I am buying a Laptop for about 700$. Please Help me. I am a New Yorker.?

Buying a new laptop can be a tricky business, especially if you are not real savvy with all the technology jargon that manufacturers, and retailers, love to throw at you. Then there are also the costs to consider, as laptops are generally a fair bit more expensive than your average PC. Still, it is possible to bypass all the confusion and financial heartache and purchase a relatively cheap new laptop. However, you will need to consider a few important factors first.

The first step in buying a laptop is to know why you want one and what you want to use it for. Sounds simple I know, but you would be surprised at just how many people rush out and buy a brand-name laptop, simply because of some enticing commercial or because someone told them they should have one, only to later realise that they cannot afford it and do not really have any particular use for it. Or another scenario is when a person needs a laptop to use in their car, but they end up purchasing one that cannot absorb the vibrations of travelling. So, it is important to figure out whether you want a laptop to use just at home, for work or corporate purposes, or one that is portable and travels well.

Another factor to consider is whether upfront cost, or long term ownership, is more important to you. If you are in a position to do so, it may well be worth paying a bit extra if you want a laptop for long term usage, otherwise you might find you have to buy a newer model sooner than expected and it could end up costing you more in the long run.

If upgradeability is important to you and you do not really need the portability of a cheap new laptop, then perhaps a PC would be a better investment. This is also something to think about before buying.

A further point to consider before purchasing, is the extent of the life of the battery. If you intend to use your laptop, primarily when it is plugged into a wall socket, then this is not so important, but if you need a portable laptop to take on the road, or for study at school or college, then a laptop with a long sustaining battery is necessary.

These are just a few basic things to consider before purchasing a cheap new laptop. A laptop is a wonderful and useful piece of equipment to own, but it is also an investment that needs to be entered into wisely. For further information, plus a huge range of laptops at various prices, visit http://laptop----computers.blogspot.com/

i recently purchased a pre-optimized dell inspiron 1526 from best buy with 3gigs of ram, 160 gig hard drive, bluetooth, good graphics, built in webcam, touch media buttons, firewire and hi-def ports, wi-fi, dvd burner, and the laptop is in midnight blue. Oh and did i mention that it has an AMD Turion 64 bit dual core processor? it only runs for about 700 with tax. its a heck of a deal. i highly recommend it.

Eminem,

I'm in the market as well, and I tend to shop for stuff like this for months and gather info before I actually buy. I also just got one for my sister 2 months ago.

Here's what I've learned for what it's worth:

1. Off the shelf laptops from stores tend to advertise and focus on the stuff that your average person will think is most important. They will tout their ram, hard drive size, and the processor. They go supercheap on stuff alot of folks don't think about.

Point being - what they don't mention is the fact that most have the lowest option for battery power. Who wants 2 hours of battery when you can get 4.5 from a 12 cell for an extra 150 bucks?

2 If you are running gaming apps on vista, you need at least 3 gb of ram.

3. For interactive gaming and fast links, make sure you get an N rated network card. Alot of laptops in stores save money on b/g rated cards and then act like they are a hot bonus. It's a 30-50 dollar upgrade online for the N rated card.

I have not noticed that any off the shelf laptops in stores are a better deal than if I were to order one from hp or dell online. A friend of mine that worked for hp told me that Dell offers more hardware bang for your buck. I've also read all over that HP is higher quality.

If you make careful choices, and start with an inspiron 1525 and build up, you can probably get what you want for your price. If you go up to 800, you can get alot more though.

I haven't noticed prices moving that much. A sale is a sale. I just missed the back to school sales because I kept waiting for the best deal possible. I finally decided I wasn't going to do any better than a dell ordered from the factory.

Sony has had several recall issues with batteries blowing up. I'm avoiding them.

IF you order from the factory - call them and talk to a sales person and bargain and be willing to tell them you want to 'keep shopping around' a bit before committing. They'll cough up all kinds of discounts that weren't advertised. You can usually squeeze another 10-20% off the price this way. I've decided to go for the dell myself.

Also - you can wipe the drive, get rid of all the bs shareware and adware and other crap, repartition, and reinstall all of your software yourself and it will run smoother. Software and hard drive wise, you can do anything on your laptop that your desktop can do.

Skip all the anti-virus and other bs they want to sell you. Download AVG or AVAST and use it. They are free and excellent. If you can skip microsoft office, you can get an entire office suite software for free, sponsored by Sun Micro. It's called OpenOffice. Download it at openoffice.org.

IF you are careful with your choices by reading the reviews on download.com, you can get quality software for free for:

anti-spyware (ad-aware, spybot, and A2.)

http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/

anti-virus

graphics and photography

( search download.com for "GIMP" )

I am going for the Intel processor as well.

You can save money by going for a heavier system in the 6-8 lb range. People pay money for saving space and you can take advantage of what most people consider a disadvantage by going for the slightly larger systems.

good luck

Kevin

Check this one out, it's the one I have:

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/HP-Pavilion-dv2910u...

It used to be $849 but it's on sale and stuff so you can get it for over $649.

check out HP tx2500z

at hp.com http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/store_a...

look here..http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/c...