Toshiba - DH just bought one at Costco, and except for the fact that it comes with Windows 8. it's a good buy.

We've both been very happy with Toshiba hardware, for years.

I have loved all of my Sony laptops, rarely use it now. Just use the IPad.

Just got a new HP love it but Hate windows 8.

I'm a fan of Toshiba too. But frankly I don't buy by name anymore, I look at price and features. I look at no more than $500 and it needs to be maxed out on RAM, 17", large hard drive, lots of USB ports and a good long battery life. Smaller screens, price should be less. I also am adamant about having a modem in my machines since I use it constantly You can buy a pretty good unit in the $300 range and get a decent little unit. Don't get caught up in the "$800 unit must be better than $400 unit". Seldom true if you look at the specs and features. I also like to try out the keyboard on it to see the feel of it. It tells me quite a bit about the units I've worked on and owned. Lenovo is another good brand as is Acer.

Avoid HP, Compaq, Gateway and most Dell.

I recommend Lenovo or Tobshiba. Lenevo is the old IBM model that had one of the best keyboards for feel, and I don't think Lenovo has changed the keyboard after buying the product from IBM.

Try to get it loaded with Windows 7, however, its probably is supplied with Windows 8.

Get as much RAM as you can. ! GB is too small for Windows 7. My desktop has 8 Gb and that may be a bit of overkill; I recommend at least 4 GB for a laptop.

Thanks so much for all the good info and advice! I'll pass it on to hubby who enjoys the hunt.

You will probably have to buy a unit with Windows 8. I had to. I didn't want a laptop though - prefer a PC.

I just use the Internet and e-mail - plus I bought Office Student 2013 so that I could get Word.

I live in Canada - so things may be different in the U.S.

I would strongly suggest that if your dd needs Word etc. that she buy the product from Microsoft - NOT from a Best Buy or similar store. Many people have had problems using the key card - the store employees will tell you that should it need to be reloaded (say husband deletes the program or something else happens) you just have to reload it. Not true - one time load only - and then you have to call Windows which starts a whole new story. And I asked since I used to have the Windows Office Professional discs.

Your printer is probably for an XP or 7. I bought a new laser black & white printer because I was tired of the cost of the colour inkjet cartridges that I did not need. After finding out the hard way that my Internet provider (one of the 2 largest in Canada) does not support Windows 8 when it comes to security I decided to check the printer discs - sure enough XP and 7. So I had to call the printer company.

In the meantime, my Internet provider had me uninstall the 60 day trial of Norton anti-virus that came with the computer to load back on my paid-for anti-virus. I did tell the CS person that I had Windows 8 - he didn't know that Rogers wasn't capable with it. So I had to call the computer company. They installed Defender for me.

NOTE - Windows 8 is NOT! compatible with MSE - you need to use Defender if going with Microsoft. When you install the printer you will need to disable Defender. Turning it back on as not as easy as it should be - and rebooting didn't do it. I finally went to the Action Centre - that is how I did it.

The computer company will strongly suggest that you make a flash drive of the factory settings and store it in a safe place - and buy the best flash drive you can find. I did - but as it was loading, it stopped and the "next" went grey. I checked on the trouble shooting forum and many people had the same problem - but could solve the issue. So I called the computer people again after checking said :flash drive and seeing the dreaded XP and 7 on it. The fellow had just been through this with a few other people. When you get to "next" and can't proceed, you go up to the body where the size of the flash drive is noted and you hit it. I needed the 64 bit - which I had purchased. That did the trick.

My husband's company is not going to go with Windows 8 -they are waiting for 10. To make matters worse, my first home computer had Millenium. I do not use a cell phone, tablet etc. so 90% of the features are useless to me. But since your daughter probably does use said features she might be okay - except that Windows 8 has problems. I don't even use Facebook.

I didn't want to buy a laptop - and I didn't want to deal with a MAC - but all things considered - a MAC is looking pretty good at this point.

By the way, since we all get those fake calls from people pretending to work for Windows, make sure that your daughter always has a Case Number and that when she receives a call back that the person knows the Number. I had 7 such calls with my last computer and I know that Windows never calls you unless you call them. So during a 3 week period I had 9 scam calls during the exact time frames that I was expecting a call from Windows. The calls were extremely abusive because I expected the person to know my case number and the reason for my call. When they didn't the abusive nature of the calls became horrendous. Finally, I looked for a North American number for Microsoft - found one just outside of Toronto, but it went to the Philippines - but not India. The fellow I spoke with was very helpful and agreed that there was just too much coincidence going on. So he put me through to a tech who quoted me my Case Number and fixed my problem right away - and then gave me a new case number. Apparently a lot of people feel that the scam calls are inside jobs - just like in any industry. So just be careful. I am lucky to be able to turn the computer on and off. My Rogers Internet keeps telling me to upgrade to Internet 9 (I have Internet 10) and that my Rogers e-mail can't be upgraded because my computer does not have the proper specifications - the implication being that it is too old - just the reverse. Hope everything works out better for you. My husband uses Word 2010 - naturally. I am also not keen on 2013!

I've had two Toshiba's and they were great. From my friends who have Dell, I've heard lots of problems. Now I have a MacbookAir which I never would have bought but my daughter told my DH to get me one and I could never got back. They really are superior.

You can still get new laptops with windows 7 you just have to search for them, here is a search page from Tiger Direct which shows several of them.
I have 2 Acer laptops both are good, I have a couple of HP desktops also very good, I am not a fan of Dell had bad luck with them. There are some great prices on laptops now. Check walmart.com great prices and easy return to store policy.

Just google new laptops with windows 7 for sale
You may find this article helpful!
Where can you find a PC running Windows 7?

Here is a link that might be useful: windows 7 laptops

This post was edited by ravencajun on Mon, Apr 29, 13 at 13:56

I've owned four Dell laptops and and a Dell desktop, one Gateway and one Toshiba. None of them have ever failed on me but I preferred Dell for their price and service. I've been extremely lucky with my computers. The only reason I have acquired more is because two laptops were company owned and they insisted I needed to upgrade and two laptops were personal and it was just time to move to something more powerful. My Dell desktop is nine years old and still runs like a champ.

Jodi-