Laptop

[Neeranam]

I need to upgrade my laptop. Does anyone have any recommendation on the best one to buy - 30,000 baht or preferrably under.

[brianinbangkok]

Shop around and compair prices !

Go to Pantip or Zeer as prices are lower there , power buy also sometimes has good offers.

make notes on how much memory,size of HD and what CPU is inside.

Then sit down and decide over a cup of coffee is the way I buy IT.

Personaly I always like to stay with the well known brands like Toshiba (some nice ones under 30k) IBM or Sony (overpriced but nice).

The chinese full option ell cheapo brands are not going to last very long on the road and are a pain in the *ss if you need any repairs or a new battery. (also drivers may become a problem).

[Neeranam]

Shop around and compair prices !

Go to Pantip or Zeer as prices are lower there , power buy also sometimes has good offers.

make notes on how much memory,size of HD and what CPU is inside.

Then sit down and decide over a cup of coffee is the way I buy IT.

Personaly I always like to stay with the well known brands like Toshiba (some nice ones under 30k) IBM or Sony (overpriced but nice).

The chinese full option ell cheapo brands are not going to last very long on the road and are a pain in the *ss if you need any repairs or a new battery. (also drivers may become a problem).

Thanks pal,

I have a friend who's selling his one, but I heard on Fox news that buying 2nd hand laptops was a big no no.

[dominique355]

Just bought an ACER Travelmate for the Missus.

I had to set-up my wireless LAN, which is MAC Address controlled, but I couldn't find the MAC Address on the machine. So I contacted ACER's helpdesk by e-mail here in Thailand and got an answer within 24 hours. Quick, efficient and to the point.

For me, that's also important when considering which brand to buy: The after sales service.

Besides the point: I am still struggling with this Windows VISTA installed on this ACER Travelmate. Why did they make that in the first place? XP SP2 worked fine for me.

[Firefoxx]

For that price point, you can forget all the Japanese brands. You can also forget the IBMs (but not Lenovo, who makes the IBMs, and makes their own brand of cheaper ones). Toshiba is an exception, since they also make some ultra-cheap notebooks, but don't expect these to be as good as the expensive ones.

The cheaper Taiwanese (they're not Chinese, there's a big difference) notebooks will perform, but sometimes you might get a lemon. Then again, you could get a lemon paying 100,000 baht for a notebook, too. The build quality is not great, but as long as you don't push it, it will work. You don't have much choice with a limited budget.

If you want peace of mind, look for notebooks which offer extended warranties. The extended warranties (usually 3 years) are fairly cheap, and can save you in the long run, and you'll probably need a new notebook after around 3 years anyways.

What's important for notebooks is RAM. The more the merrier. Notebooks have slow harddisks, so if you have only 512MB of ram, you'll be using the harddisk a lot, which means waiting a lot. It doesn't matter how much it comes with, it's easy to upgrade. Dual core is good (Core 2 Duo is the latest), since it means less freezing up of your laptop when computing. If you want to play games, a good graphics core is important, but at this budget, you can pretty much kiss that goodbye.

You can buy at pretty much any major computer center (Pantip, Zeers, IT Mall, Seri, etc. etc. etc. etc.). Prices will be pretty much the same. Or you can wait until the computer show on the 14th, although you won't find discounts there, just maybe some freebies.

[Thaising]

I would suggest that you visit IT Expo next week June 14-17 at Srikit Convention Center. During the exhibition most IT vendors usually promote and give discount on IT gadgets. Two years ago I brought a acer notebook below 20k with some freebie.

Edited June 4, 2007 by Thaising

[brianinbangkok]

Yes second hand laptops is indeed a big NO because usually the owner wants to sell after 3 years or so , just before u need to buy a new battery hehehe battery replacements from the original brands can cost up to 10.000 bath , no brand replacements about 4000 bath.

Same can be said of the hard drive , they will die after about 3 years in a laptop (depends on use and a lot of traveling) , good thing thats only about 2500bath for a new one.

Old laptop means old technology , a laptop that was fast and expensive 3 years ago will be slower then the basic low end ones you can buy new in the shop now. One of the reasons the old owner wants a NEW laptop.

The old owners however feel their old 75.000 bath laptop should be worth more then what the real market price is , about 10.000bath or less , depending on the model.

Also old laptops take old type memory expansion cards , hard to find and expensive to buy !

New laptop take the latest fast memory and cost half of what the old memory cost you.

So add it all up and u might as will fork out 20000 and get new laptop , 30.000 will get u a midrange laptop

So yes stay away from second hand laptops.

I suggest you research the performance of the different types of CPU on the market as this can be confusing as now its no longer true that a higer clock speed means higer performance.

Easy trick in shops is look at the high end models they usually have the newest and fastest CPU's so if you see a midrange with exactly that CPU its worth a second look

Edited June 4, 2007 by brianinbangkok

[brianinbangkok]

Here a website thats done the CPU research for you

The interactive CPU Charts provide a true performance comparison between AMD and Intel processors. They allow ambitious users as well as decision makers and dealers to compare their favorite products in 20+ benchmark disciplines.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html

[britmaveric]

Prob acer and add some RAM and maybe upgrade to 7200rpm HD. If u had more dosh I'd suggest Asus - very pleased with my G1.

[nikster]

Santa Rosa laptop are coming out. Even though there are now fire sales on laptops everywhere - clearing out the old before the new come in - I think its a good idea to wait. Mainly, the santa rosa based machines come with lots of RAM. RAM is dirt cheap now though so if you get an older one make sure to upgrade. I saw a 1GB RAM stick for laptops for $29 in the U.S. - up until recently these were $100 and up so make sure to not get ripped off.

An example of what you can expect with Santa Rosa, Acer's Gemstone line which looks really good:

http://www.acer.co.th/product/travelmate/a...5920_/index.htm

From the page:

Aspire 5920G-102G16

* Product Code : AGW0X110

* Intel ® Centrino ® Duo Processor Technology

-Intel ® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7100

(1.8GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB)

-Mobile Intel ® PM965 Express chipset

-Integrated Intel ® Pro/Wireless 3945BG

* Windows Vista™ Home Premium

* Integrated Bluetooth™ 2.0+EDR

* 2048MB DDR2-667 (Max 4GB)

* 160GB(5400rpm), Weight 3.0kg.

* DVD-Super Multi double layer drive, 5-in-1 card reader

* 56K Fax/Modem, 10/100/1000Mbps LAN

* 15.4" WXGA Acer CrystalBrite TFT LCD(1280x800 pixel) / S-Video Out

* NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with up to 1024MB TurboCache™

* Dolby ® Home Theater audio

* Acer Crystal Eye webcam

* 1 year warranty (International)

Free !

- Acer Stylish Bag ( มูลค่า 3,000)

-Acer e-Infotainment Pack 2007 (มูลค่า3,000)

-1 year insurance (มูลค่า 3,500 บาท)

46,900 baht (excluded VAT 7%)

So you can either wait until Santa Rosa laptops are available in quantity, or get a steep discount on any existing machine and make sure to negotiate a very cheap RAM upgrade to a minimum of 1GB. Vista needs 2GB or more to be happy.

Vista has good and bad aspects, IMHO the bad currently far outweigh the good. XP SP2 is better overall. However, new laptops ship with Vista and you are best off leaving it at that if you don't want trouble with hardware drivers etc.

Edited June 5, 2007 by nikster

[brianinbangkok]

A shop called "Hardware House International" and you can find them in most big IT malls have a brochure of their products.

Nice thing about it is they list all the laptops they sell in a easy to compair list

Get that as it makes compairing laptops real easy , the brochure is FREE.

[Weezaalinux]

A shop called "Hardware House International" and you can find them in most big IT malls have a brochure of their products.

Nice thing about it is they list all the laptops they sell in a easy to compair list

Get that as it makes compairing laptops real easy , the brochure is FREE.

hardwarehouse is online at

http://www.hwhinter.com/price.php

if you can get past the thai to the price page, it is in english.

also online for prices is

http://jib.co.th/

but if you are buying acer you may also want to check

acer in malaysia (also online) and you may find you can save the whole cost and more of your visa run by buying acer in malaysia. (on current research it seems the dogs are seriously biting the acers as they come across the border.)

[Neeranam]

Thanks for all those replies, much appreciated. I've decided to go for a decent one, Aspire 5920G-102G16 , is favourite now. No point getting an inferior one that I'll want to change in a year for the sake of 10,000 baht difference.

Seems a bit of an extravagance really as I'll hardly ever use it, unless I give my current one to my eldest daughter and my desktop to someone else.

[Firefoxx]

I saw the Aspire 5920G-102G16 today at Zeers today. It did look nice, with some really awe-inspiring specs for this price range, like lots of memory, latest chipset, HDMI output (WOW!) *and* VGA, the latest Nvidia 8600 graphics core (DX10, HD acceleration), a huge harddrive, and of course the new design. The thing that put me off was the weight... 2.98KG... but that's not a surprise, given that it's a 15.4" screen. My current Acer weighs in at around 2.5KG, and even that's a load to carry. The goal is probably around 2KG, but that means a 13" screen or less. Also, the new design has its pros and cons. It's stylish, all right, but the style might be just a tad *too* stylish. Also the light-colored interior is reminiscant of a Mac, and I'm afraid that I might dirty it up.

If you like the style and don't mind the weight, by all means, go for it. But... remember to get the 3 year extended warranty.

Edited June 5, 2007 by Firefoxx