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[maharetr]

The laptop I have now is slowly dying after three years of devoted service, and I'm in the market for a new one.

Talk at me about your laptop? What brand is it? RAM, storage space, how much you paid for it, bits you like, bits you don't like? Do you have Vista? How's it working for you? :) Aside from "wireless internet" and "lots of storage space" requirements, I'm open to suggestions/sermons ;)

Comments

[ascetic-hedony.livejournal.com]

Argh. Just when I'd almost convinced myself to stop checking out laptops.

I'm guessing battery life would be a big issue for you, and maybe an ergonomic type keyboard?

[maharetr.livejournal.com]

Just when I'd almost convinced myself to stop checking out laptops.

Hey, if you're feeding your addition for the good of someone else, it doesn't count, right? Just like any calories consumed in front of a TV don't count... *evil grin*

I hadn't thought of battery as much of an issue, although that could just be because I practically live on my bed (*insert joke-quelling glare here*) which is right near a power board... Also, you can get ergonomic laptop keyboards? or do you mean an ergonomic keyboard you can plug into the laptop?

[ascetic-hedony.livejournal.com]

Ah, I think of you as having your laptop with you everywhere, writing madly, even though I know you have paper notepads.

I don't know (yet), though if you're having problems from spending all your time typing, it's worth investigating. I guess a tablet hybrid would allow you to write longhand or type.

[prk.livejournal.com]

I'm kinda an IBM (now Lenovo) Thinkpad fan. I've just ordered another one, but they're at the expensive end of the market (about $3.5k). They're rock solid and reliable though *touches wood*.

We're using HP at work, and they're okay, but a bit iffy if you take them in and out of a docking station.

I'd strongly suggest avoiding Sony - they're not so good in the notebook market, although they do make cute little notebooks.

I've previously used Toshiba and Dell and wouldn't touch either again, although amarillion may be able to give an update on Toshies as they're the main laptop used at her new workplace, so she'll know if any of the current models have hardware issues :)

I've heard mixed feedback on Asus & Acer. Some models are good, some have issues. Everyone has their own preferences. That said, these are the two brands which are usually at a pretty good price point for features.

If you're buying new, now, I'd suggest a minimum of 1.5GB of RAM (2GB recommended). Other features are what wireless protocols are supported, how fast the HDD is (5400RPM vs 7200RPM), CD & DVD Burner, how large the screen is, etc.

If you don't have any specific software requirements, Vista is useable and will give you support for the next 3 / 4 years, whereas XP may be end of lifed.

If I wasn't a Thinkpad snob, I'd probably investigate something like the Acer Travelmate 5625 WSMI or Acer Aspire 9425WSMi.

But I'd be asking other Acer users how they're going first!

Can talk more on Friday if you like.

*hugs*

prk.

[japester.livejournal.com]

We're using HP at work, and they're okay, but a bit iffy if you take them in and out of a docking station.
or touch them out of line, or sneeze near them.
I mean, rebooting at random times? That's plain silly.

[maharetr.livejournal.com]

or touch them out of line, or sneeze near them. Hee!

I use a HP now, and actually, it's never been particularly stellar. Sounds like switching brands are in order!

[maharetr.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, you rock. Thank you muchly for this. *bumps Acer to the to top of a short list*

[japester.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan of Apple hardware, but in moderation, not like Kool Aid.

Personally, I'd get a Macbook Pro as well, not just a MacBook, but I'm a size hardware queen in that regard. That'll also bump the price tag up to $3k.

[rabbit1080.livejournal.com]

my mac makes light-saber noises :)

I'd go for a Mac. They're sooo much nicer to use. Which one I'd recommend depends on what you want to use it for - writing (text) or video?

I'm happy with my 15" macbook pro. Bottom-of-the-line Macbook costs A$1600, mine costs $3k. I wonder if you can get an education discount or some salary-sacrifice deal through your work??

[maharetr.livejournal.com]

Your laptop is very very cool. *G*

I'm curious about a Mac, but scared off by the whole 'having to learn an entirely new/alien operating system' Plus macs seem much more expensive -- I'm only just starting to think about things like budget, but $3,000 is definitely pushing the outer limits of "Do I want to spend that much?" :)

[rabbit1080.livejournal.com]

thanks :)

I'll try to remember to bring mine along tomorrow night if you'd like to have a play, to find out how much you'd need to re-learn. I have Microsoft Office if that's any help.

I reckon there's a pretty good chance that the Macbook would be ok for what you want (screensize 13"), and that you could get an education discount so then the price would be $1450. But like I said, it depends what you want to use it for.

[ascetic-hedony.livejournal.com]

As e_dan demonstrated, you can run Windows on a Mac. Not sure if that defeats the purpose of using a Mac...

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Using Windows as your primary OS would defeat a lot of the purpose, but running it in a sandbox means you probably don't have to give up any applications that you can't get Mac versions of.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

My laptop is a two year old iBook, and the only reason I'd consider upgrading is that it struggles a little with HD video playback (ie, higher res than tv-eps are at the moment, but it's getting to be an issue with movie trailers).

It's a 1.3GHz PowerPC CPU (all the current mac laptops are intel core duos, starting at around 2GHz), with 1.5GB RAM and a 120GB harddrive. Getting a little low on space on the harddrive, but considering that our media drive is nearly full and the latter is bigger than any notebook drive currently available, that's probably unavoidable for now. We sold a slightly higher spec machine than mine for around $1100 a few weeks ago (rabbit1080's old beasty), but as J pointed out further up this thread, there are much faster new models for not too much more than that.

I wouldn't worry too much about changing OS. I use XP at work at the moment, which only took a few weeks to get used to (though I still miss stuff that was easy on the mac on a daily basis, and I've had to use other versions of Windows at previous jobs). You're still basically dealing with (lower case) windows, icons, menus, something a bit like the task bar and so forth, and things like alt-tabbing between applications work pretty similarly.

And things like web browsing or using photoshop are much the same. Actually, you can try out Apple's web browser now if you want to have a play - there's a beta out for Windows. It's a teeny bit unstable, but I still use it for most of my browsing at work. You can get Mozilla on the Mac, too.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Oh, and to answer more of your questions, I like being able to trivially connect it to a TV or external monitor (though the former required a $35 adaptor), and I like the stability. The only time I've had problems with crashing was when I was running Azureus (a specific bittorrent client that has known issues on my particular model) - I switched to a different client and have been fine ever since. I like that I can fit it into a backpack, and it only weighs 2kg even though it's got a DVD drive and a decent complement of ports - I've actually been to Sweden with it with no more than hand luggage. I like that the battery life is around three hours. I love wireless internet access, and I love having an address book, mail application and calendar that cooperate really well with each other and (via bluetooth) with my phone, and can cope with people having more than one email address. I also really like having both firewire (on the new models, faster than USB2!) and USB2 (ubiquitous!) for talking to external harddrives and other gadgets. I like being able to stream music wirelessly to my stereo.

I don't like that I have to resort to VLC for playing DVDs that aren't in the region the DVD drive is locked to (I can only change the region code 5 times), and even then there are a few disks I've had problems with. That said, there are nice DVD ripping apps that seem happy to ignore the region coding.

I don't like that the screen is only 1024x768, though I'm not willing to lug around a laptop that has a bigger than 12 or 13" screen. Apple don't make a model with as high a pixel density as some of the PC manufacturers - if I went to the dark side I could get 1280x960 in the same physical size. That would make for smaller text than most people can read, but I'm weird like that.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

I promise I'll stop spamming now, but I am amused that your post arrived immediately after this one on my friends page :)

[scotsnow.livejournal.com]

Macbook. I can't imagine anybody wanting to use anything else to be honest. The differences in OS are becoming narrower and narrower; if you can use Windows or Vista or Ubuntu (Linux) you already know the basics and will fall right into the Mac OSX and love it deeply.

Macbooks come with the Window OS for you to install should you so desire, but why bother? Wanna open Word docs? Just download the free Open Office suite and you're good to go. Also, I do a LOT of multimedia & music production and the basic Macbook has more grunt that I could possibly need.

And unlike PCs, your Mac will just work, day in and day out, and won't talk back to you. No matter what you throw at it ... well, bricks excepted. :P

[ascetic-hedony.livejournal.com]

At the risk of being spammed (and partially hijacking), what do the much knowing ones know about Fujitsu notebooks?

[maharetr.livejournal.com]

Fujitsu do notebooks? I've only ever associated them with fridges. *does a little mental rearranging of her world :P*

(Hijacking is welcome)

[ascetic-hedony.livejournal.com]

http://www.fujitsu.com/sg/services/computing/pc/notebooks/

I like the tablet hybrids.