Probably buying a laptop in the near future..

[HTRN]

And I wanted to get ideas and opinions.

I'm not looking for firebreathing performance, as I'm planning on building a beastly desktop sometime in 2013. In the meantime, I want to pickup a relatively cheap(under 500 buck) laptop, Ideally from either Asus, Toshiba or Sony, as they have the lowest failure rates in that order.

I was thinking of either this or this. One has more memory, one has a faster CPU. Thoughts?

[bubblewhip]

I dunno if it means anything but I've had personally had very good experience with Dell and their Vostro series presently. I know a friend who has had bad experiences with previous Vostro's, but my personal 3750 works perfectly fine in the last 6 months. Two Alienware M11x's in the house hold and I only had a physical keyboard key break. So for that price point I recommend the Vostro 3360.

I know some people are really anti-dell so there are other options.

For rock solid reliability I'd go with a Thinkpad Edge E430 which starts at $550 with an I5 processor.

I'm not totally sure what you want your laptop for. But if your building a desktop system then I expect you want your system to be relatively portable. These 15.6 inch laptops with 1366x768 displays are neither portable or very productive to work on IMO, since it doesn't have the resolution for lots of real estate. A 13-14 inch laptop with the same resolution will be just as productive as a 15 incher.

Another problem I have is that considering these cheap laptops, it's less about the internals and more about the way they are built. The Asus X54 series are built on cheap plastic chassis.

A smaller laptop is going to be more structurally sound as the components and frame are more dense and surround a smaller area. There's nothing that puts the regret into buying a laptop as it squeaks and creaks when you pick it up.

Also the smaller laptop uses a smaller screen, and you usually will get much better battery life out of it as well. the X54 series has a life of somewhere around 2 hours, while the E430 and 3360 runs around 6 real hours.

In my opinion. Get a Lenovo E430. For $50 more you're getting an I5 Processor, 3x the battery life, and the some of the best keyboards on any laptop, with exceptional build quality.

[Odahi]

Mrs. O and I have had two Toshiba laptops in the last two years, both MUCH more expensive than $500. One had a HDD failure on its 60th day, covered under warranty, but has never been right and now resides in the closet. The second, a 14", has just never been right. We have since ceased buying Toshiba laptops. She had another Toshiba several years ago and it, too, had problems. They weren't severe enough to put us off Toshiba, unlike the ones on the more recent machines. BOTH my step-children are using 6-year-old Gateway laptops that they inherited from us, both machines are still running well, for their ages and specs. HOWEVER Gateway was gobbled up and is rumored to be unreliable now. A shame, as we had had VERY good luck with Gateway machines, and we have had a number of laptops, all-in-ones, and desktops in the family. Right now, Mrs. O has a Samsung (EXPENSIVE) high-spec laptop, and mine, which only gets occasional use, is an HP. I haven't been impressed with the Dell machines at work, although I tend to blame the problems more on the ungainly suite of encryption and security software they use. I simply feel that careful searching can find a machine with better hardware for less money. Hence the HP and Samsung laptops in our home, although we haven't had either one long enough to really get a good idea of their reliability. I HAVE had pretty good results from HP machines in the past, though. And their hardware specs seem to be as good as most out there. I was intrigued by an "IBUYPOWER" machine I saw online, but I'm reluctant to spend that kind of cash (~ $1400) on something I can't fingerprint. At the time I bought the Samsung, it was what they had in stock, and it's a very capable machine, but far above your stated budget. Personally, I'd go for another HP... maybe http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834256347 For another $40 you can bump the RAM up to 8GB and have a pretty capable machine, I would think.
"I am not an IT guy, nor do I play one on TV. YMMV."

[bubblewhip]

I HIGHLY recommend staying away from 5400 RPM hard drives on a windows machine. It's almost unbearably slow once things get 6 months into the future and it literally takes 10 minutes to boot up before you can do anything. What Chris recommended has some 160 GB SSDs which are awesome for laptops as they decreased boot time, compensate for CPU speed, increase durability, and also increase battery life. All wins all around and if it was between a 500gb 5400 RPM hard drive and a 160GB SSD. The 160 SSD wins any day hands down. Just use an external drive if you want more storage and there are WAY more options for you to do so.

Edit: FIFM (fixed it for myself)

[Guncrazy]

...160 GB SSDs which are awesome for laptops as they decrease boot time, compensate for CPU speed, increase durability, and also increase battery life. All wins all around...

FTFY.

[Mud_Dog]

I purchased a ASUS K53E about a year ago, first thing I did was format it & install Ubuntu 10.04LTS. It was not a pleasant experience, due to some compatiblity issues. However, they had just released a newer version of Ubuntu at that time, and updating to 11.10 solved a good deal of the issues. There are still some small issues, but overall I am pretty happy with it now(12.04LTS).

Yeah, I should have made a backup disc first before formating to save a lot of headache...chalk another one up to experience!

[HTRN]

Thank's alot guys, it seems I'm better off spending a bit more than I originally planned, but that's okay, I just don't want a "2000 dollar facebook machine"

I don't plan on gaming with it - maybe minecraft, but that's about it. Portability is nice, but I'm not going to be lugging it around for hours. It may wind up going to work, where it will get carried from the house to the car and from the car to a workbench. I may do some light video/photo editing with it, but only because the machine is there, rather than waiting to get home to do it. I'd like a bigger HD, but you guys convinced me that SSD is a better idea. I do intend to watch Video on it, so that may be the most the machine gets pushed.

As for whole i3 is barely more powerful than a tablet, well it's probably true. It also looks like a fucking supercomputer compared to the current box.

I do have a question - Windows 8? I keep hearing it's not as good as Windows 7. Thoughts?

[Odahi]

I just built MY beastly desktop. The reports I saw had said that 8 is best suited to touch screens. I've since read a few reviews that say it's all right for desktops once you get used to it, but I stuck with 7 for my build. Everything was where I was used to finding it, and with the new hardware and an OEM install, it only took about 20 minutes to get it up and running. I had a very minor issue with my USB 3.0 driver, but it's been updated and now all is stable and FAST. Nothing against 8, I'm just going to wait a while before I get into it, probably not until I buy my next machine.