DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum purchasing new laptop-should I buy direct from manufacturer?

I am looking to purchase a basic laptop. A PC, not a Mac, but it's more a cost-issue at this point. My main question: Should I purchase directly from a manufacturer like Dell or HP to save $$ vs. going to Micro Center and buying it there?

I'm only looking at using it for running MS Word, using the internet and running my realplayer audio library. Maybe a skype. The realplayer/windows media playlist has about 600 songs, or aout 2.3 GB of total music.

Currently, I have a PowerSpec (Micro Center store brand) desktop that I bought in 2003 and upgraded in 2008. It was a 2.6 GHz Celeron processor with 512MB of ram but I upgraded to 1GB in 2008.I think the RAM is DDR and not the other kind. It also does not have a dual-core processor--I got it 11/2003. It came with 40 GB of HD space and it still has 23 or 24 GB left.

Right now it runs very slow but it works--I'm on the Internet now and typing for some reason is lagging even though the ISP and browser work fine.

Also, my current desktop hangs even when I play music and try to type in Word for a basic document. I took off Madden and all other games in order to free up speed and run disc cleanup/defrag every few days. It is virus free and has all Windows updates.

Trade-in value probably sucks, so I'll keep it as a backup. Thanks for your input!

just shop around for price. amazon and newegg also sell laptops, so cross-shop against the dealer direct and them

Best buy and Radio shack have some nice deals on Toshibas.
I hate HP's

I've had a Toshiba Satellite A505 for almost two years and it's still running like a champ.

You should thank God it is a computer and not a vehicle, because if it were a vehicle you could be facing a jump of 110% of your goverment mandated financial responsibility liability insurance.
Going from a 2003 version to new that is.

But you can smile while you watch geccho's, and army men, and hear fancy jingles on commercials.

I had great luck with my old Sony ... it took a lot of abuse over a lot of years ...... and I really like my new(er) Toshiba that I got a while back.

I think that a lot of what makes a great laptop depends on how someone uses it. I could not possibly care less about playing games on mine, so I probably have lesser demands than some other people do. I use mine for the internet and for office applications. I bought mine at the end of its model run for around $350. It doesn't have an HDMI port, but I don't care about hooking my computer up to my TV. It's been reliable, has solid, if not spectacular battery life, (but better than my old Sony, even with its upgraded battery) and does everything I want it do to.

I can't complain at all.

I've used Dell for my personal and business laptops for the past 12 years. Over the past 7 years i have speced the laptop out on their website and en searched E-bay for the same one. Just recently I bought a laptop for 3000 that was priced at 6300 on their website. It was a scratch and dent (sometimes a reman too) with a small pinhole dent on the speaker cover.

Some great deals to be had right now at your local stores.

Figure out what specs you want and look online at stores in your area.

My personal opinion I give when people ask me is anything will work for general use, but to stay away from HP and Compaq because of all the extra software they load. It bloats and bogs down the system and is just not worth the hassle to have to buy a new laptop then spend a couple hours removing unwanted, unneeded software.

Toshiba, Asus and Dell have some real nice systems right now at good prices.

The laptop I'm using now I bought from walmart.com for $399, here are all the Acer's there now, I love mine:

http://www.walmart.com/search/search-ng....re&_tt=acer aspire

And they also have something called Bill Me Later, buy now and have 6 months to pay it back no interest. Been using that for over a year.