Recommend a good laptop for me?

[ApertureScience]

I want to look into a better laptop.  I'm going off to college soon and I'd like to get a better one than what I have now (2006 Dell Inspiron 1525).  I would like it if it could handle games well too.  I know, going to college, shouldn't be thinking about that, won't have time, whatever.  But I do plan on making time for games to, at the very least, relieve some stress.  The only games I would actually want to play on there would be Team Fortress 2, Sims 2 and Sims 3.

I've heard that Dell isn't really the best.  If that's true, then what is?

[Radiance]

I like Toshiba. They pop up a lot at Best Buy stores on special, I've had one for a while with no problems and so have my parents. My old HP on the other hand... It crashed the second day I had it out of the box! I hadn't even gone online with it! I've had a problem Dell as well. A friend of mine swears by Sony, but I think you pay more for the brand name with those :/.
A Mac is pretty pricey, but worth it IMO. I've got a 10 year old iBook that's chugging along just fine, never any problems out of it at all!
But if you're wanting a PC or are on a budget, I'd go with a Toshiba.

[KiwiSquirtBottle]

It's not so much that every Dell laptop ever isn't awesome, or that every Asus is super duper fantastic; each company has some really good laptops as well as some not so awesome ones too. There's lots more to a laptop than who makes it. I'm also going to preface this by saying that while I do work for an electronics store in their computer department, the statements herein are my opinions and are not endorsed by my employer. So yes.

The most important thing when you're buying a laptop is to look at the processor, then the RAM, then other things. Generally you cannot make a change to the processor without buying a whole new computer and since that's the computer's brain, it's better to buy something that may be a little powerful for you now, but will still leave you happy 2 or 3 years from now, rather than going the cheap route and buying a $300 laptop that you're going to want to replace in a year.

Intel processors are usually better for raw pure processing power. AMD processors are usually less expensive and better for graphics (movies, pictures, games) but not as powerful. You'll hear "dual core" and "quad core" often when you're looking at processors. Most of what's out now is made for dual core, but everything six months from now will be made to utilize quad core processors. For something that can handle games, you'd need an Intel Core i3 or better (i5 or i7 would be upgrades.) An i3 is physically dual core, but utilized as quad core, so it may be referred to both ways. First gen i3s will have a gold corner on their stickers; second gens will have a gold stripe through the middle, and are about 30% faster than the first gen processors. Later this year, the new ivy bridge processors will be coming out (hopefully around summer) which means the second gens now will drop in price hopefully. If you'd rather go with AMD, an A4 is the lowest I'd suggest, though an A6 or A8 would be better. AMD partners with ATI (or they're the same company now, whatever) and use new technology that give you graphics and a processor on the same chip so it costs less and looks prettier, visually.

As for RAM, 2GB is bare minimum to run Windows 7, 4GB is good, and 6GB or more is better. Adding RAM later is something that's fairly easy to do and may be more cost effective to do yourself (or ask a friend if you're not confident) in a few months, or whatever. Spend the money on a better processor rather than more RAM; make sure that you can upgrade (add to it) later if you think that's something you want to do.

Hard drive space shouldn't be a big thing; hard drive type is. A 320GB hard drive can be upgraded with an external hard drive later, or with cloud storage. Personally, I have a 500GB drive and after 5 years have only used 400gb, and I have a lot of large files from digital artwork. Most hard drives will be either 5400 or 7200 RPM. 7200 will let you pull data off faster but has a higher risk of burn out / failure BECAUSE it's going faster. Solid state hard drives are super awesome and allow you to do things like start up from dead in 7 seconds, but they're also small capacity and lots more expensive.

Brand wise, Asus, Lenovo, Dell, HP, and Toshiba all have really good computers, but some duds as well. In lower-end computers, Asus and Lenovo seem to be best, and the others are good in higher ends. The Toshiba C655 series specifically I'll caution you against; I've had a lot of people have a lot of problems with that specific series from them and were very unhappy.

I'm not sure what price range you're looking at so I'll mention a few specific series you may want to look in to. Lenovo's V570, Dell's XPS anything, HP's DV6. The DV6 from HP has sold very well for me and I've only seen one get returned. I know there's one out there with an AMD A8, 8GB RAM, and Beats Audio that's really awesome and has been about $530.

Where ever you buy from, make sure you know what their return policy is. I know Best Buy has a 30-day return/price match period and doesn't charge restocking fees or any such nonsense, even if you've opened and used the thing. Fry's is 14 days with a 5 - 10% restock fee. I'm not sure of other places.  A computer may be what you want specs wise, and may be $20 less than another manufacturer's similar model, but you may absolutely hate the keyboard, or the track pad may be weird or whatever.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something important, but feel free to reach out to me if you think I may be of more help (I don't always see replies to threads) or if I can clarify or anything along those lines. I'm sorry for rambling, or throwing too much info at you, but I hope some of it's useful! Good luck with your new laptop purchase!

[TokiBear]

KiwiSquirtBottle is right on!  Personally, I hate Dell and Toshiba.  I have had nothing but problems with them.  The last computer I had was a Toshiba and the day I got it home... blue screen of death... took it back to Best Buy, they replaced it... blue screen of death on that one too... got another replacement... that one also blue screen of deaths about every 3 months but I was so sick of replacing it, that I didn't even both anymore.  I now have a secondhand HP and it works great.  Haven't had any problems with it.  Next computer I get though will either be a Sony or a Mac... I need a good computer that can handle everything that I will be doing as a photographer.  If you can swing it, save up for the Mac, that's what I've been told.

[Kiwi]

Personally I really like my Acer - my first one still works to a point (slowly, but it does), and it's 7+ years old now. I have a new one that I also love. Hubby has an Asus which is the same company.

[ApertureScience]

You all rock so hard!  Thanks so much for helping a laptop noob! 

I'm going to start saving up so I try out the ones you guys recommended.  Asus sounds like a good start.
 

[KiwiSquirtBottle]

Acer and Asus are not the same company. Acer and Gate way are the same, and Asus is it's own. Apple computers are great, but are really geared towards graphics/photography/music where as PCs are more productivity/gaming. Not to say that you can't do one on the other, but that's where they shine.

Asus is definatly a good start, but do some research on a specific model before you go out and purchase; every company has a few bad ones. Let us know what you pick out!

[mlpfan]

I have a HP and i like it alot

[Eviecorn]

What KiwiSquirtBottle said.

[kaoskat]

Don't look at me, I just try to find a pink one.....

[RAMChYLD]

I've settled down with an Asus. As mentioned before, I've had problems with HP in the past (broken backlight within 6 months, sloppy follow up when it comes to system upgrades, and the constant pressure on me to buy a new laptop whenever I call for support), and now I have a few bones to pick with Dell- they refused to repair my netbook's LCD panel when a crack developed even though it was in warranty, and refused repair my mom's XPS M1210 despite there being a major recall - my mom's laptop developed a problem with the graphics chipset. A quick search on the internet revealed that this is a widespread problem and there was a recall, but when I called Dell Malaysia support, I was told that I need to take out an extended warranty because warranty on the laptop lapsed a year prior and that the recall was US-only (seriously?!?).

Right now I have an Asus A43T (aka Asus K43TA). Nice laptop. Quad core A6 chipset, CrossFireX Dual graphics (the on-chip Fusion GPU is combined with a discrete GPU to provide advanced graphical capabilities), and I have the RAM boosted to the maximum 8GB, so I can run a lot of sophisticated games on it. But then I'm an AMD fanboi anyway. Also, support was ace and very helpful when I accidentally bricked the BIOS last month. They managed to get it fixed in 3 days and for free too. My only problem with it is it's constant refusal to boot from the onboard SD card slot, it will only boot from USB flash drives or USB card readers, but not the internal card reader.

[Moony]

I have an HP and I loooove it Of course, my computer is about 4 years old this year. I only had two problems about a year into having it: first the graphics card died (HP replaced it for free) and then a few months later the motherboard crashed (again HP replaced it for free). I had the extended warranty on it so that's probably why they were so quick and nice about fixing it. My mom and my brother both have HP's and they haven't had any problems (I just have bad luck I guess!). Prior to this computer I used to use an old Dell desktop. It was terrible and crashed all the time. My mom also had two Dell laptops that always had problems. I'd personally stay away from Dell. Just my two cents Good luck!

[Koudoawaia]

I'd go with an HP or Sony Vaio laptop. Both are really high quality especially the Vaio but I believe Vaios are more expensive.

[Beldarna]

I have a very cute Sony Vaio laptop that turns 2 years this summer. So far it has not given me any problems and I play games like Age of Empires and the Sims on it. To be honest I bought it because of the colour, pink,  but boyfriend made sure it had the right technical stuff that I know zero about and since he's a geek, I trust his judgement. He even bought one to himself last year and that means it's a good computer.

[kittybethy]

I hope you can find a reliable one!