Buying a new Laptop help and suggestions welcome

[Credit Please]

Hi

 

 

 

I want to buy a new or used laptop. I perfer new because I watched an episode of Judge Judy that would've had me in tears if I was the buyer. So if it was used it has to have some type warranty on it I don't want to be stuck with a problem. Also, I have a fear of being sold a computer used to steal all my personal information. So here is what I am looking for Definately a Laptop, with a 17inch screen or bigger, lightweight, WIFI, DVD (I don't care about BlueRay) I guess anything higher than half a TB hard drive 2 or more gb of ram and I really don't care about anything else. I don't want to pay more than $500 for it. If anyone recently just bought a great Laptop can you share your experience and any tips. I will use this laptop for School and I will be adding office Excel, Word, PowerPoint they have one called University Office thats $99 at my school. I am kinda clueless on the difference between regular office 2010 and this University version. Any help will send me in a good direction. Here are a few I was looking at:

 

Model: HP g7-2017cl $424 at Sams Club

 

 

HP Pavilion G7-1261NR $498

 

AND

 

HP 17.3" Pavilion G7-2010NR $499

 

[Credit Please]

DELL's are out as my past experience with them have been, they only last 2yrs and they die so I am saying "NO" to Dell.

[marcellus]

17" screen or bigger and lightweight? You have your priorities crooked. This is a good deal:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?SID=Q-naIuadEeGpxCKoOUNvug0_kC983_0_0_0&AID=10440897&PID=1225267&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-cables-_-na-_-na&Item=N82E16834246322

[Echo_X]

Buy something middle range. decent for now, but nothing you would expect to last more then three years, and priced accordingly. Portable tech is going to be so entirely different in 3-5 years that you'll be craving, even twitching for something new. Not just newer faster hardware, but whole new forms of input and information experience. Everything from hand tracking input (because touch screens will just never be a think with standard monitors, or most notebooks...) to stereoscopic head mounted displays (a device called the oculus rift is currently being developed, which has fascinating implications on how you could interact with your information environment). Rumors are that Microsoft is developing a similar peripheral for their next generation game console. Then in about 5 years we will start to see the first adaptations of legitimate AR computing... not just Google's glass vaporware, but real legitimate products.

 

Desktops can be planned long term. A decent chipset, and it will last you a decade...as mine did. Just upgrade the parts here and there when they wear out or become obsolete.. Notebooks? Tablets? I am sorry but, you can spend 2000 dollars, and it will still be a piece of crap after 3 or 4 years... less so, but a piece of crap all the same. A piece of crap that will be left out in burning hot heat, frigid cold (by which I mean in your car) be tossed in the back seat like a sack of potatoes after a long hard day, be dropped, by you, your loved one, the dog, a child, it happens.. Just grab something short term. My laptop is 6- 8 years old, and is slow for modern standards... but I put a netbook edition of ubuntu on it, and it works fine for just about everything I need from it...

 

Don't shell out a lot of money for a notebook... heck. There's a keyboard I want that *no price announced yet* would probably be more expensive then I would want to pay on a notebook..

[luckydriver]

one thing which may or may not matter to you is the glare screen...it shows reflections of all the lights around you and you can see yourself in it etc. the reflections bug the heck out of me. so when i went to buy a new dell, i wanted matte and the only option was the business machine vostro. i'm assumign the glare screens are fantastic in dark while watching movies but for everyday stuff, i couldnt imagine having one. ick. plus i sit right under a light at home and it wouuld really bother me

 

hopefully you dont mind it because i dont know how hard it would be to find one without it today.