Moms, Dads and Grads Buyer's Guide 2010 Discussion

Whether you're waiting until the last minute to pick out your Mother's Day gift, trying to find an early Father's Day present, or searching for a laptop for your kid's graduation, you can relax. The team at NotebookReview.com has you covered with a special Moms, Dads, and Grads Buyer's Guide featuring a variety of laptops to fit any budget.

Read the full content of this Article: Moms, Dads and Grads Buyer's Guide 2010

 

So what exactly were the criteria for the laptops put in that list? I mean, it seems like a wide array of notebooks and given the newly output "Notebook Buying Guide", it seems a bit counter-intuitive to just spit out a list of laptops and rank them by budget.

I mean, there's mention of multiple reasons of purchase in the introduction such as "serious about computers, serious about style, or just wants to "get with the times.", but I don't seem to notice any explicit delimitation of these elements within the descriptions of the listed laptops.

 

Yeah, I agree. This article seems kind of weird. The budget/pricing categories aren't the best, either. You have <$500; $500-$1000; then >$1000 where you have everything from $1000 to over $2000 (the MBPs). This last budget category is much too broad.

I think it would've been better to somehow incorporate this article into the Notebook Buying Guide, rather than keeping it as a standalone article.

 

I liked it but thought it could have been a bit more detailed. Like offering insights such as the importance of factoring in academic discount pricing. All the big OEM's offer it. How, if possible, a business laptop really is the best for high school grads would also have been nice.

I do understand that you had to tie it in to "Mom's, Dad's and Grad's" though, given the way us Yanks clump those holidays/events together, so in the end I thought it was pretty good.

 

I'm always uncomfortable with "buyers guides" because they are based upon one person's opinion, which may not fit another's. And well, there's the chance said buyer's guide might have a little incentive, err, bias, to name laptops in the guide.

 

I agree with many of the posters - while I do not wish to marginalize the effort that the author put into this article, I do think that this buyer's guide is too haphazardly organized to be of much use. The "How to Buy the Right Laptop" article is much better in terms of organization. Perhaps this article would have been more useful if the laptops were organized according to size and its intended audience (e.g. netbook/ultraportable/thin-and-light/desktop-replacement), and then within each category the author can order the notebook computers according to price. In addition, most of the descriptions are pretty generic. It might have been better if the author could explain his rational for picking each laptop (i.e. why does this laptop standout within its category?).

 

While a number of the concerns raised in the above posts are valid, these lists are really just for the surge of folks looking for a laptop for the upcoming holidays. A lot of people search for a laptop to get their mom for Mother's Day, and they just want a list of notebooks ranked by price. For those looking for some more in-depth info, we have alternate buying guides. You guys have to remember, a lot of the people who come to our site are completely new to buying a laptop for their own or someone else's use.

 

I do see what you are saying, but I still think the guide is a bit too brief and spotty to be of much use. For example, there is no 13.3" laptop anywhere in the guide until you get to above $1000, and even then author only mention the MBP, so for someone who is completely new to buying a laptop, there is no recommendation for one of the most popular screen size in this guide.