Laptop Help - are these any good?
 

**Note to MOD: I made a thread on the Computer Tech, Gaming & Electronics section, however wasn't able to get a reply. I'm posting it here in hopes to get a quick reply by March 22 @ 6pm - that's when these stores close for the day, and I believe is the last day of the sale.

so,
i'm looking to buy a laptop for as cheap as possible.
my requirements are:
1) good battery life - can run for atleast 3-4hrs without dieing
2) dvd burner drive
3) 3 or more gigs of ram
4) 15-16"
6) total budget tax + shipping inclusive - $800

now, i've found these two laptops dont know which one is better:
1)
http://www.wallmart.ca/wps-portal/st...Id=836&tabId=1

2)
http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/prodde...8&catid=26955#


Secondly, what is the difference between:
Athalon Dual Core vs Intel Core 2 Duo vs Intel Dual Core


all help is appreciated, and further recommendations are welcome!

Cheers!


Tiger

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Acers are fricken junk

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I have about 6+ friends that bought them for school, the first bit is fine but it seems like after 6+ months there junk. If you want a short term laptop get it great for the price. But it's better off spending the extra money to get something that will last.

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Acers are not junk. My 14" Acer Extensa is solid

so, should i consider acers? hows the battery life?

what about DELL??

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get a used thinkpad, i've been using my T43 for 4 years now, still going strong.

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i had a friend with an acer when i had a dell. his acer died on him =(

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this was back when we brought our laptops to school.

i think it was hardware failure + it was physically breaking.

acers i know a couple of people that have them it breaks after a couple of months and some i know broke just after one year so no more warranty on it

i would go with dell

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yea acer has top notch service, first problem the motherboard died, on my old acer ferrari then 2 months later the ribbon cable failed. I got it back 2 months later and noticed the little pin that turns off the backlight when lid is closed was broken off. So now the fucking backlight was wasting away my battery. They claimed it wasnt their problem since they dont cover physical damage stupid fucks. Stick to dell, hp, apple, lenovo (ibm), or asus. I love my current 14.1" hp, (C2D, 8400, 2gb, 250gb hd $500 last years model from staples) quality is above and beyond my old notebook (chassis doesnt flex/higher quality plastics) or any current acer including the gemstone line that I've seen in stores.

I have yet to hear a friend complain about Toshibas. My Toshiba which I bought off a friend 3 years ago, has been solid, and I now use it as my main computer, hooking it up to a larger monitor with external 5.1 sound card.

thanks folks, however it seems none of the laptops i was looking at are good.

the hp from walmart, has a risk of overheating, given its AMD chip.

n the BB one, i went to look at it , and it seems too big to carry around.

looking for a 15.6 , 15.4 , or 14.1 " now -- any recommendations? please provide a link or model #...

Get a used Asus or a Dell XPS. last year's models should be going for about $700~800 on craigslist..

Make sure it comes with a good graphic card (not one of those shitty integrated ones) if you want to use it for gaming! Starcraft 2's coming out man haha.

he mentioned "1) good battery life - can run for atleast 3-4hrs without dieing"

integrated graphics yields the highest battery life. a good discrete one will suck the juices very quickly.

do not buy HP. i have owned 2 hp laptops before. They may look nice on the outside, but build quality is very bad/cheap.

so i have:
1 hp hater
2+ acer haters

all thats left is Dell & Toshiba
any dell or toshiba recommendations?

FYI: this laptop will be used mainly for school , so MS office, email , surfing , and occasional dvd burning.
I'm not a gamer, so the only game the laptop will see is bush-shoot-out , on miniclips.com

Never owned an Acer but I used to have a Compaq (same as HP.) I wasn't happy with the build quality, performance or the price of the Compaq at all.

On the other hand I'm still using my Toshiba Satellite notebook from 2007 with minimal problems. The only two complaints I have is the CD-ROM drive is super noisy and the sound is crackly sometimes when you adjust the volume. These two appear to be known issues with Toshibas when I googled them so it's not just my Toshiba doing this. If I was in the market for another notebook I would buy Toshiba again. I love the build quality and dependability. As for the problems I've had I would assume Toshiba would've fixed those by now in their newer models.