Best place to buy a new laptop? Need help.

[Casual Observer]

Guys, its finally time for me to replace my 6 year old HP laptop. I used to go to tigerdirect for deals on laptops but that site has been "retired". I'll probably end up grabbing something on Amazon but would love it if you have any preferred sites/stores for buying computers that you can recommend?

Also, has anyone heard of SGIN computers?

Thanks in advance.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Great question. One of my sister-in-laws was using a $300 Windows laptop that I bought my father before he passed, but the screen went out on it, so I wanted to get her a new one because it was her birthday. And I didn't get her anything. YET. Yet. AOL Keyword was YET.

She is OK with Mac's OS, so you know what, I have been on eBay for so long, I got her a refurbished one there. For $500 I got a better computer, pound for pound, than I could have gotten with the horror show that is Windows 11. All I hear about W11 is them throwing ads at people, so they can fuck off, I was happy to just get her what she wants through eBay, where there is a one year warranty and they take refunds and stand by it and yadda yadda.

SO this does not help you, because you don't want to go into MAC land.

What is a SGIN computer?

To actually answer your question, I would still go through Newegg, because I am GenX and that brand used to mean something. Or Alienware.

[Casual Observer]

Great question. One of my sister-in-laws was using a $300 Windows laptop that I bought my father before he passed, but the screen went out on it, so I wanted to get her a new one because it was her birthday. And I didn't get her anything. YET. Yet. AOL Keyword was YET.

She is OK with Mac's OS, so you know what, I have been on eBay for so long, I got her a refurbished one there. For $500 I got a better computer, pound for pound, than I could have gotten with the horror show that is Windows 11. All I hear about W11 is them throwing ads at people, so they can fuck off, I was happy to just get her what she wants through eBay, where there is a one year warranty and they take refunds and stand by it and yadda yadda.

SO this does not help you, because you don't want to go into MAC land.

What is a SGIN computer?

To actually answer your question, I would still go through Newegg, because I am GenX and that brand used to mean something. Or Alienware.

Forgot about Newegg, thx.

Hard no on Apple you're right, even if i could get over my IIe trauma I can never forgive them for Jony.

SGIN laptop is some kind of cheap Chinese brand I found on Amazon, liked the specs and price but it probably spies.

[Da King]

I have bought my last couple from Costco. They tend to run pretty good deals, and I like having the extra year of free warranty.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

And you can enjoy a nice hot dog afterwards.

[Tdarcos]

SGIN laptop is some kind of cheap Chinese brand I found on Amazon, liked the specs and price but it probably spies.

On a different computer, download, install, and run WireShark, then start up the laptop without enabling internet, monitor what traffic it tries to send, and see who owns that IP address, on first startup it should only be contacting Microsoft. If it tries to contact anywhere else, cut it off at the knees, make all packets to that address drop silently from the router. Same for incoming traffic from those addresses, drop those packets at the router too. Unless you contact addresses in mainland china, I'd make resolver requests for domains ending in .cn route to 127.0.0.1.

[AArdvark]

If you were a spy would you buy a hot dog at Costco?

It's been so long since I actually bought new gear. Someplace with a good return policy, like Amazon, that's the way to go. The one time I bought a Macbook from a store and discovered a broken hinge had been 'fixed' in the stockroom using black tape. They wouldn't believe I didn't do it and refused to do anything about it.
They are out of business now because I cursed them.

[Da King]

And you can enjoy a nice hot dog afterwards.

QUARTER POUNDER! WITH A DRINK! FOR $2!!

[Casual Observer]

Update: once on Amazon ended up finding the parts for a battery and fan transplant so let's see if that and a soft Win10 refresh gets me. Surprisingly the drive wasn't even fragmented so decided to keep files on reinstall. DVD drive is toast but I don't need it so holding off that $20 for now. I've grown accustomed to a touch screen and 1.5TB drive so let's squeeze a little more outa her.

[Jizaboz]

I've grown accustomed to a touch screen and 1.5TB drive so let's squeeze a little more outa her.

Sometime I'll get around to trying to find an affordable monitor that accepts touch-screen input. Really want to be able to properly emulate Japanese rhythm games that use taps and gestures directly on the screen.

[Casual Observer]

I've grown accustomed to a touch screen and 1.5TB drive so let's squeeze a little more outa her.

Sometime I'll get around to trying to find an affordable monitor that accepts touch-screen input. Really want to be able to properly emulate Japanese rhythm games that use taps and gestures directly on the screen.

Thats what tripped me up when looking, I really like the touch ability and it's not a filterable feature usually so I kind of gave up the search.

[Casual Observer]

Wow, what a difference a battery and a reinstall make. I had no idea that the battery was so swollen that it was pushing against the trackpad. It's been at least 3 years I couldn't click the trackpad. Wow have I failed at basic maintenance.

[AArdvark]

Did you take all the HP software out? I think it was Dell's custom crapware that was fighting against Windows in my Inspiron laptop, making everything slow slow slow.

[Casual Observer]

Did you take all the HP software out? I think it was Dell's custom crapware that was fighting against Windows in my Inspiron laptop, making everything slow slow slow.

Good point, sounds like something I should work on doing. It's already faster than I've seen in years, faster than my wife's with a SSD.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Da King recommended CostCo. BBS friend danzaland is getting his son a Windows laptop to take to college, and I forgot about this thread. I was looking around and I saw people recommend CostCo. And then I remembered this thread. And Da King recommended it.

Is frigging CostCo the best place to get a Windows laptop? I guess it is!

[(ᵕ˵ ૩ᵕ)━☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ]

Fourthing (sic?) CostCo / a good warranty from a seller on eBay.

What is with the MacOS hesitation? The M series even if a used model tends to have 15+ hours of battery life. Plus Windows 11 is a UX / Webdev trash fire that will engulf the entire industry.

/me tends to run Linux anyway.

[Casual Observer]

What is with the MacOS hesitation?

A long time ago in a state very far away an evil genius named Jobs unleashed a plastic wedge of death that cost me thousands of dollars and hours of car riding to procure the rarest of treasures, the Apple IIe disk drive controller cards.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Fourthing (sic?) CostCo / a good warranty from a seller on eBay.

What is with the MacOS hesitation? The M series even if a used model tends to have 15+ hours of battery life. Plus Windows 11 is a UX / Webdev trash fire that will engulf the entire industry.

/me tends to run Linux anyway.

The college my buddy's kid is going to, to teach him architecture, specifies that the programs they are going to have him use don't have Mac versions.

I use Windows 10 and MacOS every day, and Ubuntu 2 times a week or so. Honestly at this point, I dislike them all.

[(ᵕ˵ ૩ᵕ)━☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ]

My problems with each OS (as we appear to be on that paradoxial boogie board:)

• 1. Mac OS: Erm... It actually works well? Besides all of the tracking baked in, it does quite a bit decently.
  
  2. Windows 10: I tend to install pretty weird Russian / Chinese developed programs to say batch convert PDFs to PNG and then convert the formatting to Latex. When being used in full force, a Windows 10 install tends to meltdown after six months for me.
  
  3. Windows 11: A gigantic UX / UI nightmare meant to shovel more ads into your face and track you for the pleasure.
  
  4. Linux: stays out of my way, am able to actually troubeshoot deep system issues fairly quickly, but games are either hit or miss via Crossover and specific use software such as Q-Dir just isn't compatible.

GIVE ME A QUAD PANE WINDOW MANAGER OR GIVE ME DEATH!

[AArdvark]

Windows 11: A gigantic UX / UI nightmare meant to shovel more ads into your face and track you for the pleasure.

Agreed. Is there an illegal ISO of 11 with all the garbage removed a-la Tiny 7?