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Please, when posting a link to a laptop listing, make sure to include the price at time of posting. It helps.
Requesting help with a purchase? Please post here: https://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=135662.msg2794782#msg2794782

Dell:
Precision - Very powerful desktop replacements - great warranty, ridiculously expensive - Usually overpriced or overkill

Latitude - Good Laptops - Great warranty! Highly recommended for any Business environment - Sometimes expensive.

Vostro  - Lower end Business Machines - Better Priced - still durable - Usually 1 Year warranty.

XPS - The nicer looking dell machines, Some are better than others...

Inspiron - YMMV Every model is different

(Plain) Insprion Series - Dells lowest end laptop
(R) Insprion Series - Perfect Home use, dependable, decent build quality, recommended
(Z) Insprion Series - A little slimmer than the R series, Some are Ultrabooks (Very often don't include Optical Drives)

HP:

Spectre - Top of the line personal (dragonfly is the top of the line for business) - lightest laptops, and beautiful!

Pavilion - YMMV (Some better than others)

Probook - Stable durable business systems - Usually a little on the heavy side.

Elitebook - Business Higher end systems, usually pretty expensive

ENVY - Used to be the HP sleek and nicer systems, they pretty much replaced most of the standard pavilions now and call them either ENVY or sleekbooks

Sleekbook - like it sounds slimmer line of laptops

Lenovo:

Thinkpad Series - Very Dependable Business Machine, Expensive (Not Pretty but Durable)

IdeaPad Series -

S Series
U Series - Usually the slimmer line Ultrabooks, Doesn't always include DVD Drive
Y Series - Nice machines with good specs and features (Cool Backlit Keyboards)
Z Series - Step up from the G Series, all around decent build, priced nicely, great home use laptop
G Series - Lower end

Samsung:

Series 3
Series 5
Series 7
Series 9 - The nicest, sleekest looking laptops I've seen in a long time - Can pass for a Macbook!!


HT: Dh Data Recovery & Name Changed


A great post by caliheat:
I believe that there are many factors when deciding what laptop to purchase.
1) What is your intended use and necessary features. e.g. light use vs. heavy use & optical drive, computer speed etc.
2) As mentioned several times in this thread, RAM itself is very easy to upgrade after you purchase.
3) Brand - IMHO this is pretty important as well - which do your prefer vs. which brand do people recommend.
4) Price - you should decide a price range that best suits your needs.
5) Operating System - Many people like myself prefer Windows 7 vs. 8.1, so this would be another consideration.
6) Warranty - does it include 1 year or more, cost for extending warranty.
7) Detailed Specs:
  Processor  - model and speed i3, i5, & i7 2.0 Ghz, 3.0 Ghz etc.
  RAM - This IMHO should be minimum 8GB, especially if running 8.1, however can be added easily.
  Hard Drive - SATA vs. SSD, the latter being much faster. SATA itself offers 5400 RPM vs. 7200 RPM again, the latter being faster.
  Screen Size - this is a personal preference as you can always attach a larger screen in an office setting.
  Battery & Weight - overall laptop weight preference & battery life.
  Graphics - Integrated graphics vs. dedicated graphics, e.g. Intel 4400 vs. Nvidia GTX etc.

In summary, you have to decide what are you priorities, what can be upgraded and what you are flexible on.



Excellent article about the differences between the Intel processor suffixes.

Excellent "Laptop Buying Guide" by @dailykasha, written for Black Friday 2021, updated for holidays 2023

Author Topic: Laptop Deals Master Thread  (Read 3151666 times)

Offline DH Data Recovery

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5000 on: December 18, 2013, 11:31:53 AM »
Yes - because the Gateway is an Ultrabook they tend to use lower power consumption processors to give it better battery life.

Offline gozalim

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5001 on: December 18, 2013, 01:19:47 PM »
Yes - because the Gateway is an Ultrabook they tend to use lower power consumption processors to give it better battery life.
so performance would be comparable?

Offline DovtheBear

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5002 on: December 18, 2013, 01:23:52 PM »
Yes - because the Gateway is an Ultrabook they tend to use lower power consumption processors to give it better battery life.
Once it was mentioned already, I have this Gateway for sale (~$380). If no one buys it, I'll probably return it.
"להסתובב זה לא אומר להיות חופשי"

Offline gozalim

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5003 on: December 18, 2013, 02:12:48 PM »
Once it was mentioned already, I have this Gateway for sale (~$380). If no one buys it, I'll probably return it.

don't mean to TC, but I think that one is still available from Microsoft for the same price...

Offline how

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5004 on: December 18, 2013, 02:39:10 PM »
Today only HP - 15.6" Laptop - 4GB Memory - 750GB Hard Drive - Black Licorice $299
Link
« Last Edit: December 18, 2013, 03:15:30 PM by jj1000 »

Offline DovtheBear

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5005 on: December 18, 2013, 03:14:39 PM »
don't mean to TC, but I think that one is still available from Microsoft for the same price...
No problem.
"להסתובב זה לא אומר להיות חופשי"

Offline zale

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5006 on: December 18, 2013, 03:20:18 PM »
Which laptop PC lines are of equal build quality to the Macbook pro? I'm coming off using a MBP for 5 years, but don't want to spend $2500 for a new one, and I'm perfectly comfortable with a Windows machine.

I'm looking in the $1,000 range, and so far, the closest I see in terms of build quality might be the Lenovo Y510p.

From what Iv'e read, the HP Envy line is plastic garbage with the cheapest components.

It also appears that any fully aluminum Windows laptop runs equal to or even more than the MBP!

Any ideas?

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5007 on: December 18, 2013, 04:36:43 PM »
Save your time, I don't answer PM. Post it in the forum and a dedicated DDF'er will get back to you as soon as possible.

Offline DH Data Recovery

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5008 on: December 18, 2013, 06:10:21 PM »
Lenovo Yoga, Samsung Series 9, Vizio, Asus Zenbook are some of the options that come to mind...

Offline zale

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5009 on: December 18, 2013, 07:15:17 PM »
Vaio Pro?

Pretty shoddy reviews on the Vaio Pro...

Offline zale

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5010 on: December 18, 2013, 07:18:08 PM »
Lenovo Yoga, Samsung Series 9, Vizio, Asus Zenbook are some of the options that come to mind...

I don't care about slimness as much as I do about build quality. The ones you are pointing to are ultra slim, and there is a premium for that...

A touchscreen is not important either.

Offline gozalim

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5011 on: December 18, 2013, 07:18:54 PM »
so performance of the Toshiba i3 and the ultrabook i5s (microsoft) would be comparable?

Offline DH Data Recovery

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5012 on: December 18, 2013, 07:36:56 PM »
The i5 should be a little faster and longer battery life - and touch

Offline DH Data Recovery

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5013 on: December 18, 2013, 07:38:15 PM »
I don't care about slimness as much as I do about build quality. The ones you are pointing to are ultra slim, and there is a premium for that...

A touchscreen is not important either.
Dell Latitude and Lenovo thinkpad (and some other ones as well) have great build quality ime

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5014 on: December 19, 2013, 01:34:02 AM »
Today only HP - 15.6" Laptop - 4GB Memory - 750GB Hard Drive - Black Licorice $299
Link
Now available again for $299.

ETA- And back to 379
« Last Edit: December 19, 2013, 01:38:40 AM by jj1000 »
See my 5 step program to your left <--

(Real signature under my location)

Offline zale

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5015 on: December 19, 2013, 02:58:40 PM »
Dell Latitude and Lenovo thinkpad (and some other ones as well) have great build quality ime

Latitude has a premium build, but gives you very little bang for your buck. The configurations are also very weak.

Thinkpad T series is also premium, but for any decent processor config it is out of my $1k price range.

Ultimately, I settled on this:

HP Spectre 13t-3000

It's a premium build ultraportable laptop, with the max configuration available:

-i7-4500 (built in Intel graphics)
-8gb Ram
-A/C wifi
-FHD screen

The price was $1434 pre-tax. -$250 coupon = $1,290 after NY tax.

-Amex Open 10% back: -$129
-Cashback site referral that I won't name here: -$64
-Possible Amex $75 back (long story): -$75
-Possible tax back (even longer story, def can't talk about it here) -$105
(if tax back works out, it may shave a bit off the open discount)

Total if all discounts work out: $917

Although I wanted a 15" screen, I settled on this 13" as I can't find any 15" premium configuration that would give me this much bang for my buck.

This has been released very recently so there are not many reviews, but the few that are there are very positive.

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5016 on: December 19, 2013, 03:01:12 PM »
What do you guys think about this? (Even though it's factory reconditioned) http://www.woot.com/offers/asus-15-6-core-i5-vivobook-touch-11

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5017 on: December 19, 2013, 10:15:29 PM »
Dell Inspiron 3521 now only $280 on dell.

Processor
Intel® Celeron® processor 1017U (2M Cache, 1.6 GHz)
Operating System
Windows 8, 64-bit, English
Support
90 Days Premium Phone Support + 1 Year In-Home Service after Remote Diagnosis
Office Productivity Software
Microsoft® Office Trial
Security Software
McAfee LiveSafe 30 Day Trial
Memory
4GB Single Channel DDR3L 1600MHz (4GBx1)
Hard Drive
320GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive
Video Card
Intel® HD Graphics
Optical Drive
Optical drive not included (supports external USB optical drives sold separately)
15.6 inch LED Backlit Display with Truelife and HD resolution (1366 x 768)
Dell Wireless-N + Bluetooth 4.0
4 Cell 40 WHr Battery

http://m.dell.com/mt/www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-15-3521/pd?mboxDisable=1&un_jtt_v_MPLP=yes&un_jtt_redirect

Offline DH Data Recovery

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5018 on: December 19, 2013, 10:26:55 PM »
Celeron Processor - pretty weak

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Re: Laptop Deals Master Thread
« Reply #5019 on: December 20, 2013, 09:08:43 AM »
Hi guys
maybe somebody can help me.
when it comes to computers or laptops i have no clue, i need a laptop just to use for surfing the internet and it should work fast, larger the screen the better, which deal should i jump on?

Thank You