Which of these computers is best??

[Quicksilver]

Walmart, Best Buy in Sub-$300 Laptop Price War - PCWorld

[Weasel]

Of the two HP laptops and the Toshiba, I'd say the Toshiba hands down. They seem to have better quality and battery life. Hell, that Toshiba has better/faster RAM than mine I bought for a bit more $$ just 7 months ago.

[SANguru]

neither..

1) you don't go to Walmart to buy laptops...

2) c'mon fanboi!! you should know by now that Dell Mini 10v aka hackintosh can run OS-X Snow Leopard with webcam, SSD, and 2GB DDR2 RAM with 8+ hours of battery life for ~$300.

[Quicksilver]

1) Apparently people do otherwise why would they sell them....

2) If I was looking for Dell Mini 10v aka hackintosh I would buy one.

Now... Would you care to answer the question?

[JCL]

The Toshiba because it weighs 1 lb less than the Compaq. I don't understand the logic behind a 6.5 lb laptop.

Specs are very similar. Both are too heavy, and have cheap cases, single core Celeron processors, and not much memory. Cheap enough to be throw-aways. If that is what you want, great. Given the hassle of loading up new laptops, getting rid of all the programs they come with, etc, I would buy one that is a little better with a plan to keep it a little longer.

As Josh said, people really shouldn't buy laptops at Walmart.

[Quicksilver]

Actually it's use will be to run a couple of programs.
I have VMware and XP and I no longer want either of
them taking up space on my Mac's. I would just
rather use a cheap laptop for the few programs
I intend to run.

What programs would they come with that need getting
rid of??

[PersonaNonGrata]

Originally Posted by Quicksilver

Actually it's use will be to run a couple of programs.
I have VMware and XP and I no longer want either of
them taking up space on my Mac's. I would just
rather use a cheap laptop for the few programs
I intend to run.

What programs would they come with that need getting
rid of??

I haven't bought a off-the-shelf computer (other than my Mac) in years for many reasons but one being the crap (aka "bloatware") the OEMs pack on them. HP, Toshiba, et al, load up their computers with BS "free trials" and "limited" software, most of which you don't need nor want and it mucks up our machine. The worst of them has been AOL which is a PITA to remove. You almost have to just blast the entire HDD and wipe it clean.

[statdoc]

Originally Posted by PersonaNonGrata

You almost have to just blast the entire HDD and wipe it clean.

Which is exactly what I usually do when I buy a new computer. I format the hard drive, and reinstall the OS and programs of my choice, rather than all the junk.

[Quicksilver]

That's sounds like a plan but I'll bet these companies
don't provide the Windows OS disk for the re-install.
How long would the format and OS install take?

Originally Posted by statdoc

Which is exactly what I usually do when I buy a new computer. I format the hard drive, and reinstall the OS and programs of my choice, rather than all the junk.

[statdoc]

Originally Posted by Quicksilver

That's sounds like a plan but I'll bet these companies
don't provide the Windows OS disk for the re-install.
How long would the format and OS install take?

I have a couple (legal) ways to obtain Windows and MS Office for minimal expense, with licenses to install multiple times. I usually expect to spend 3-4 hours to wipe the machine and reinstall everything (including Adobe Acrobat, Flash, etc).