How crappy are those rock bottom priced new laptops? (Pic)

[fefrie]

I had the opportunity to see a friends gateway laptop load up with windows vista.

It was slow on opening up and had a billion windows open. Wasn't snappy at all. Even compared to my t23.
Not sure of the specs on the laptop, but it definitley felt slow.

I've never used those cheap laptops. Are they useable at all? And i'm talking laptops. not netbooks.

[Marin85]

I think you should look at the specs though

[ZaZ]

Go into MSCONFIG and turn off the ones you don't want. They're all doing it, even ThinkPads, though not as much as your Best Buy or Wal-Mark special.

[Harryc]

The term 'rock bottom' is getting to be a grey area these days with the commoditization of laptops. You can get a Thinkpad SL500 for $424 shipped right now...nice machine. http://www.logicbuy.com/deals/Coupon-Le ... 11708.aspx

[archer6]

Based on the title of the thread, it appears they've already been judged unfairly. Anything approached negatively and prejudged doesn't stand a chance. Why ask?
.
Cheers...

[Neil]

The OP wrote little if anything about the quality of the friends Gateway, only negative comments were about the OS and bloatware installed on it. Both those areas can easily be fixed. If you buy a machine with the specs you need for your application you'll be fine. If rock bottom prices do the job for you, then it'll be golden, not crap.

[underclocker]

Well, I have found the Acer's, Dell's, Compaq/HP's, Sony's and Toshiba's fine, until they break.

It is hard to believe the spec.'s you can get in a $300 - $400 new laptop. MicroCenter still has a nicely equipped machine for $359 (it was $339 about 6 weeks ago - no rebates!) The spec.'s and link are below. It's not exactly cutting edge, but a couple of friends picked up four between them and they are all in use with their family members. I've used one and it is snappy and full featured - the built-in webcam is great. Bloatware must be removed.

The downside is the flimsy feel and that the shiny finishes tend to wear rather quickly. If used with care, it will be fine until it breaks. I have friends that have purchased similar machines over the years and they just don't hold up well. Broken hinges, dead displays, dead optical drives, quick wearing finishes and other issues are common. Support from these companies has been difficult and time consuming.

Are they crap? Well, there is a difference between a $400 computer and a $1400 computer, let's just put it that way.

(In the end, I personally prefer a used ThinkPad for the same cost, which is why I did not buy one of these.)

http://www.microcenter.com/single_produ ... id=0304256

Acer Aspire AS5515-5831
AMD® Athlon 2650e
2GB DDR2-667 RAM
160GB 5,400RPM Hard Drive
8x SuperMulti Double Layer DVD±RW Drive
ATI Radeon Xpress 1200
802.11b/g Wireless
15.4" Widescreen XGA Display 1280x800
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic
(1) VGA 15-pin Port; (2) USB 2.0 "A" Ports; (1) RJ-45 Network Port; (1) Microphone-in Jack; (1) Headphone/Speaker/Audio Line Out Jack; (1) internal Webcam
6-Cell Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Battery

[dsvochak]

It’s easy for me to understand why someone would choose to spend $400 instead of $1,400. As Neil pointed out “If rock bottom prices do the job for you, then it'll be golden, not crap.”

I wonder whether the OP’s T23 would “do the job” for most of us. While a T23’s “not exactly cutting edge” I know I could accomplish my job with one.

[fefrie]

Well yeah, maybe a poor title.

I can't beleive the specs that some of these rock bottom laptops. They're quite high for the price.

With the recent kaputz of an asus PM 2.0 I reverted back to the t23, which for the web I was srprised still did the job decently.

I was shopping for a long time for a replacement everywhere and couldn't find something suitable. Most laptops have a very annoying feature where the enter key is not as wide to accomodate the \ key so that whenever I press enter, I press \ instead.

Toshibas have that, acers have that annoying feature.

In anycase if anybody knows of a thinkpad new or used for cheap with a 1600x1050 screen, let me know. I've been spoiled with a big screen!

[Harryc]

I don't think Thinkpads were made with 1600x1050 LCD's. In 4:3 aspect ratio LCD's, either 1400x1050 or 1600x1200 were produced, both 15". 1680x1050 was made in wide screens ... If you are interested in 1400x1050 I have one for sale in excellent condition and reasonably priced.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=75278

[fefrie]

Whoops sorry, yes I probably menat 1680 x 1050. My next laptop has to be widescreen, not 4:3. The t23 will live on as a the perfect sized road warrior.

[Harryc]

Well, 1680 x 1050 wide screens have been available since the 'Z' series to the present, so you'd have a wide selection of models. Reasonably priced is another story. You're looking at $400 and up (mostly up in the $500 range). Cruise EBay for T60, or T61 wsxga+ 15.4" models. As an example -
http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-Thinkpad-T61-2G ... 0335593340

[NorrisCell]

While affordable laptops are not a bad thing on their own, I've seen an influx of under-powered laptops come through my work in the past year and a half or so. By under-powered, I mean Celeron CPUs (Dual core, but still) often with 1 GB of RAM. Vista is not exactly a "light" OS, so these machines are far from speedy. In fact, up until we got my wife's laptop 9 months ago, I'd seen so many machines choking on Vista that I assumed the OS to be the problem. Obviously this is not the case.

My ultimate point is that the laptop needs to have the proper hardware to support the OS. Lower cost laptops running lighter OSes make sense for some people. They wouldn't be able to perform the functions that I personally need though.

[t140568]

Well, I have found the Acer's, Dell's, Compaq/HP's, Sony's and Toshiba's fine, until they break.

I don't mean to be picky, but isn't anything fine until it breaks? Maybe I missed what you're saying?


While I've always been the kind of guy who buys quality, I've known a lot of folks who shop for what's cheap. I've always tried to explain the difference like this: I buy one item for say $1200 and you can buy 3 for the same price. After your first and second one break, you'll upgrade and I'll still be using my original. You'll have a better machine than me at the end, but I won't have had the headaches of 2 machines that failed when I needed them, and I won't have spent time & gas to get the other 2 machines either.

Usually, they reply with "What if your's breaks? You'll be out all that money at once!" Here is where I explain about warranties, return policies, and particularly with TP's: 2-3 day turn-around times for repairs and replacement parts from eBay.

To me, it's just a tradeoff. I prefer reliability and others prefer price. You folks have no idea how many times I've heard, "Are you still using THAT!?!?" Ever get rid of a car because the structural integrity of the floor is no longer in the floorboard, but rather the floor mat?

[mattbiernat]

I wonder whether the OP’s T23 would “do the job” for most of us. While a T23’s “not exactly cutting edge” I know I could accomplish my job with one.

it certainly would, i mean what do most people use their computer for? i bet its these 3 things
1. email
2. internet
3. music and movies
do you really need the newest O.S. to perform those things? do you really need 500GB hard drive and 8GB ram? Do you really need 3.2GHZ core 2 duo?

[jronald]

I scraped together a 1.6 T30 and loaded Jaunty on it
Bad memory slot and 256mb in the other slot
I can find no reason for anyone to use a slow machine because the OS is a hog.

We attempted to use Blista on a nicely equipped wide screen of an unremarkable maker,
I suffered for 2 days and gave it to my wife. She struggled for almost 1 month and asked if I could put XP on the thing.
Creeped on Blista, screamed on XP
You should not have to commute to work in a Cat 797 Haul Truck
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... _55084212/
The OS should be built for the computer, not the other way round

Ron

[Temetka]

Blista huh? That's quite funny.

I am just wondering if you removed all the bloatware, trimmed services, ran maintenance tasks and so on before declaring Vista to be fail.

I've run Vista on systems as low as T23's in specs and in every case with minimal tweaking and disabling of Aero, the systems ran smooth.

In the case of Vista it might take a tad more work than XP to get running on an older system, but it is worth it. You get a better kernel, better security, compatibility with newer software and hardware and so on.

Keep in mind the system requirements for Windows XP are very low, I've run it on P233MMX systems, so I think that we should keep that in mind.

[ssd_thinkpad]

Can not agree more. A clean install of vista with aero disabled is at least comparable to a clean install of xp with no aero as it is not available anyway.

[Harryc]

You should not have to commute to work in a Cat 797 Haul Truck

[qviri]

You should not have to commute to work in a Cat 797 Haul Truck

If GM dealerships were to start selling them, I don't think they'd have a shortage of buyers.

[mattbiernat]

in L.A. a hammer would suffice for me but in Miami I would definitely need Cat 797.

[Bookworm]

Nice truck. But if I had to buy gas for it, I couldn't afford rock bottom thrift shop rejects.

I paid $6.00 plus shipping for my 770Z. It does everything I'll ever want and more.

Some people need something a little more powerful, or they're concerned about warantees, or whatever. But the idea that you must have the latest and/or greatest hardware, software, or OS, is ridiculous.

First, decide what you need to do, and what software will do it. Then find the hardware that will run it well. My biggest concern about "rock bottom" stuff is reliability.

[craigmontHunter]

I had one last year, an ACER 3680. It lasted 5 months, in which time it had its screen, motherboard and keyboard replaced. If you only want to use it around the house, the cheap ones are ok, provided you get rid of all the trial programs. My biggest problem is that they all have the glossy screens, and I cannot focus on what is on the screen, all I can see is reflections, especially when using it on battery power. The other problem in Canada at least is that they all come with the Canadian multilingual keyboard, with the big enter key and the backslash (\) to the right of the left shift key, right where I normally hit the shift key.

Bottom line - if they do what you want and are carefull with them, they will last, but as soon as you do anything too rough with them, pray that it keeps working.

[Marin85]

...but as soon as you do anything too rough with them, pray that it keeps working.

What too rough things can one do with a computer?...

BTW, nice signature

As for the nice truck above, I have seen similar mostly as rocket launchers

[craigmontHunter]

There is probably a better word, but you take one on a crowded schoolbus and you want something a little (lot) stronger, especially around the screen area.