What should I look for in a laptop?

[retrodude]

Help me out good people.

What kind of specifications should I be looking for in a decent laptop? I'm not looking to spend anymore than 7-8 hundo dollars. So basically an average laptop to slightly above average.

I'm not a tech savvy so lay out the sorta specifications that I should be looking for if I want a laptop that'll gimme 3-4 years of good service. Not going to be gaming on the thing. Surfing the internet, some porn, and mostly school work (writing essays and crap).

Cheers.

[Pokerman14]

Something that has Windows 7
A modern, well-known, decent processor (Intel i3-7)
A webcam...

Some USB ports (Mostly on the sides is well popular)
etc.

[Romeo and Juliet]

Don't need i processors for just internet.

I say 2 gb of ram, at least intel core 2 duo, and a webcam if you want it. And almost every laptop has usb ports, dont need to worry about that. You'll probably wants windows 7 if you want it to last, if you get vista it will probably get a virus in about -1 days. (Especially if you DOWNLOAD the porn... xD)

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olstemplatemapper.jsp?id=pcat17080&type=page&qp=q70726f63657373696e6774696d653a3e313930302d3031 2d3031~~cabcat0500000%23%230%23%2311a~~cabcat05020 00%23%230%23%23o~~f865||57696e646f7773~~f1025||576 96e646f7773203720486f6d65205072656d69756d~~f920||5 370656369616c204f6666657273~~nf551||496e74656c2623 3137343b&list=y&nrp=15&sc=abComputerSP&ks=960&usc=abcat0500000&sp=-bestsellingsort+skuid&list=y&iht=n&st=processingtime%3A%3E1900-01-01

Most of the laptops on that page are good. If you could give a price range, i could check into it even further.

[retrodude]

Anywhere from 300-700 canadian is what I'm looking at with spending.

Cheers for the input so far!

[Ausbro]

Be sure to get one with a disk drive. Laptops are effectively redundant without one.

[John]

Laptop? Get a MacBook Pro. Reliable as fuck (My old 15" MBP from 2006 works great and speedy still!) and fast. Comes with OS X too which is virus-safe for porn! (You can install Windows if you like.). A little more expensive ($1200 for the base 13") but for the bang for the buck and excellent reliability IMO it's worth it. A MacBook Air can do but it's a little too small and has no optical drive.

[Dquest]

I'm not all techy, Retro, but have a look at the Samsung's. I bought one last year despite being a bit sceptical, and it's a great machine. In the $600-$800 range.

[retrodude]

Laptop? Get a MacBook Pro. Reliable as fuck (My old 15" MBP from 2006 works great and speedy still!) and fast. Comes with OS X too which is virus-safe for porn! (You can install Windows if you like.). A little more expensive ($1200 for the base 13") but for the bang for the buck and excellent reliability IMO it's worth it. A MacBook Air can do but it's a little too small and has no optical drive.

Too pricey for me! My buddy has one and it's fantastic but I'm not in much need for one.

I'm not all techy, Retro, but have a look at the Samsung's. I bought one last year despite being a bit sceptical, and it's a great machine. In the $600-$800 range.

Noted. I was thinking Sony's and Hp's but I'll check out Samsung as well.

[Kani]

Asus K52J

Fast, wonderful screen, if you want to try some game every once in a while you'll have no problems, if you want to have 30 tabs open with porn you'll have no problems, if you want to set up a webcam for some homemade videos you'll have no problems.
the price is around €500 atm.

[Dialgaz]

A laptop that handles great and has a big hardrive, Mainly a Acer laptop, google it :P

[John]

A laptop that handles great and has a big hardrive, Mainly a Acer laptop, google it :P
I don't think I have seen an Acer laptop that will work great for 4 years. Heck, even 1.5 years I haven't seen one.

If you are looking for a PC instead of a Mac, here are my suggestions.

- Avoid domestic brands. they're knowingly have one the most unreliable computers on the planet. (Dell, HP and some others except Apple)
- Avoid Acer at all costs if you are looking in at reliability.
- Future-proof by maximizing your money on the fastest one possible (Windows is a shitty OS that doesn't really take advantage of all the hardware)
- Try Asus or Sony. Avoid the Eee PCs because they're unreliable, the others are pretty reliable that can work great for 2.5+ years. Sony and Asus are good brands.
- DO A CLEAN INSTALL/REFORMAT WITH A DIFFERENT DISK BUT THE SAME SERIAL NUMBER, IN THAT CASE 0 BLOATWARE. (This if you are genuine)
- Get a laptop without an OS at all and pirate Windows. That way you could screw Microsoft and have a system with no bloatware and cheaper. (This if you are a pirate)

^^If you don't want to have these problems, get a Mac.

[Mikoto]

Get one with a disc drive, and if you're an avid gamer find a laptop that doesn't have keyboard ghosting.

[retrodude]

Cheers, wrote down most of this stuff and will be going to Futureshop/Best buy in the near future.

[retrodude]

Ok, you tech nerds. I mean you super awesome, super cute people.

How the flipping fuck do I connect to the internet now that I have a laptop? Lmao, I am 100% serious.

I have a cable modem. No router. Do I need to make a new network thingy? Whenever I try to connect to any networks (And I think they're the people around me, cuz they have Bell internet.. or thats the name of the network and I'm with Rogers.. Canadian companies PS) I need a security key... so I clearly don't know it and can't get on. Do I need a router? Do I need to like do something here? I thought this wifi business was easy.

You can laugh, thats ok. Just help me.

[Pokerman14]

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc781221(v=ws.10).aspx

You're welcome.

[retrodude]

I don't think that does anything for me. Apparantly my modem doesn't have a router in it and I need that first. Why can't my neighbours just have unlocked internets. Blasphemy.

FFS, I should've taken some computer 101 courses in uni.

[Pokerman14]

I think that using a modem as internet is theoretically impossible nowadays.
So your only option is to buy a router.

[retrodude]

Yeah, did some more digging on google and it seems I need to upgrade my modem so it has a built in router... or just buy a router.

Huh. Fuckin computers. Cheers though for responding so quickly.