Laptop Suggestions?

[Eoghain]

Mine just shit the bed :( either the hard drive is fried like every laptop i've had before, or the memory is faulty. I know not much about computers, and I don't want a Mac.

So what do you recommend for quality laptop PCs under $1000. I'd love for it to be able to run Diablo III :) And GS, naturally. I know that's super high tech.

Thanks in advance!

Also, if i have a history of having hard drives shit the bed on me on laptops, wtf am I doing wrong?

[Keller]

Mine just shit the bed :( either the hard drive is fried like every laptop i've had before, or the memory is faulty. I know not much about computers, and I don't want a Mac.

So what do you recommend for quality laptop PCs under $1000. I'd love for it to be able to run Diablo III :) And GS, naturally. I know that's super high tech.

Thanks in advance!

Also, if i have a history of having hard drives shit the bed on me on laptops, wtf am I doing wrong?

Probably letting the HD overheat.

[Latrinsorm]

Get something with a real video card if you want to play real games. For some of us, the doors of cyber barbie have been closed forever. Let me be your cautionary tale.

[subzero]

Mine just shit the bed :( either the hard drive is fried like every laptop i've had before, or the memory is faulty. I know not much about computers, and I don't want a Mac.

So what do you recommend for quality laptop PCs under $1000. I'd love for it to be able to run Diablo III :) And GS, naturally. I know that's super high tech.

Thanks in advance!

Also, if i have a history of having hard drives shit the bed on me on laptops, wtf am I doing wrong?

The HD failures are probably from overheating, but you can also damage them if you're moving the laptop around a bunch while it's running. Whatever the cause of failure may be, I wouldn't advise getting an entirely new computer if the only problem is a dead HD or stick of RAM. You can get a 500GB HD for ~$100 and 8GB (2x4GB) RAM for ~$50. Both should be pretty easy to replace yourself; they typically don't require complete disassembly of the machine like other parts do.

[Back]

NewEgg.com has i7 ASUS laptops under $1k.

[Bhaalizmo]

NewEgg.com has i7 ASUS laptops under $1k.

I7 is goot. I'd recommend an HP Elitebook for the durability and warranty since you're aparrently hard on laptops, but you'd probably be looking more around $1,500.

[Liagala]

I wouldn't advise getting an entirely new computer if the only problem is a dead HD or stick of RAM. You can get a 500GB HD for ~$100 and 8GB (2x4GB) RAM for ~$50. Both should be pretty easy to replace yourself; they typically don't require complete disassembly of the machine like other parts do.
This may be a stupid question, but wouldn't you be out about $500 by the time you did those, Windows, Office, antivirus, whatever? If he's going to have to drop that much for a HD and the software to make it useful, he might as well kick in another $300-400 ish and get a whole new machine.

[subzero]

This may be a stupid question, but wouldn't you be out about $500 by the time you did those, Windows, Office, antivirus, whatever? If he's going to have to drop that much for a HD and the software to make it useful, he might as well kick in another $300-400 ish and get a whole new machine.

It depends, really. Sometimes you can still get an image of the disk, which just copies the data, bit for bit, from the original to an image file that can later be copied to the new drive. If that isn't possible (or preferable, which it may not be, depending on how long the machine has been running), there are still options for getting the software installed without the discs; especially easy if he's running Windows 7 - Microsoft has links you can find online for their Digital River distribution.

As long as he has the key from the CoA sticker on the laptop, he should be able to activate normally. You can run in to problems sometimes with new components, but that seems to come more from motherboard/cpu than hard drives. If there are problems, there is an automated method via phone that tends to work well. If that fails, he should be able talk with a MS rep and explain that his HD died, has been replaced, and now needs to activate again.

Office and any other bundled software is probably gonna be tougher to get if he didn't make recovery discs/images or wasn't given a key (pretty much a guarantee since they don't give you discs anymo, but a recovery partition with pre-installed software). You might be able to request the stuff from the laptop manufacturer for a small fee if it isn't available on their website. Barring that, you'd probably have to, uh, become one with the internet and recover your lost software that way. Anti-virus... if they rolled it out with some bullshit McAfee or Norton, you're better off without it anyway. Shouldn't be a problem getting an AV running one way or another.