Posted on 05/31/2009 3:15:59 PM PDT by Netizen
the parents of this student who want to build their son a laptop would be better off making a tin can , putting beans into it and sealing it up.
Go buy one for Pete’s sake! The would be smart if they went to computer repair place to see if they had any re-manufactured ones all cleaned up for sale. Generally these places give out a warranty, too. I have two laptops and that’s how I purchased my Dell Latitude with Windows XP Professional for $350.00 with a warranty. My other one is a larger screen Toshiba which works perfectly fine and I bought that at Wal-Mart.
“Just tried to give you my ecperiences...”
oh yeah...tell em to always use spell check...
I would, from personal experience, stay away from toshiba satellite notebooks, if you need a Windows machine.
They already built their son one and he uses it. I don’t know what all he uses it for. My son says he would take it to the Robotics meets they had. He went online with it, so it must work for something.
I just wasn’t sure I wanted to go that route and as someone else mentioned, maybe the kids father planned to make money of us. I don’t know.
At this point I think we’ll check out Wal Mart and Best Buy for looks and comfort, then wait til the end of June when we have to go for orientation. Our son will have to stay overnight and hopefully he can get with someone familiar with his course of study and get a heads up on what he will need. Then we can go from there.
At least I know we can rule out having the kid’s dad build one. :)
Good grief. Just get a good used one for $400 on craigslist.
I just bought a HP 550 with XP installed for $600.00 delivered from PC Connection.com
Free shipping, had it in my hands in 4 days.
Office Home& Student edition costs $150 at Staples.
My son just bought a screamin’ Dell for $869. Itcomes with Word. Why does he need Vista Office?
Its Vista business and I have no idea why he needs that. I don’t know if its just that that’s what the newer ones come with or if there is some other reason.
I just looked at Dell’s outlet, refurbished, scratch and dent etc and they are all the same or higher for the same computer.
Hah! Good luck to him. With almost 100% of college students on his campus owning laptops, he won't have enough time left in his day to do what he was sent there for in the first place.
As for your question, I agree with NRPM's assessment. Take the school's offer. We did for our son and haven't regretted it one bit.
Hah! Good luck to him. With almost 100% of college students on his campus owning laptops, he won't have enough time left in his day to do what he was sent there for in the first place.
As for your question, I agree with NRPM's assessment. Take the school's offer. We did for our son and haven't regretted it one bit.
Best bet is to find out the requirements, shop around, and be aware of the discount Microsoft gives students.
I just checked out the reviews for the laptop the school suggests and the reviews were not too good. Lots of complaints about poor quality and lockups. :(
“> Whatever you do, price in the 4 year warranty on whatever you buy.<”
“It’s acceptable to be put in ‘contract/warranty’ for ONLY 2 years. WHY? The pc co. that Freeper eventually chooses could be a lemon and he/she might be stuck for 4 years, dealing with the same people/problems..just like cell-phone companies.”
The college program is 4 years. If you have lots of money you can buy a new PC every year or two, but most of us are on a budget of some sort. I’ve found that Dell does fix their PCs, after first trying to get you to do it for them.
Not having read the entire thread, lemme say that I’ve been worried that the clever computer industry would think of a way to eliminate the PC clone makers by inventing some technology that runs only on laptops which are virtually impossible to clone or build yourself. We’re almost there, laptops and the bloody VM dominate.
He'll probably be going for more than 4 years so he'll probably have to replace at least once. We've bought 5 Dell's over the years and I was disappointed to find that once your warranty on parts expires, so does their tech or troubleshooting. They weren't always that way.
You’re probably right. The laptop is almost there for storage and speed.
I’m more knowledgeable on software than hardware, but a buddy brought in some catalogs to work a few years ago, and I added up the numbers...(I would have expected him to do the work)...it looked to me that it would be very difficult to make money at building your own computers and then reselling them.
I would recommend against it. The guy you buy it from might not support it once the transaction is complete, especially if your kid is going to college some distance away.
A laptop should last a college kid at least 4 years. Maybe support isn’t what it used to be? I really can’t speak to that.
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