New Laptop

[E.J.]

does anyone know anything about samsung computers. They just kind of showed up....I'm curious about who makes them.

[JamesSavik]

Reviews of Samsung Laptops

[Tanuki Racoon]

I also read that LG, who I think are another Korean company, make lots of the the products Samsung and others brand as their own. It could, therefore, be the same with their laptops, though I'm sure, that unless they were of the usual superlative quality as all the other Samsung products they wouldn't carry their brand name.

LG is two companies that formed into one.

Lucky Electronics was the first and Goldstar was the second. Goldstar was famous for making crappy low-end stuff along with semi-conductors. Lucky did private label stuff. They first merged into Lucky-Goldstar and then shortened to LG. The LG stuff is pretty good, actually.

[The Pecman]

Good (albeit brief) history on them at this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung

Samsung used to be a really bad, crappy company in the 1980s and early 1990s. They somehow turned the corner and their monitors in particular began to get a lot better, particularly in the last decade. Astonishingly, they're the largest conglomerate in the world by revenue -- they made $173 billion in 2008 -- so they're a force to be reckoned with.

I'm not sure Samsung would be my first choice for computers (especially laptops), but their monitors are actually pretty decent. Samsung's Korean rival LG has made all of Apple's monitors for several years now, so Korea is very much an up and coming nation in terms of electronics quality.

[E.J.]

....I'm not sure Samsung would be my first choice for computers....

They're not...just curious. I'm also looking at Toshiba, HP and Dell. I'm also not certain that a laptop is what I need, so I'm looking at everything.

The cheaper the better

[The Pecman]

It's never too late to get a Mac! There are cheap MacBooks and MacBook Pros out there, and as long as they have Intel processors, they'll run Windows, if that's what you want. Great computers.

But it's hard to fault Dell or Sony laptops, either. I've owned those -- for occasions when I've had to run Windows -- and they're actually pretty darned good.

[E.J.]

The cheapest macbook pro (with a decent sized screen) that I can find is about $2,000.

Link to best buy

I need it to run Autocad, which needs 4GB of ram to run properly.

I have a dell desktop that I am fairly happy with (it's lasted 6 years). Upgrades have been a problem. I had to go on line to get a power supply.

[The Pecman]

The answer is: don't buy a new MacBook Pro; buy a used one. Last year's models are all over the place, often for under a grand.

Also, the MacBook has had 4GB RAM capability for a couple of years now. You can always get something cheaper, but the reality is, you get what you pay for.

I do like the higher-end Dell Precisions, and think they're excellent deals.

[Camy]

Mac Book ... drool.

I've just bought a re-furbished MSI Wind U130 10.1" Netbook for 148 GBP. It's actually brand new (the packaging seal had been cracked) but much cheaper. It came pre-loaded with windows 7, has 160gb hard drive, bluetooth, and is rather peachy. I'm enamoured, anyway! Once I up the RAM to 2gb she'll fly! - or, compared to a Mac, hop!