Is this a good time to buy a new laptop?

[jujubee08]

Hello all, my old laptop is dying on me. The LCD monitor is not completely black, but its so dark that I can barely see the screen.

I'm looking to buy a new laptop, but was not sure if now was a good time to buy one.

Mostly, I'm concerned that Microsoft might be coming out with a new OS that might replace Vista. I heard rumors about this, and I was worried that if I buy a computer now then Vista will be replaced and become outdated.

Is this unfounded?

[Jtaylor83]

You mean Windows 7?

Plus, haven't you tried recharging your old laptop? You may have a low battery which maybe causing it.

[cod head]

Also have you tried altering the brightness.Might seem a bit obvious but just a thought. .

[Lisandro]

jujubee, this will occur all the time... Microsoft is always up to release a new version of Windows...
Save money, buy a powerful laptop and be happy

[DavidR]

I would say now is a reasonable time to buy given the credit crunch suppliers are falling over themselves trying to get buyers.

If you get a reasonably good spec laptop that can run Vista and not just run Vista Home Basic, at least 2GB of ram, a good sized hard drive 250GB isn't unusual in laptops now and as Fast a CPU as you can reasonably afford.

This should be able to run Vista reasonably and MS have said that the next OS Windows 7 (or whatever it is finally called) will run on a system that runs Vista. Unlike Vista OS which effectively required you have a new system to run it and then it had to be a reasonably powerful one to get any speed out of it with all the bells and whistles, Aero, etc.

One thing you sound like you need something today so you can't wait to see what sort of spec requirements are needed for when windows 7 eventually ships and there is no firm date for that.

[CharleyO]

***

In addition to the above statements, this time of the year usually has sales events for the Holiday season.


***

[jujubee08]

No, I know its not the brightness setting. Everything was working fine and then all of a sudden the monitor just went dim. There are small moments where it functions normally, and then again it on its own gets really dim to the point that the screen is almost black.


What kind of processor should I get for my laptop? Celeron one or a Pentium one?
I don't do use my laptop for high-end functions. But I also don't want my laptop to be too slow to run Vista or other memory-intensive Microsoft programs or any movie videos.

 

[Hard_ROCKER]

Core 2 Duo FTW but honestly when i look at what's being sold today i couldn't find a CPU that wouldn't run Vista just fine(even my old amd 2600+ runs Vista just fine) ... The amount of RAM is a bigger issue so like David already told you make sure you have atleast 2 GB of RAM and Vista should run great. 3 GB is the perfect amount for a 32 bit Vista system(it's gonna fly then), if you decide to go for 64 bit Vista then more RAM wouldn't hurt for sure(4 GB or more). But as you say you don't need something uber fast 2 GB of RAM will be just fine.

[ardvark]

Hi...

I run Vista Home Premium x64 and can confirm that 4 GB's of memory allows the OS to run quickly and smoothly, plus with the help of the Core 2 Duo.

I would recommend that if you want or need to run a lot of 32 bit applications that were originally coded for XP or earlier (9x, ME, 2000 Professional,) you will probably want to get the 32 bit version of Vista as you may run into compatibility problems with the 64 bit. Games and other software may run with glitches or not at all.

If I may ask, what is the price range you are looking at with this new notebook? Perhaps we could help with ideas.

Best Regards...