Buy a laptop.

i am gonna use the laptop for some small games......i am also goonna use it for build a website and stuff like that plus studies...and my budget is around 800$ US....I am not good at computers, :shakehead I don’t know how to choose a good one. I just search on line, and found two.


One is Dell 1420. intel Dual Core T2310,1GB DDR2 80GB $799
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=DNCWJA1&cs=19&kc=11111
The other one is Acer TM4200-4831 intel Core Duo T2250, 1GB DDR2, 120GB
I found a deal for it is $815.
http://dealstudio.com/viewtopic.php?t=31011 (http://dealstudio.com/viewtopic.php?t=31011)


Can you give me some suggestion, which one is better?
Or recommend some other nice laptop.
Thanks.

1. Laptops and gaming do not go together. Choose one: gaming or a laptop
2. Decide on an OS first, for that budget I recommend XP if you're going with Windows as it'll run a lot better than Vista with 1gb of RAM.
3. Are you interested in second hand laptops, or only new ones? You'll probably get better specs with less warranty going second hand.
4. Shop around the major manufacturers: IBM/Lenovo, Dell, HP, Toshiba for the best deal close to you.

^Depends on games. You can pimp out som laptops for a decent price.

But I just read his budget so no. Desktop it is! I love that people consider Acer.

Watch for closeout deals on laptops by checking the newspaper ads on sunday morning. Stores like Office Depot, Staples and Best Buy are getting rid of the old stuff to get ready for the holiday seasons. This month I got my Toshiba notebook with a one year warranty for $349 after rebates, but you have to get up early. Mine was the last one left at that price

Watch for closeout deals on laptops by checking the newspaper ads on sunday morning. Stores like Office Depot, Staples and Best Buy are getting rid of the old stuff to get ready for the holiday seasons. This month I got my Toshiba notebook with a one year warranty for $349 after rebates, but you have to get up early. Mine was the last one left at that price
On that note it might be a good idea to check out the "Black Friday Sales " that will commence the day after Thanksgiving. Many stores offer "teaser" prices on laptops, while also discounting the price on other laptops in stock that will have more options. Some stores may get a jump and offer sales prior to Black Friday. There are a number of online sites that are now just starting to compile lists of what stores are going to have on sale that day. Googling "Black Friday sales" will take you to some sites that have them listed.

^True, but they won't be built for speed. Although $800 won't get you much speed anyhow.

^True, but they won't be built for speed. Although $800 won't get you much speed anyhow.
That may be true, but given the current state of the economy,(credit crunch, housing market,etc.) I wouldn't be surprised if some retailers take a larger cut off their more expensive laptops, especially if sales are down and it gets closer towards Christmas, in an attempt to increase traffic and salvage their holiday season's sales. There is so much competition online, it's bound to happen , and those that are lucky enough to find them will make out well.

^True, but they won't be built for speed. Although $800 won't get you much speed anyhow.

I was working at a place where we sold an used laptop with an AMD X2 in it with two optical drive, a GeForce 7 series card. I wasn't a laptop I would want to carry around a lot because it wss huge and heavy but it would be great as a desktop replacement or LAN party machine.

We sold it for $800.

Frankly, unless you need to use a computer in a lot of places, don't buy a laptop.
Especially, when you're only on a 800 dollar budget.
Common knowledge here in Taiwan:
Laptop parts cost around twice the price of desktops.
Laptops overheat when playing games, at least the games that require good 3d image processing. (try running a good racing game on it for a few hours and see how well it does. ie:NFS series)
Laptops are hard to upgrade.
Laptop parts are prone to 'break' easily due to constant vibration ( whenever you move the laptop it somewhat vibrates everything inside, no matter how 'good' the anti-shock technology it has is)

For 800 bucks I can get a desktop with a high end VGA card that can handle 99% of the games in the market.
For 800 bucks I could get a laptop that can play some of the low requirement games and handle 'secretary' usage.

Think carefully about your needs and your budget. You can normally get the same setup for a desktop at half the price of a laptop.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Black Friday Sales.

is a nice idea for me.
cyberkid...thanks...