The last time I purchased a PC I did so with the advice of someone from these forums and got a very nice computer for a great price. It was purchased online and custom built(unsure if this is the proper term). Anyhoo I am trying to look into getting a cheap ($400) laptop of decent quality, not planning on using it for anything too fancy just surfing the internet mabey a few old games and collage stuff mabey watch some movies on it. I am rather ignorent of the hardware for computers and know nothing about laptops and considering how lucky I got last time I figured this would be a good place to ask for advice.I am located in southern ontario.

Can I get a decent laptop built for $400? If not Where should I buy one and what should I check for?
Any help is greatly appriceated.

First off does it have to be a laptop, a desktop is much better for various reasons imo?

sort of, part of the reason for having it was so my fiancée could borrow it when she goes for dialysis

Maybe a tablet instead? Laptops don't tend to be that cheap, from what I've seen.

Actually, they are. They just can't do much due to being under powered.

"Tablets" (I don't agree with how the term is used nowadays) are too limited in functionality to be worth it, in my opinion.

With a computer, you can do anything they can do and, generally, more. Heck, you can even buy one with a touch screen if you so desire.

Ah, ok then.

Problem with laptops is they tend to be more expensive than a desktop of equal power and they can't be as easily upgraded or fixed amongst other things but if you need something portable a laptop it will have to be.

Being American you may want to check Newegg then, I don't use them as they don't ship internationally but I have read they are good.

a little against tablets, they seem a lot less versatile. Ive seen laptops for under 500 at the source and thats why I was wondering if I could get one of decent quality cheaper

There are cheaper laptops out there especially for your price range. Do you need an optical drive? If not I would suggest netbooks because they are small and easy to transport and fit well within your limit. I use something similar tohttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230359.

I second ASUS. They make good stuff.

Also, you could always go with an external optical if you want the portability of a netbook but don't want the bulk of the larger laptops.

I'm sort of an ASUS fan. I have a laptop, 24" monitor and a netbook. They do make good stuff.

I have an external optical drive but I never use it. Most things can be done with a flash drive. I would also recommend throwing Ubuntu or any other version of Linux on it if you get the one I recommended because Windows 7 Starter is down right terrible.

300 to 400 dollar laptop? It won't be able to run for crap, but you could try.

I rarely use my optical drives on my non-media capable computers, but they do come in handy at times.

I again second that, but I would go one step further and say look into *nix as a whole. Personally, I run Unix, Open Solaris, Open Indiana, Fedora, and Windows. I keep meaning to try BSD, but I just haven't gotten around to it.

Don't ask, but I do use them all for various things. >_>

I don't like Windows, though. It just doesn't suit my needs, so keep in mind what your needs are when you happen to be looking at various operating systems.

It will and for certain uses a cheap laptop is fine. You can't judge a computers strengths based purely on whether it can play the latest games. If it suits the needs of the user then it's as useful to to them as a $2000 computer they just haven't wasted money on something they don't need.

My girlfriend got a sweet Lenovo on sale for $350 and she uses it for basically the exact same things as the OP and it's probably more powerful than she really needs. $300-400 is perfectly fine for the OP's intended use.

I'm in the same boat as the OP, and I have a question: If a netbook or laptop comes with Windows 7 Starter and a person wants to stick with Windows, would it be a good idea to install the Windows 8 preview OS while it's still available (since it's free, as opposed to dropping $100 or more on better versions of Windows 7)?

I don't know anything about the 8 preview though...anyone know if it's better than 7 Starter? And does it mean you get to keep Windows 8 without having to pay when the final version comes out later this year?

You could install Windows 8 preview but it's just that, meaning you'll have to pay for it later on (It is Micro$oft after all ) In my experience any version of Windows 7 is usable but it's not good enough for me on my netbook. I would suggest at least trying out Ubuntu which is as easy to use as it gets and it's free.

I think there was a version of EEEbuntu that was made especially for the Asus EEE PC but I lost track of that a while ago. I think last I remember it was in 4.0 Beta... not sure. I was using 3.0 for a bit but I threw it away for Ubuntu.

so, what to look for in the laptops for quality?
a quick look at http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=32&name=Laptops-Notebooks&Order=PRICE
Leaves me a bit baffled, theres some familars stuff but I hav no idea what 9/10 of that means. How do I sort the crap from not crap beyond the price tag?

Well, I'm considering getting a netbook for traveling, because I give presentations at conferences and we have to bring our own laptops/netbooks. The catch is that they have to run Powerpoint and be compatible with whatever equipment the conference center has. So I'm thinking of sticking with Windows just to be safe. This wouldn't be my primarily laptop, which has everything I need but is a bit of a beast to travel with. But I'm a broke grad student, so I can't afford much.

If I do get a netbook, maybe I'll stick with whatever OS it has and then upgrade to a proper version of 7 once 8 comes out (which will hopefully make it cheaper). Does 7 Starter at least run Microsoft Office decently, as well as basic email/web browsing?

Edit: And sorry if I hijacked your thread OP I figured the info might be helpful to both of us

It runs fine for most everything but I did experience freezing while using Power Point on a few occasions. Ubuntu comes standard with a freeware version of Power Point as well as all other MS Office programs and they are just as good as the originals and allow you to save your projects/files in MS Office formats. I've only had issues with the 'Word' clone, in which the margins don't always transfer well.

Open Office/LibreOffice and Google Docs have support for the PPT/PPTX format. They also will work with your equipment just fine.

Nice thing about LibreOffice is that it's free and it's "free".

If you do buy a netbook I would recommend also upgrading the RAM to at least 2gb. The on I posted only had 1gb. It's not as noticeable with Ubuntu but with Windows 7 it is. RAM is cheap anyways.

Thanks for the info everyone! Now I'll turn the thread back over to the OP

OP: I noticed on newegg that they have a guide for choosing the best laptop for you (http://www.newegg.com/notebookfinder?name=Notebook-Buying-Guide#1). I'm sure the people on this forum would be more helpful with the specifics, but it might be a start.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+14%22+Laptop+-+4GB+Memory+-+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+Black/3672031.p?id=1218425883601&skuId=3672031

That's the one I'd recommend in your price. Sandy bridge i3 (mobile proper, not the lite edition) Battery life could be better, but it's probably the best in your price range.


Touchscreen in this price range? Not gonna happen.

There's really not much you can do with a laptop that you can't do with a modern tablet nowadays. The only real difference is lack of ability to run two windows side-by-side on a modern tablet, which, let's face it, on a 15'' screen 1366x768 svcks to do anyway. They can multitask, create documents, surf the web, play games, play videos... In fact, I'd love to hear these things that a laptop can do that a tablet cannot, I'm curious as to what your list contains.

There's also a lot of advantages with a tablet, namely vastly superior battery life and a helluva lot easier to move around with. The original ASUS Transformer can regularly be found at $350, $300 on sale. Then stretching the OP's budget a little, you can get the keyboard dock for it and have a very useful tablet.

Can you edit Microsoft Office files, like Powerpoints and Word documents? I don't know much about tablets, but I've heard that some tablets allow you to view Office docs but not edit them.

you can edit them perfectly fine. Hell, I can edit them on my phone.

I personally never plan on buying another laptop ever again. They're bulky, heavy, have horrible battery life, and slow (most of the ones in the OP's price range, anyway). Tablets are pretty well optimized (well, the decent ones anyway), very mobile, and have great battery life. Of the things I do on my laptop, the only thing I cannot do on a tablet is connect to an NX server. Technically I could if I wanted to by installing Linux on the tablet (yes, you can install Linux on a number of tablets, and even a good many phones) and then building FreeNX client against the ARM architecture (assuming I couldn't find it in the ARM repos for my distro).