems before you get stuck with something that is expensive and hard to fix.

Don’t buy from chain stores

Avoid purchasing from a local store if you do not have to. Getting the laptop directly from the manufacturer is better for them and usually better for you. Most of the web pages allow you to do this. Stores inflate the prices of computers quite dramatically and tend to provide inadequate support. Chain stores underpay their technicians quite dramatically which usually attracts a poor technician base.

Avoid HP

Avoid HP computers in general. HP is notorious for selling parts that are poorly tested and poorly supported. Their technical support is also extremely bad. 6 out of 10 computers that frequent my home for repair are HP computers. They just don’t hold up.

The number one part that goes bad on HP laptops is the hard drive. Hard drives are easy to replace, but hold all your information which includes your operating system. HP does not offer CD’s any longer with a new computer, so there is no way to reinstall Windows if the hard drive drops out, meaning you have to buy a new copy or buy a replacement hard drive from them.

Number two is their monitors. When a monitor goes out on a laptop, the amount of work required to replace it is so monumental that we cannot do this ourselves, it has to be shipped in to HP and is not cheap nor is it always covered under warranty. Which leads into the primary problem with HP.

HP has the worst customer support of any company under the sun. They frequently try to mislead and redirect you while trying to get problems fixed. Upon getting them to take a case, sending it in can take weeks. Once they get it in, it feels like they have you in their grip.

I personally have had them mail me a different model of computer than I sent in! They actually mailed me back the wrong computer. Upon calling them, they referred to it as a free upgrade. This was unsatisfactory because we were leasing that particular computer and the leasing company expected their original computer back. HP claimed the original pc was decommissioned and could not be returned and thus we had to pay for the loss of the computer. HP essentially stole our computer.

I have had computers that have been sent in that were under warranty that upon delivery, they decide that particular item is not under warranty for random reasons (reasons that were valid on previous items), and then mail it back unfixed with a bill attached to it for shipping and labor costs.

Essentially, what I’m trying to say is, “Do not buy from HP under any circumstances.”

Avoid Sony

Sony laptops are just hard for IT to work on. They are very restrictive in their policies and spend a lot of time locking things down to prevent users from accidentally causing problems. Because of these “fail safes”, when something does go wrong, they are similar to Macs and pretty much have to be mailed in to be fixed.

Avoid Mini Laptops

Mini laptops (eee PCs) are PCs with an 8 to 10 inch screen. They are great little computers, but they tend to have a lot more problems and should be seen more as a gadget or a backup computer. If you have a desktop already, a mini notebook may be a good choice for you as a derringer style PC. Pew pew.

Get a 17″ Screen

If there is an option to get a 15 or 17 inch screen, get the 17 inch. The price increase should be very minimal if any. It tends to be very helpful as students can increase their resolution for more workspace, and they are easier on the eyes. 17 has finally become pretty standard on laptops.

Extended Warranty

Try to get an extended warranty if you are going to buy a high dollar laptop. A 2 or 3 year warranty, if it is available, is a really good investment that I highly suggest due to how much kids sling their laptops around. Laptops have a reduced lifespan over desktops. Where a desktop owner can usually keep their computer alive for 4 or 5 years, laptop owners are usually looking at 2 to 3 years due to all the moving around that laptops undergo.

However, for low end laptops, this is pretty unnecessary as the cost of the warranty may be close to half the value of the laptop as a whole. Don’t spend over 25% of the laptop’s total value on warranty. So, for a thousand dollar laptop, it may be reasonable to get the $260 dollar warranty, but for a $700 laptop, don’t spend over $180.

Final thoughts

This may be a staggering amount of information to take in, and it doesn’t even carry any technical specs, but hopefully this will bring you a step closer to finding a computer that fits your needs. As stated above, the biggest thing to keep in mind is that computers are temporary, they have very short lifespans. There is no need to spend 2000 dollars on a computer when you can get one that will work just fine for your needs at 800.