Best Laptops for Less Than $1000: Can They Get the Job Done?

Will a thousand bucks buy a good-quality laptop? PC World laptop reviews say yes, but you will have to make some compromises.

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Introduction
Would you spend $12,000 on a portable computer that weighs nearly 20 pounds? Unlikely. But that's exactly what people who bought Compaq's Portable 386 did in 1987, when the luggable was introduced.
Fortunately, today's laptops are way faster, far lighter, and much, much cheaper. In fact, you can buy a good-quality laptop for $1000 or less--but you will have to make some compromises, of course.
For example, many $1000-or-less laptops include only basic productivity software, such as Microsoft Works, as opposed to Microsoft Office. Still, if you haven't shopped for a laptop lately, you might be surprised at how far a thousand bucks can take you.
The following guide provides three current examples of laptops in the $1000 ballpark, with links to PCW ratings and our Shop & Compare pricing tool. (Keep in mind that online prices fluctuate constantly and laptop models come and go quickly.) The second part of this guide offers tips on how to configure a laptop for $1000 or less.
Great Choices for Less Than a Grand
We review hundreds of laptops in the course of a year, and some excellent options in the less-than-$1000 range have come our way recently. Here are three of our favorites.


HP Pavilion dv6500t
PCW Rating: 86 Very Good Rank: #2 on PC World's Top 10 All-Purpose Laptops chart (September 2007) Recent low price online: $699What you get for the money: The Pavilion dv6500t is a gorgeous laptop with a stylish, high-gloss case and backlit media controls. The machine is well equipped with draft-n Wi-Fi (along with 802.11a/b/g), HDMI output for connecting to a TV, three USB ports, a seven-in-one shared card slot, fantastic stereo speakers, a 15.4-inch glossy wide screen, and a 640-by-480-resolution Webcam.
Our review unit earned a WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 75, only 10 percent slower than the fastest laptops we've tested. In our test the dv6500t went for nearly 4 hours on a battery charge, too. You can configure the laptop with a hard drive of up to 250GB (a $150 increase from the standard 80GB drive).
See the full test and specs report.
Drawbacks: The dv6500t weighs 6.2 pounds. Serious gamers will need to upgrade from the basic Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 chip to the optional 128MB nVidia GeForce Go 8400M GS graphics chip (an extra $79).
As with many other HP consumer laptops, the dv6500t's glossy screen reflects overhead lights, which can be distracting unless you tilt the screen just so.


Lenovo ThinkPad R61
PCW Rating: 83 Very Good Rank: #4 on PC World's Top 10 All-Purpose Laptops chart (September 2007) Recent low price online: $1135
What you get for the money: Some R61 configurations cost as low as $670 but are bare-bones. Recently, however, an R61e with 2GB of memory, Windows Vista Home Premium, and an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU could be configured for $989.
The ThinkPad R61 has plenty of cool features, including the ThinkLight, an LED that illuminates the keyboard so you can type comfortably in low lighting. ThinkPad keyboards are among the best, and the R61's keyboard is no exception.
The laptop's modular bay lets you hot-swap devices such as a dual-layer DVD drive or an extra battery. The battery in our review unit lasted a healthy 3 hours, 19 minutes. And the 2.2-GHz Core 2 Duo T7500-equipped R61 performed well in our speed tests, earning a WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 80. The 14.1-inch-screen model weighs 5.8 pounds, a bit lighter than other laptops in this price range.
Worth noting: In a recent survey, Consumer Reports readers ranked Lenovo tech support as second only to Apple's. The survey also found Lenovo and Compaq laptops tied in needing the fewest repairs among eight leading laptop brands.
Drawbacks: Lenovo ThinkPads are designed more for business than pleasure, so shoppers seeking slick multimedia features should look elsewhere.
See the full test and specs report.

Toshiba Satellite A215-S4757
PCW Rating: 82 Very Good Rank: #5 on PC World's Top 10 All-Purpose Laptops chart (September 2007)Recent low price online: $770
What you get for the money: The Toshiba Satellite A215-S4757 comes with a DVD burner, a full range of ports (including FireWire), and both an ExpressCard slot and a three-in-one memory card slot. The keyboard layout is first-rate, and you get seven handy buttons for turning on the notebook, launching your chosen browser, and controlling CDs and DVDs.
Drawbacks: The A215-S4757 weighs 6.2 pounds. Performance is so-so, too. This laptop's overall WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 60 put it in a tie with the Asus A8JR-4P021C for the lowest rating among 13 recently tested laptops. And the battery lasted only 2.3 hours on one charge, about an hour less than the 3.2-hour average for this laptop class.
See the full test and specs report.Tips for Getting a Good Laptop for $1000 or Less
Go configure: You can have laptops from Dell, HP, Lenovo, and other vendors configured to your specifications. The choices you make (for memory, the hard drive, and other specs) can incrementally raise or lower the system's overall price.
As a result, a preconfigured laptop may go for $1450 in a store, but you could probably configure a version of the laptop online for $1000 or less. (You'll have to accept some trade-offs to reach the lower price, naturally.)
Also, keep in mind that prices listed in PC World reviews apply to the specific configurations we tested, when we tested them. Lower-priced configurations of the same laptop may be available. For example, our review unit of HP's Pavilion dv2500t went for $1439 at the time of our testing, but recent configurations of that laptop on HP's site started at $800.
The upshot: Don't disregard a laptop that's listed at over $1000 because it seems to be out of your price range. You can definitely find better deals out there.
Put your money in memory: Moving up to a speedier processor will likely add $100 or more to your laptop's cost. Recently, for instance, upgrading the Pavilion dv2500t from the Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 (1.5 GHz, 2MB Level 2 cache, 667-MHz frontside bus) to the Core 2 Duo T7250 (2.00 GHz, 2MB Level 2 cache, 800-MHz frontside bus) added $100 to the system's cost. But most users are unlikely to notice any difference in speed between those two processors.
For the same amount of money, you could bump the base Pavilion dv2500t's memory from 1GB to 2GB. The more memory, the faster your applications will open and run. Plus, Windows Vista, a version of which comes preinstalled on the dv2500t and many other new laptops today, demands 2GB. Don't even consider a Vista laptop with less memory.
Ask yourself whether you need a deluxe operating system: When you configure a laptop, you're given a choice of Windows operating system, making it easy to overspend. For example, when configuring a Dell Inspiron 1420, the difference between Vista Home Basic and Vista Ultimate Edition is $149.
Most users probably won't be satisfied with Vista Home Basic, because it is, indeed, basic. On the other hand, Vista Ultimate Edition is probably too much for most users. A better option: For just $30, you can upgrade the Inspiron 1420 from Vista Home Basic to Vista Home Premium, which is all the operating system many people need. (Read "Pick the Right Vista Version" for more information.)
Consider upgrading the hard drive: Selecting a larger hard drive is almost always worth the money. As your collection of music files, digital camera images, and videos grows, you'll certainly need more room. It's better to buy extra hard-drive space now than to bother with an upgrade later.
You may also have an option for a 7200-rpm hard drive as opposed to one that spins at 4200 rpm or 5400 rpm. A faster hard drive allows you to open and save files and launch applications more quickly. The downside: Faster hard drives drain your laptop battery more quickly than slower ones do.
Also, 7200-rpm internal laptop hard drives cost more than slower drives. For example: The base Dell Inspiron 1420 comes with an 80GB 5400-rpm drive. For $100 more, you could upgrade from the 80GB drive to a 120GB 7200-rpm drive. Alternatively, however, for an additional $75, you could instead double the machine's capacity with a 160GB 5400-rpm drive. In the end, for most mainstream users, a larger-capacity 5400-rpm hard drive is a better value than a smaller-capacity 7200-rpm drive.
Invest a bit in an extended-life battery: The more cells a laptop's lithium ion battery has, the longer it can hold a charge. Unfortunately, additional cells mean a larger and heavier battery. Nevertheless, upgrading to an extended-life battery when configuring your laptop is often a good value. With the HP Pavilion dv2500t, for example, upgrading to a 12-cell battery adds only $49. (For battery-life tips, read "Keep the Power Flowing.")
Think before purchasing an extended warranty or service plan: Extended warranties/service plans can add $200 or more to your laptop's bottom line. If you don't have the help of an IT staff, you aren't technically savvy, and your laptop maker offers good tech support, an extended warranty or service plan may be worth the expense. Otherwise, you might skip it. Most laptop makers outsource their consumer-PC phone support overseas, and the quality is erratic at best. Also, many credit cards will double your manufacturer's warranty to protect you against defects anyway.


For Additional Information
Check out these PC World resources for further laptop buying advice.
"How to Buy a Laptop": Our latest laptop buying guide, with even more discussion of your options than we've presented in this story. 
"The Laptop Gear You Must Have": Great add-ons and extras that will help you get the most from your new laptop.
PC World's Laptops Forum: Talk to other users about their experiences, and share tips.
Mobile Computing: This weekly column covers news, reviews, and tips relating to laptops, smart phones, and other portable electronics. You can also subscribe to our Mobile Computing Newsletter.



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