New laptop recommendations

I need to get a new laptop soon. If anyone here is knowledgeable about what is currently good and what models or brands i should avoid, i would appreciate the info. I know a lot of the newer models don't even have the built in dvd/cd players anymore, but i would like to still get one that has that feature. A reasonable price range is good too.

I just got a Toshiba Satelite S70 back in October & it's great. For around a grand it has Intel Core i7 (3.5 ghz), 8gb ram, 1tb HD, a decent graphics card, & a 17in screen (not a touch screen). It came with Windows 8.1, but I removed that & use Ubuntu 14.04 instead.

It came with a built in DVD-R/RW.

If you don't already have one, invest in a laptop cooling pad. It'll add life to your laptop.

the newer Dell machines are good.

The one I have now is a Toshiba Satellite from 2006. It worked well the first five years, but then it started to freeze up a lot and a few of the keyboard buttons came loose.

Thanks for the tips mc and exact.

What store do you normally buy from mc?

If you are going to go the budget route then Acer makes some solid cheaper models.

I'm not really up on laptops, but I'd recommend pulling up TigerDirect.com and checking out their deals. You get the benefit of user reviews and they run pretty solid discounts on slightly outdated (and even some current) machines.

Troublezone wrote:

What store do you normally buy from mc?

I bought that particular one Amazon, because I have Prime.

I'm a fan of Asus. We have three models and they've been tanks for years. And we've been through quite a few mfrs (HP, Dell, Gateway, Toshiba). Nothing has done as well as Asus for me.

Depends on your budget and purpose of use. I bought one two weeks ago.

I set my max price at €500 and wanted basically a multimedia laptop, but that could also run Civilization 5, since the wife likes it.

I ended up with an HP Pavilion, AMD A10 processor, Radeon R7 graphics card, 8GB RAM, 1TB hard drive, 15.6" Full HD display. Cost me €449.

I also just started looking at the HP Envy. It has a version that includes the built in dvd/cd player. And the price isn't too bad at around $700.

I ended up getting the Toshiba Chromebook 2 (full 1080 HD edition). It looks and feels similar to a MacBook but for way less money.