I've been searching for a few months since my 7-year old, $2,000 HP Pavilion was about ready to give up the ghost. A laptop is also a "nice-to-have" rather than a primary computer. The drop in price of laptops has been stunning. You can now get a brand new Lenovo (formerly IBM) for $300. And HPs are flying for $5-600.But I wanted performance, a large screen, a full-sized keyboard, good battery life ... and so many folks kept saying "get a Mac." However, an Apple Macbook Pro is very pricey, and used ones (4-6 years old) go for $5-700. Plus, they're not as easy to work on if you're a writer like me. The PC keyboard is simply built for writing. (After all, it is a standard, old qwerty typewriter keyboard.)
I compared lots of laptops, online and hands-on. Sony Vaios were looking better and better, but the new, top-end ones are $1100-1300. I somehow landed on this Amazon page with this refurb high-end Sony Vaio that's called a gaming / entertainment laptop. (Originally $1200.) I'm not a gamer, and not planning on watching movies on my laptop ... just a serious computer user and full-time writer. Guess what -the better graphics and horsepower make a lot of difference.
My old HP Pavilion is a 17" diagonal laptop. This Sony Vaio is a 16.4" diagonal. However, the screen format has changed to an HD look, so it's actually just as wide as my old 17", but not as tall. However, the extra screen size is not missed, and the more compact Sony is far better.
These refurbs are available from Sony directly for $977. But there are several here on Amazon as of this writing for as low as $550. I bought one of those and recommend the seller (USA Laptop Parts) highly. Great communication and product just as described. This is last year's model, and there are lots of things I prefer about it over this year's high-end Sony Vaio, including the touch pad and keyboard.
It's a beautiful PC that stands up very well against the Macbook Pro. It comes with 4MB of RAM and I ordered more to bring it up to the 8MB max.
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