Laptops: Your thoughts?

[SLCPUNK]

In a month or so I am going to buy a lap top, as I become more mobile.

Recommendations would be great, what to get, what not to get, internet etc.

Thanks.

[Jim]

Man, buying a laptop was the dumbest thing I ever did.

Oh, I'm not suggesting for a moment that you shouldn't get one. It was the stupidest thing I did because I distinctly lack reason for the reason that you gave,

mobility!, or rather, a reason for it. I mean that in as far as I never use my laptop away from my room. It's biggest adventure has been to the bed or, when I'm home, maybe, maybe, a trip to the living room.

I could have got upwards of double the spec had I bought a PC. Dude. What a waste of fucking money.

Oh well, it has been two years, and I'm looking into buying, or rather making, a PC next year.

By which time knowing my luck I'll be as fucking mobile as Nokia! 


(2006 amendment: as mobile as Sony Ericsson? Not that it matters. Man. What a shit joke.)

[D]

I just bought a Laptop and they are fan fucking tastic!

Mine is a Dell Inspirion 1505.

Ive bought 2 from Dell and both were excellent. lightweight, Fast......

U think u are an internet junkie now!

Main thing to look for is Speed and get a decent wireless internet card or your connections will be shit.


The highest speed cards are more expensive but I was connecting at full cable speed wirelessly.

U can also for the house by a wireless router for about 40 bucks and move around? your house with a great connection.

make sure its WIFI supported so u can use it in wirelessly everywhere.

if u are into it, they have mobile broadband cards. make sure your Laptop has the ability in case u want to buy one.

basically u get a mobile broadband card, put it into the slot and u can get internet access anywhere u get cell phone service.

Battery is important also. Make sure you get an extra battery or a big battery if u plan on being on the computer a lot outside of your home.

my  6 cell battery lasts somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 hours.

[XxWickeds10xX]

I love my laptop! I got it for my wife last xmas, and the "home" computer has been dormant since. Wireless is the ONLY way to go. I got a Gateway..not sure of the series, but it is kickass, no problems, and this thing is on like 13 hours a day!

[jabba2]

If you have money to spend i would check out Dell laptops. they have great customer service and their laptops use the best video cards available? (Nvidia). Some of the Nvidia 9700 GTX cards in Dell notebooks are more advanced than Playstation3, which uses two year old Nvidia technoligy.

Also look for Intel Quad Core processors. They should be coming out pretty soon.

[Mr. Redman]

http://www.apple.com/macbook/macbook.html

Simply the best laptop I've ever used.

[Chief]

I'd go with a Dell laptop.  i'd also get the best one you can afford, that way it will last you a long time!

[D]

Macs would be great if u have the cash but damn they are expensive.

Dell's are affordable plus great quality.

[-Jack-]

If your willing to pay a little bit more.. get the new mac laptops...

If you really need to run Windows XP.. well... you can! It runs both.

Macs own up anyways.

[pilferk]

If it's going to have any sort  of "taxing" use, I'd go with a Dell.

Just as an aside, I bought a $600 Acer laptop for my wife for xmas.  It's not a primary PC, so didn't need great specs and, consequently, didn't need to be very expensive.  She'll primarily use it for wireless net access during the day on our first floor (our PC's are in our home office, in our finished basement), so she doesnt' have to drag the kids up and down.  It's a great tool for paying bills, checking email, shopping (if need be), uploading pictures to Walmart, and that kinda stuff.....without having to pull the kids away from their toys.

[sandman]

i've had 4 Dells and 3 IBMs.

the Dells are phenominal. i never had any complaints. much better than my IBMs, which is what i'm using now. similar specs and the dells seem better at handling large files, they're faster, and much more user friendly.

but with that said, i've never researched laptops, and never used any other models.

and verizon wireless is awesome. you can connect anywhere (i'm on the train right now).

[pilferk]

and verizon wireless is awesome. you can connect anywhere (i'm on the train right now).

Our work laptops all have the verizon wireless installed (part of our contract with our provider) and it really does work just about anywhere.  The upload speeds can be a bit dicey, but the dowloads are very quick.

For the home laptop, I just have a wireless router set up in our office (basement)...and can get a strong signal anywhere on the 1st floor and through all but the VERY back corner of the 2nd floor (the farthest point in our house from the router). Even in the back corner, I get signal...but it's not real strong.  I'm relatively sure I can get one well out into the backyard, too...though I haven't tested it any further than our deck which still shows an excellent signal.

Our laptop will probably do very little traveling...and what travelling it DOES do will probably be as a portable DVD player in the car when on long trips....playing Dora, Blues Clues, and Diego DVD's for the kids.

[chineseblues]

Ive got a Lenovo thinkpad (I guess they use to be called IBM thinkpads) and I will never buy any other kind of laptop again. This one is awesome, and really powerfull for a laptop (I'm doing a graphic design and webpage development course and I need a powerfull computer to do the things i need to do).

[SLCPUNK]

Very interesting input, I will save this thread and reference it in a month or so........

Thanks.

[jarmo]

IfI was to get a laptop today, I'd get a Mac.

Simply because it does all the things I would need to do. Check e-mails, browse the web, listen to music, Photoshop, Word, Excel etc....

I never play any games so I wouldn't need a fast Windows based gaming laptop.

Macs seem nice and easy to use.

All the viruses and shit in the Windows world also speaks in favor of a Mac...




/jarmo

[Timothy]

I would say go with a macbook. yeah they are price but defiantly worth it .But if you don't want to go with a mac I would say go for a dell or really any other brand besides those damn hp ones.

[The Estranged MrFlashbax]

if you're gonna use it for playing a lot of games, get an alienware or something... otherwise macbooks are pretty sweet

[Mal Brossard]

Get a Dell and ignore those who talk about getting a Fisher Price "My First Computer," AKA a Mac.  Why?  Read this...

I saw yet another of those commercials on TV with that kid Justin Long as the Mac user and John Hodgman as the PC user. I swear, if I have to watch another of these commercials, I'm going to kick the next Mac user I see.

Macs are no better than PC's. I've used both. The first "modern" computer (e.g.-- one that doesn't require a 5.5" floppy disk to run) that I used without parental or teacher assistance was a Mac. I used them exclusively from fourth through eighth grade, with the exception being our home computer, an IBM-clone from 1992 or so that only had a program to organize all my baseball cards and an old LotusWorks word processor.

Frankly, I never want to use a Mac again. I've used a PC exclusively for the last 8 years (with the exception of getting stuck with a Mac in Emerson College's computer labs once in a while) and frankly, they're easier to use, have just as many easy-to-use program options as a Mac (sometimes they have even more, no matter what those damned commercials try to imply; try finding an online poker program for Mac before this year-- you couldn't), and they're less expensive.

I've used a PC for eight years now. I've learned how they work inside and out just through looking around, a little trial and error, and just reading about them. I've tried doing it with Macs and can't figure a thing out. You may say spyware, popups, and viruses aren't as much of a problem with Macs as they are with PC's. Know what? I haven't had a single bit of spyware, a single popup, or a single virus in two years. All you have to do is have a good firewall, anti-virus software, and a popup blocker. All except the anti-virus software were free. $40 a year for anti-virus is hardly expensive, and free firewalls and popup blockers are the greatest invention ever. (NOTE: I have since switched to a free anti-virus program, and it's damn good).

Ever since installing Zone Alarm and using Mozilla Firefox, I haven't had a single problem with spyware, popups, phishing, or viruses. And both were free. Yes, I know, neither blocks phishing attacks. It's called common sense people, come on. It's not hard.

A new PC costs $400 for a bare-bones model. A new Mac starts at over $1000. Ever tried shopping on Apple's website? You may notice that in the past, all of their own products were rated with 5 Apples. However, users couldn't post their own ratings and reviews. But on other companies' products on the site, the items were rated with 0-5 stars, and customers WERE permitted to submit reviews.

Apple used to have this to say in their FAQ: "What is the Apple rating? We give all Apple products a rating of "5 Apples" because we think they're great." Earlier, it also read, "Why can't customers rate Apple products? Would you trust us to display less-than-perfect ratings on our own products? We didn't think so." You'll notice now that it has been removed from their site. Despite being anti-conformity in their ads, Apple would prefer that you let them do your thinking for you. "We think they're great, and so do you dammit!"

Here's a perfect analogy I read. Let's say you go a grocery store and buy the generic, store-brand corn flakes. You get home and you find they're stale and taste horrible. You take them back to the manager and demand a refund. "Sorry," he says. "We don't allow complaints about our brand of cereal. We think it's great!"

Mac is trying too hard to market to a fringe group: the non-conformists, college students, and the "anti-corporates." They're trying to make their products out to be "different," and that if you aren't willing to go along with their products, you may as well just be another stuffed shirt who's afraid of change.

But let's think about this. Guess what allows you to stay in business? Money. And what makes money for Apple? Selling computers. And who buys a lot of computers? Suits. Yes, people that you hate. People that aren't artistes, aren't creative, aren't cool. Boring people with white collars, striped ties, and gray suits need to buy your computers, otherwise your company will die! You will die out if you don't sell to more corporate-types. And you don't sell to corporate-types if they think your computer is a toy for the kids.

The only good thing I can find about Apple is the fact they have 100% open-source software, something Microsoft lacks. However, it is still possible to run Windows and still take advantage of the open-source movement. Just look at great programs like Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird. Completely open source, a bunch of great add-ons and tweaks, constant updating and error fixing, easy to use, and it's fun while still being a legitimately good program that isn't seen as just a toy.

Or ARE THEY really open-source? Recently, Apple has proven to be a closed-source DMCA-loving company, very similar to the Recording Industry Association of America. Media-loved Apple has invoked the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to stop communication of methods that allow Mac OS X to run on chips from Intel and AMD (two of the most common PC processors). Yes, you read that right: Apple has used the DMCA to shut down sites that describe how to run its open source-based operating system on Intel hardware. That's about as anti-open-source as one can get.

I'm glad I bought my iPod used rather than new direct from these creeps. A little less money in their pockets. If I can find a good MP3-player (or two, preferrably), I'd seriously consider dumping the iPod. Anyone want to buy a used iPod?

Even with all the hype Apple gets, they're still only 3% of the market. Put that in your iMac and smoke it, Steves.



Right now, I have a Dell laptop, a Dell desktop, and a Toshiba laptop that it on its last breath (the hinge connection the monitor to the body of the computer is broken, so I have to lean it against a all to get it to stay open, which is why I bought the two Dells).  The Toshiba has had a few hardware problems (fried the systems board after 8 months, hard drive died after 2 years, and the CD/DVD drive will no longer read DVD's or write CD-RW's) but other than that it's been perfect.  The Dells have had no problems at all either.

Get yourself a Dell.  Seriously.

[The Estranged MrFlashbax]

yeah macs have their downsides but if you're just using it for work and music its not that bad.. they hardly ever crash and viruses don't affect em.

[wells]

IfI was to get a laptop today, I'd get a Mac.

Simply because it does all the things I would need to do. Check e-mails, browse the web, listen to music, Photoshop, Word, Excel etc....

I never play any games so I wouldn't need a fast Windows based gaming laptop.

Macs seem nice and easy to use.

All the viruses and shit in the Windows world also speaks in favor of a Mac...




/jarmo

Since I got Mac Book Pro back in March this year I am totally new person  ... but I did install Vista on it, just for fun. And for some Exchange email realted things.