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Reliable Notebook Laptop...

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fohfoh:
@Jumper: Do you really know much about notebooks? Brands are a BIG deal in this age. You're obviously not looking at anything useful to be made into a proper decision about reliability.

Notebook reliability - REQUIRES AIRFLOW.

Dell (low to mid end)
Compaq
HP (low-mid end)
Gateway

All fail in this area. It's not the components that go in, but the housing that holds them.

Ram: Ok, I'll give you that one. But seriously, is it really that big of a deal that you went with 3GB instead of 4 GB? Is the redundancy of 1 GB on a 2GB ram chip really that big of a deal? It's fucking like 5 bucks! Who gives a shit? It's 5 fucking dollars! The difference between the purchase of a 1GB ram chip vs a 2 GB ram chip is negligible.

HDD: Big one here. You need to find one, (Or swap one our yourself manually) to something that's about a 7200 rpm one. I recommend WD. Seagate has been weird lately. But if you can afford it, SSD is the way to go. Fast and cooler temps. (As long as you're not torrenting, and keep a good back up) But if you have a built in SD card reader, USE IT. Readyboost if you want, or just plain storage (Sort of like a USB stick without the damn thing sticking out)

Video card: If you're not going to game at all, get an integrated one for better battery life. Unless you're going to boot linux in which compiz needs a dedicated card... I really don't recommend one. They heat up. + Heat = not good for reliability in a notebook.

Screen: I personally wouldn't get the cheapest one on the market. But going high end on a notebook isn't worth it either. But a good screen doesn't heat up (Older ones do). But I think we're in the age where the standard screen is already high quality.

Processor: Although I really don't like swaying to a certain side... AMD CHIPS RUN TOO FUCKING HOT. Go intel. Want power, battery life and lower heat? I recommend the P series (Centrino 2) chips. I'd rather not go into the T series (old, hot and shitty battery life), and i7/i5... too expensive. + Not entirely sure about the battery life. (Almost seems on par with the old C2Ds)

As stated before, above brands are pretty much fail.

I personally recommend either:

*Lenovo
*HP Business Edition (difficult to find, but generally are better than the consumer grade stuff. DO NOT BUY THOSE)
*Toshiba
Sony (Rare. Usually again only the business level ones are the only decent ones... though Sony USA sucks for warranty. Canada seems to be good though. Not sure why)
Acer(Clunky)
Asus (Don't buy low end and you're good)

Personally I think you should be able to do well with around 1100-1600 USD

SpeedKills:
Guess I should have been more specific.

My price range is around 500-700.  That's why I said I didn't really care about its gaming capabilities, because I'm sure I'll have to sacrifice things like a lot of RAM or a decent video card.

http://www.overstock.com/Electronics/Lenovo-ThinkPad-Edge-13-Laptop/4582778/product.html

Has such a small screen though :(

Was also hoping to get Windows 7 on it, simply because I've never used anything past XP.

mgz:
http://www.staples.com/Acer-Aspire-AS7740-5691-Laptop/product-nr_851638?cmArea=SC3:CG71:DP4118:CL161747

fairly cheap laptop with some pretty nice stuff in it. Same laptop on newegg but with 500gig hdd in its place is 680 so its really not a bad price at all

SpeedKills:
nice, thanks!

fohfoh:

--- Quote ---I need a reliable, long-term writing / programming laptop, it doesn't have to be anything crazy, just fast and long-lasting.  I don't need a crazy super-gaming machine or anything like that.
--- End quote ---

Damn I misred.

But if you're looking for stuff, Lenovo has some nice reliable ones. Tossing on Win7 add some speed too. Again though, avoid AMD procs. (Your first link).

But You should easily be able to find a decent lenovo in your price range. (Funny thing is... Lenovo promotes self upgrading of the laptop for ram and HDD) But there's a lot of other ones out there that meet your needs and budget.

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