My friend just got a great deal for a Toshiba - I think at Best Buy. It was more than just a basic one and it was less than $400. I've always had good luck with Toshiba's - never needed repairs. I've also had good luck with IBM's and Dell's.

saw a dell today at sam's club for under $700...

We bought a Dell thru the Thanksgiving sales for about $550. More than what I need, but DH wanted extras on it. I am sure there will be many great sales before Christmas and then again in January!

Toshiba...they've been workhorses for years. This one - I paid $500 last spring.

Dells are iffy, year to year, quality vairies from good to junk, I wouldn't buy one right now - they seem to be having a "down" time right now....I love my Sony Viao, but they are a little pricy for just home use.

Judy, technologies change so fast nowadays that by the time you're ready, all these responds may be useless.

A few things you may want to remember when buying a laptop. Laptops are not built like desktops. Most everything in a desktop is upgradeable at your own paste before having to replace it. A laptop on the other hand is not all upgradeable or not easy to upgrade, ie: the CPU (main mother board), video card, etc.. Because of this, you'd want to chose these parts as powerful or "top of the line" as you can afford. Things such as the size of the hard drive and the memory chips, do not need to be so large if you can't afford it. They're easy to be upgraded when you're ready.

Size of the laptop also matters. I have a 17" HP laptop and absolute loving it. It has a wider screen and a full size keyboard. It's important because I have long fingers and a full size keyboard is more ergo to type. I work with graphic alot so a 17" display is easier on the eyes. However, a 17" is a 2-3 times heavier than a 14" or 15" laptop. So, if you carry it around alot, it may not be suitable for you.

One thing I do recommend. Our today's technology is heading toward wireless, so get one that has a wireless unit built in. You may eventually need it but without having to get extra components that can be costly later on.

As mentioned, technology changes constantly. One of the latest tech besides speed, is a swivel display. Check the one below to give you an idea. Some even have different size memory card slots so you can insert your camera memory card into it for easy download of your photos & video clips. There's also those that have a built in camera so you wouldn't need to have a separate one.

There are many options and I can imagine that when you're ready, there would even be more. How fast you may ask? I still can't believe my new phone that was purchased barely 6 months ago has already made on the obsolete list!

Good Luck and Happy Shopping!

Natalie

Here is a link that might be useful: HP swivel display laptop

I have a Dell now, and before this one I had a Gateway. This one is 3 yrs. old and I've only had to have repairs once. I think that's a pretty good recommendation.

What's "reasonable" to one person will be "dirt cheap" to another and "outrageously expensive" to another, so it's hard to answer that question.

Historically the top 3 laptops have been Toshiba, IBM and Apple. They've always been workhorses. IBM & Apple have been much more expensive though. BestBuy often sells a nice Toshiba for $350-$400 and the only thing I would suggest is that you need to bump up the RAM on it, as you do on nearly every computer you buy these days.

This Thanksgiving, they had a Toshiba with an all-in-one printer for $229! Everyone had a $400 laptop. There's been many $300 laptops recently. Every one of these would serve your needs well as is, and superbly by adding some RAM.

Ability to upgrade is severely limited these days on both desktop and laptops, but in reality, upgrade is a non-issue with the aforemention RAM caveat. You wouldn't want to upgrade a CPU on a desktop these days any more than on a notebook. But again, it's a non-issue because few people make use of the power in the computer they buy anyway. Internet & email? Sheesh, a 486 and Windows98 would be plenty!

Wifi is pretty much standard on all these days, but even if it isn't on the mainboard a simple card or USB accessory takes care of it. And the advice about ever changing technology is valid.

The best advice I can give is to set a budget when you decide you're getting ready to buy one. Don't let people convince you that you "need" all these bells & whistles and a jillion gigahertz processor! That's bull. In laptops, heat is an issue and frankly you can occasionally be better served by a lower processor at times. Weigh your needs, future possible uses, wants and budget. Then look for a deal that fits.

Someone else here posted recently about a bad experience with Acer, but I have an Acer PC and an Acer laptop, and I love them! OTOH, I bought a very expensive Dell two years ago that lasted until one week after the warranty ran out - then the hard drive crashed. I was so mad that I gave it away! I didn't want to see the darn thing ever again!!!

dh replaced his craptop IBM thinkpad (yes it was working too lol) this past Aug. for college with an Acer from BestBuy for just $400. DH is a tech person and it has worked well for him except for a bad pixel on the screen and the screen is starting to become looser and lean forward/back. he has also dropped it once on the tile :-O i have an HP 17" widescreen, very very heavy compared to the Acer at 15" but other than that it's wonderful. i hauled that thing for 1.5 yrs onto landscape jobsites to work with and it has had alot of abuse in the weather. i was reluctant to get a laptop because upgrading them is not as easy as a desktop and certainly could not be done by DH at home. but i needed one for work and dh needed one at school, now i don't know why i didn't do it earlier...~ liz

You want a laptop for email and genreral surfing without paying a lot. Any of the aformentioned laptops will probably be throwaways by the time you retire and that is the best way to get a basic computer. All my computers have been ones that someone was trying to get rid of so it did not end up in a landfill while they ran out and paid mega buck for a "better" one with horns and whistles.

All I need is email and surfing but I've gotte ones with lots of extras. It's nice to have some of the extras but most of them I do not even know how to use. If you are looking for a computer for when you retire, sometimes Senior Centers collect older computers to distribute to retired folk and you do not have to be 'needy' to obtain one. They just want to put them to good use and keep them from piling up in landfills.

(I'm waiting for one of my friends to "upgrade" their current iPod to a 'newer and better iPod' and I can't wait to hear the words "Can you use this old thing??")

Thanks so much everyone for all the great suggestions. I am thinking of retiring next summer, but some days I'm convinced I should keep working for another year, so I'm not sure yet what I'm gonna do. These ideas sure help & I plan on referring to them when the time comes. Thanks, again. I know I can always count on you guys for answering my sometimes inane questions. :-)

An "insane question" is the one that was never asked!