<p>My mom is shopping for her first computer for her upcoming 66th birthday. :-)</p>
<p>She wants a laptop with Microsoft Word, CD/DVD player, enough space to store her digital photos from her worldwide travels, that sort of thing. Nothing too fancy, wants to spend well under $1000. Non-Mac. </p>
<p>We have a couple of Dells, and they’re okay. I hear Vista is clunky and people aren’t liking it, which is why I’m thinking a new Dell might not be such a good idea. People seem to like Toshiba…</p>
<p>I have no idea, but my HP laptop is three years old now and has never given me any trouble. It came with Windows 98 which suits me fine, and a trial version of office which expired, at which point my son kindly downloaded Open Office.</p>
<p>We have become a one Apple and the rest HP family. Our newest HP is about 4 years old and going strong, if they are still as good as they were then, I vote HP.</p>
<p>If Mom is not computer savvy, and mostly wants Internet access, look into an Apple. My D loves hers. We were an Apple family many years ago, but she was only familiar with PCs until college. She finds the Mac much more reliable, very little worry about viruses and lock-up, and more intuitive.</p>
<p>I love my fairly new HP Pavillion dv2000 - although my Apple addicted family almost dis-owned me for choosing it. (son, daughter and husband all have various models of Macs) My HP has an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and Windows XP Professional. It’s Vista ready, but I’m not, so I’ll probably just keep it as is. I love the size, and the construction. I took out about half of the programs it comes with (various games and extra stuff I don’t need), installed a good virus protection program, and have had no problems. It’s very fast, and feels perfect for me. (a 56 year old mom). </p>
<p>Seriously, when my son found out I bought it, he said, “You’ve made a grave mistake.” :rolleyes: I’ve been very happy with it so far, but it’s only been about 6 months.</p>
<p>I got a new HP Pavillion dv2000 a couple months ago and I love it! I wanted to get it before Vista came out, so I would have a choice if/when to upgrade. I believe it came to $950 after rebates. It has Core 2 Duo, Cd/DVD burner, even came with a 3-in-1 printer/scanner/copier, free after rebate. It is my first laptop, too, and I am totally satisfied with it.</p>
<p>Oh, yeah, one neat thing about it is that you can take the memory card from a digital camera, stick it in a special slot on the computer, and upload your photos very quickly. Very easy to use.</p>
<p>I would definitely look into the HP, if I were you.</p>
<p>Here is a great site where you can ask questions: <a href=“TechnologyGuide - TechTarget”>TechnologyGuide - TechTarget;
Someone mentioned it me when I was trying to decide which laptop to buy, and it helped me greatly.</p>
<p>DO NOT get a Toshiba! We have two. They overheat and are prone to power supply problems. We are getting ready to trash a two year old one due to frustration. Have also owned Sonys & Dells.</p>
<p>I recommend a Lenovo thinkpad (IBM). A little pricier than the others, but a real workhorse with great customer support.</p>
<p>I have an HD which is just fine. Bought it really, really inexpensively on <a href=“http://www.refurbdepot.com%5B/url%5D”>www.refurbdepot.com</a> - their quality control is much, much better than that from any of the companies, because it has to be.</p>
<p>Don’t buy a Dell. Dell does not sell their parts to repair shops. For anything other than replacing the hard dive you have to mail it back to them and pay outrageous repair and parts costs because you will have no choice. I’d go with IBM, Compaq or HP, all can be repaired pretty much anywhere. (Which translates to lower cost)</p>
<p>Mathmom, while math may be extremely dogmatic, operating systems have undergone tremendous improvements and updates since Win98. By comparison, to even Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows 98 is totally insecure and a favored target for hackers if it is connected to the Internet.</p>
<p>I would urge you to update…unless you like living on the wild side. If you cannot afford a new OS and likely an updated computer, there are several free versions of Linux than run Open Office that are very secure that’ll run on older hardware. Any would be superior to Win98. ;)</p>
<p>audio: you are scaring me, we have two toshibas and have loved them…I did love my Sony vaio, but for the price difference I did not have any needs it addressed any better.</p>
<p>I do notice my Tosh puts out heat, but so did the sony. I also had a weird power up issue once, but could not replicate it, so have not worried about it and had no recurrence in the past year…what happened to yours? I need to get a laptop for the next college kid this summer and was thinking Tosh again- we have a 1+ and 2+ year old Toshiba which have been great except for that one temporary glitch. I will admit that when mine hit the one year anniversary, I bought the extended warranty, in light of the issues I have seen.</p>
<p>My other D has a Mac and she has had a lot of issues with it, many repairs, a real pain, too, as I don;t speak apple and cannot troubelshoot it. Also, hers does not get great wireless reception, when the rest of us can access wireless, she has to be much closer to the source. Hers is 2+ years old, so shouldn’t be too out of date.</p>
<p>Mine (a different model) seems to be working so far after two extended warranty repairs. I usually don’t buy extended warranties, but I’m glad I got this one.</p>
By comparison, to even Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows 98 is totally insecure and a favored target for hackers if it is connected to the Internet.</p>