Laptops > $1,200 - $1,600 Laptops

Advantages: Thin, light, tightly built
Disadvantages: Very poor screen that malkes this laptop useless.

...in my life. HP support replaced the screen - same thing. The problem is with the screen - not with the driver or graphics card. This laptop has "the best" 17" WUXGA anti-glare non-glossy display HP has to offer + NVIDIA Quadro 1600 graphics card with 512MB memory. Tried several drivers - same horrible quality. When attached to external monitor looks fine. But if I have to have an external monitor, - why use laptop? This is especially frustrating ...
...this laptop is touted by HP as ideal for 2D/3D graphics design and modeling. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is simply false advertisement on HP part. HP on-site "next day" "business critical" is support simply horrific. It took two weeks for the person to appear on site (he was supposed to be there next day after I reported the problem according to on-site service contract), did not fix the problem (well the problem is not fixable ... Read review

Advantages: Affordable, decent specs
Disadvantages: Installed software bundle are annoying (trial versions), no built-in camera

HP laptops are popular for one thing, affordability. Don't get me wrong, they may be cheap but certainly not of low quality. I got mine a couple of years ago for $499.00 +tax. T'was the best deal there was. I got it basically to do usual stuff like web surfing, e-mail and school related projects. So definitely I knew I don't need a cutting edge machine. This notebook runs on a celeron 1.46ghz processor, 512ram, 80 gig harddisk, have CDWR/DVD combo ...
...By today standards, this is probably half the speed, size and feature that you could get for $600-$800. After using it for 2+ years, it is still going strong. I have reformatted it once when my software crashed but that's about the worst it had gotten. Right now, a couple keys have lost it's sensitivity, a common wear and tear in laptop keyboards. Battery life have also shortened from 2.5 hours to probably 45 minutes, again this naturally comes with ... Read review

Advantages: Light, thin
Disadvantages: Third Party parts may not be of the best quality

I bought this laptop because my dental school decided this was the laptop everybody was going to use. The laptop is light and sturdy. I commuted to school with my laptop in my backpack everyday. For obvious reasons, this was not good for the laptop. There must have a been a few times, when the laptop was still powered on. Because by the second year my laptop started to have problems, turns out that my disk was scratched due to "moving the computer ...
...so they fixed it. Then the hard drive failed again, a couple months after that, not sure why since I always powered down the computer before getting on my bike. The second thing that gave me problems was the CD drive. Not sure what the deal with it is. But it stopped reading and writing. Well, it first stopped writing, which was not a big deal. But then it stopped reading. I brought it in to the school repair shop and they replaced it. Another year ... Read review

Advantages: Easy to type on, nice glossy screen, choice of colors, lightweight
Disadvantages: Horrid speakers, sound card, dell wireless card

...purchased not 1 but 2 Dell Inspiron 1525 laptops. The price was right! My daughter got the bright green case and I got the blossom. Thier nice looking laptops, good size 15" screens, true color glossy. The keyboards seem to be much easier to type on then my old 9300 Dell laptop. Speed is good, and applications load quickly on boot up. Although this laptop is a great deal for the price, there are some downsides to it. 1. The speakers are horrid unless ...
...to a better sound card. Dell boo boo on that one. The 1525 has Dell brand built in wireless, with xtra built in antennas for better connections. Ummmmm...Dell has some work to do on their wireless cards. My old 9300 has Intel wireless built in and I can pick up free wifi just about everywhere I go. Using the 1525 in the same places, I am unable to connect to the same wifi I get with my 9300. I should have upgraded to Intel wireless (kicked myself ... Read review

Advantages: Lightweight, Excellent Video and Affordable
Disadvantages: Low On-board Audio, No DVD Writer

The Acer Aspire 3680 is a very lightweight and reliable notebook. I had mine upgraded to 1 Gig of ram and installed Windows Vista Ultimate, which didn't seem to slow it down at all. The graphics card and display monitor are superb, providing a crystal clear viewing experience. The drawbacks to this notebook are that the on-board audio is very low. I recommend purchasing a small, portable set of speakers to enhance the sound. Second, I have yet to ... Read review