<p>So my parents bought me a laptop when I graduated from high school. It’s a Compaq Presario C700.</p>
<p>The problem is this: every few months or so, my power/AC Adapter starts working, and I have to buy I a new one (the computer is now 3 years old and the battery is pretty much shot). My mom’s HP is now having the same problem (It’s about a year old), and one of my best friends has the same computer as me and has this problem as well.</p>
<p>Has anyone else had this problem? </p>
<p>I’ll get a fairly substantial paycheck this summer for being a Summer Orientation Leader, so I’m hoping to buy a new computer…but I want to make sure I’m not going to get the same issue again. Any input?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>hisgrace, HP actually makes Compaq and they have the highest malfunction rates of any of the computer manufacturers. I personally would suggest staying away from them.</p>
<p>I like Toshiba, my best friend loves Sony My sister loves her mac. I’ve heard good things about Asus as well.</p>
<p>We have four Dells in my family and no problems, except one power cord broke after six months, ordered a replacement …wouldn’t you know it, the old one started working again??? So, now we have a back up.</p>
<p>Our oldest is 3 years old and the newest about a year.</p>
<p>We’re very happy with them, but I have also heard that their customer support is less than desirable if you do have a problem.</p>
<p>Good luck, sometimes I think it’s the luck of the draw with computers.</p>
<p>Yes, my mom told me tonight (she financed the new cord…thank God) that HP owns Compaq. Explains a lot.</p>
<p>A lot of my friends have Macs, but I’ll only have about $750 to spend (after taxes), so I just don’t think it’s really an option.</p>
<p>I’m doing a lot of research already (since I’ll be shopping in August)…the nice thing is that since I will be shopping in August, I might get some sweet “back to school” deals. :)</p>
<p>Since you have a limited budget, you might getting a netbook for $300 and then buy a monitor to use with it in your dorm room. I have had an Acer Aspire for 2 1/2 years now, have literally dropped it numerous times, and it has never had a problem. I named it timex. 
Go to Walmart or whererver you have near you and check them out. The keyboard is not as small as you think it is, it just doesn’t have the empty space on the sides of the keys.</p>
<p>What do people know about Gateway? I’m looking at a laptop of theirs right now that looks great and it’s about $450 (without taxes/add-ons). I know we’ve had a couple of desktops of theirs that were great, but are their laptops good?</p>
<p>Whatever the problem is and whatever you buy - back up tonight and often until you get a new one.</p>
<p>ex from about 5 years ago had one and it had some issues. That’s only one person though so not a very large sample size.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if this is standard yet or not but look for one with a 6 cell battery. The battery life on them is much better then on the 3 cell battery packs. My laptop gets 8-9 hours on a typical charge.</p>
<p>lol, dragonmom…my parents sent me back to school with a portable hard drive so that I could have my 15GB of music and all of my school documents on a secure space. We have no idea how much longer this one will last…all I need is about another 7-8 weeks. Once I get through this semester I can hold out until I get paid from my summer job.</p>
<p>hgfm, be careful with your portable hard drive. I backed up everything to mine when my desktop crashed… re-formatted the computers hard drive, and then my portable hard drive fell over and died before I could put everything back on my desktop and I lost everything!! I sent it to be repaired and they said it would cost me between 500-1000 bucks to get my stuff back. :(</p>
<p>OMG…how devastating!</p>
<p>Thankfully I don’t have too much that I NEED, other than the huge amounts of music. I keep the paper copies of graded stuff and delete old files/papers/whatever after a semester. It would be a bummer if it died though.</p>
<p>Laptop batteries have a limited life - this applies to all of them from all the manufacturers. They need to be replaced every now and then - usually between 1 and 3 years. You can buy replacement batteries easily enough - that’s not a reason to replace a laptop. Sometimes ‘ac adapter problems’ are really battery problems - i.e. the battery will no longer charge and it makes it appear to be the adapter. Of course some times it really is the adapter. these are also usually readily available and fairly inexpensive.</p>
<p>^This laptop’s adapter first became ineffective after 6 months. I’ve done some research and it seems to be a fairly common problem for this computer. If you jiggle it around it sometimes will recognize the cord for a few more minutes, then it goes out again.</p>
<p>The left mouse button on the touchpad also stopped working just after the one-year warranty was up (of course) (well, it still works, but it has no “bounce”).</p>
<p>Part of the plastic chipped off over winter break (just cosmetic, but still, annoying).</p>
<p>And I can’t justify putting in a lot more money buying new batteries/cords when I’m buying a new one this summer anyway.</p>
<p>Oh btw I have an old compaq from years and years ago and it’s adapter had the same problem. Now the thing is fully broken inside and no longer connects at all.</p>
<p>I think it’s worthwhile to spend the extra money on a Mac or Lenovo. I’ve owned a Compaq desktop and a Toshiba laptop, and the Macs and Lenovos I’ve had since then have been far better. I’d stay away from Gateway - the quality IMO is terrible.</p>
<p>@fendergirl…Yup…I have a feeling that’s where this one is headed. I read one particular review once where the guy opened his up and re-soldered the connection and swore that fixed the problem…but I wasn’t about to go messing around with the insides of my computer.</p>
<p>@shades…thank you for the input I think my dad gets discounts on Lenovo as he works for IBM, so I’ll have to look into that.</p>
<p>I am on a Dell now. The hard drive died about 2 weeks ago. Thank goodness I had the extended warranty - that would have been over in June. I think PC laptops are built to last about 4 years. </p>
<p>This is why there is a market for Macs.</p>
<p>Apparently dell still uses bad hard drives. they had major issues like that years ago when i worked in IT.</p>
<p>Check with your parents to see if they get corporate discounts anywhere. If your dad works for IBM i’m sure he at least gets something from them. I don’t work for a computer company but I have corporate discounts/agreements with apple, hp, dell, levono, sony, and toshiba.</p>
<p>If you do a search on laptop reliability, Asus and Toshiba are at the top, and HP is the very worst. I was surprised that Apple was relatively middling, with Dell just below and Lenovo well below Dell. I have had problems with my Dell keyboard, but it has extensive user groups full of computer groups, so it emboldened my husband to consider changing my keyboard himself rather than spending $$$ since my warranty had run out. Wouldn’t you know it, just after the laptop keyboard arrived, the problem resolved itself! I think some gunk/crumb lodged somewhere, then eventually became dislodged.</p>
<p>My current laptop is dying, so I have a Dell XPS on the way. ($$$ but I can write it off for business, and this is my base year for financial aid.) For my laptop after that in maybe 6 years, I plan to buy a Mac. Not all peripherals like multi-function machines, printers, routers, etc. are fully functional on Macs, which can be an
annoyance, so check into that if you find the money for a Mac. I got a refurbished one for my daughter and we have had no problems.</p>
<p>Since the last CollegeConfidential debate on this subject, I gave Lake Jr. a Toshiba for Christmas. Three months later Lake Jr. was in a panic because the machine suddenly produced all kinds of error messages and stopped functioning. I have to say that Toshiba’s telephone support and online customer service was very good. Still don’t know what caused the original problem, but the fix did the trick (downloaded directions from the website).</p>
<p>Keep in mind, as someone else said, battery life on laptops is fickle. One solution is to completely drain the battery of power every now and then. Recharging while it still has some life actually shortens battery lifespan, the experts say.</p>
<p>Stay away from Dell. They were an excellent company once upon a time, but recently had to be sued by several Attorneys General for dubious sales and warranty practices. HP appears to be hit or miss, and awful when they miss, according to anecdotes I’ve read. Mac owners are absolutely in love with their machines, but love costs money.</p>