| Computer Purchasing Question
Posted: 5/1/2005 12:40:26 AM | Ok, so I'm thinking of buying a laptop, and I'm pretty knowledgeable about computers and such, but I wanted to get some opinions on "must have" items you need when purchasing a WINDOWS LAPTOP.
I definitely know I need a DVD-burner (though not sure what kind) and lots of hard drive space. I've researched a variety of models and brands and configurations, but I want to have a clear idea of what I want before I walk into the store and the sales man "lays it on me" and I end up with a $4000 super-mega-machine that I only use to surf the net on POF! 
Alright so, what should a NEWLY PURCHASED WINDOWS LAPTOP contain?
P.S. I thought about buying a Mac, but I'm going to wait a year for strategic business-related reasons. | |
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| Computer Purchasing Question
Posted: 5/1/2005 12:50:26 AM | Honestly, I am crazy!!! 
Wooooooooooooooooooopppppppppp whoooooooooooooooooppppppppppppppppp
Nawh, but seriously, there is a tech/help forum in this site where alot of tech savvy people go post. You should try starting this thread there. It's the second from the bottom of "All Forums".
p.s...  Whoooooooooooooooooooooopppppppppppp! | |
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| Computer Purchasing Question
Posted: 5/1/2005 12:54:01 AM | you should stop drinking so much ketchup if it makes your eyes glaze over like that! -->
P.S. I thought about being proactive and putting this in the forum that you mentioned, but I figured I'd make the moderators "earn their keep" and move it! | |
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| Computer Purchasing Question
Posted: 5/1/2005 12:59:33 AM | DISCLAIMER: these are my opinions based on years of experience both working as a certified break/fix/build computer tech and as a geek.
wireless, lightweight, high battery life, passes durability tests
extra battery (at least one) and charger, possibly a docking station if you intend to replace a desktop.
i've had several laptops over the years, usually you end up making sacrifices particularly in the audio/visual department (laptops video chipsets lag well behind desktop), no laptop sound is good either, they all have tinny (as in the metal man) sounding speakers so i suggest headphones. i would do some research if i were you and get something with a decent warranty especially if you plan on traveling with it. you mentioned a dvd burner so you will probably be watching movies on it i suggest a decent sized screen (which will drain the battery, once again you have to decide which aspects are more important than others). oh and regardless of what you think you won't ever use it to play games, especially if you have a half-way decent desktop, so unless you have a serious reason for getting one i'd stay away, i've sold all mine and while it would be nice to have to go use the many wireless hotspots around town it has very little practical value to me (even when i was a college student many teachers and other people will **** about the clicking of keys taking notes or whatever and i found that having the laptop meant i didn't have to pay attention to class cause i had a mobile distraction with me, also the battery life is usually only enough for one or at most two classes of any length).
waspleg | |
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| Computer Purchasing Question
Posted: 5/3/2005 1:46:12 AM | I prefer Desktops over Laptops, but being on the Road some of the time, I have little choice but to have one, but never use one at Home.
But, I can use the Laptop for just about anything else while away ...
I am not a Gamer ... but have 15" LCD for DVD and the like for Movie playbacks ... Headphones plus seperate external set of miniature Speakers if in a Hotel Room.
Occasionally, if I have too much time between schedueled Appointments and I have Office Work to do, I sit in my Truck with Laptop plugged into Lighter Socket and do it on MS Office and save the partially completed work to Floppy for eazy transfer to the main Desktop. Hooking up the Laptop to the Network, booting it up is way too time consuming, and so is transferring all the work Files over. I just burn a CD-R of all the relevant current Work and reference Files to CD-R, takes about 3 Minutes, and then take the burned Disk with the Laptop onto the Road. Way faster than hauling the Laptop around to re-connect to the Desktop every time.
Time is money.
Many Hotels now have High-Speed internet Connections which take no Configurations whatsoever. Plug it in, let IE (in my case) detect the Settings.
I don't like Laptop Keyboards. Tires my Arm and Shoulders out after a while (yes, i don't type ergonomically ... and I don't care to ... lol)
And while I am really in my own Element with Desktops, I would never do without a Laptop. I transfer the Pics I have taken with my Digital Camera from Trips, and sometimes end up being several GIGS when all has been said and done.
Both Desktop and Laptop are indispensible to me.
And my Laptop has never crashed, but then I run Win98SE ...
It has locked up on the rare occasion requiring a re-boot, but has never crashed. | |
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| Computer Purchasing Question
Posted: 5/3/2005 10:42:07 AM | I have a laptop for my main computer and I can tell you that laptops these days have come a long ways..especially in the graphics and audio departments...my laptop has harmon kardon speakers in it with a subwoofer (yes a subwoofer) built in...the sound is awesome...it's really spoiled me for other laptop sound now...plus my video card can handle almost all of the best games...(not doom 3 or half life 2 tho) :(( it can play them, but it's choppy..
anyway, these days for a laptop..it really depends on what you're doing with it. if you're gonna be carrying it around a lot, try to get one that's lighter...ibm thinkpads are really awesome, they have dvd burners, bright, big screens, decent battery life, plus all the "extras" like built in wireless, bluetooth (some models) USB2, plus they're pretty sturdy...it's a proven brand that's been around forever and a day.
another light laptop is the sony vaio series...they're more expensive, but you might want to check them out anyway. so in a nutshell, here are some things you might want to consider...
- weight - is it light enough to haul around (less than 5 pounds generally)
- speed - how fast is the processor and what type of processor? what are you gonna be doing with it? heavy gaming and photo/video manulipation or surfing internet and word docs?? if you're doing just word docs and surfing internet, etc..(light tasks) then you might want to go with a system that has a cheaper (or slightly slower) processor
- ram - how much memory you need? nowadays it's not uncommon to see a laptop with a gig of ram or more. the norm i believe is about 512 megs tho, which is the "sweet spot" for windows xp to run decently.
- hard drive - the size of the hard drive will determine a few things. 1) how much you can actually load on the laptop and storage space...(for programs, etc) and 2) speed of the hard drive. they still like to put slow 4200 RPM drives in even the higher end laptops and that creates a bit of a bottle neck. get a drive that is at least 5400 RPMs and you should be fine. you can also get a drive that is 7200 rpms but they're a bit more expensive. nowadays the norm is either a 40 or 60 gig drive, i personally wouldn't get anything under 60 gigs, but you can get 80 or even 100 gigs now...but keep in mind that the larger drives usually have slower rpm speeds..so do your homework.
- screen - if you're gonna want a screen that is bright and doesn't hurt your eyes, yet has a natural resolution that's large enough so it won't hurt your eyes as you squint. normally they're 1024x768, but you can get other resolutions, mine is 1600x1200 and i love it, but others who've looked at my screen thought the icons looked too small. after looking at it for a while tho, you seem to adjust to it, and it's fine. you'll also want to look at whether or not it's a wide screen version of the screen. I find that with the widescreen screens, windows kinda looks squished or just "not right", but it could vary with each laptop...the dell laptops have this problem I've found. it depends on what you want to do with it again. if you're typing a lot of sensitive documents on the road and you value your privacy, you might want to go with a smaller screen, say 12 or 13 inches just so the chances of someone reading your screen over your shoulder is minimized. but a larger screen is better for watching movies..if you want to do something like that.
I'm sure this isn't complete, but at least it's a start... i know it's rather lenghty, but if I actually spoke this to you, it might have taken maybe ten minutes of your time..
hope this helps tho.. | |
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| Computer Purchasing Question
Posted: 5/3/2005 11:29:48 AM | With laptops you sort of have to take what you can get and you can’t really build your own (there are some kits and there are some swappable cards and so on now, but still).
You can spend anywhere from 600 bucks to 6000 bucks (US) on a laptop
There are different types of laptops like those that are made for word processing and internet browsing. Those that are made for general purpose activities including the previous mentioned plus burning, movies, and perhaps some light video editing. Those used for more system resource intense activities like all the previous mentioned stuff plus graphics editing, modeling, professional level video editing, gaming, and beyond.
Generally, you have two camps in laptops, more power desktop replacements and less power on the go travel specials.
You can meet in the middle, but usually people tend toward one or the other.
It sounds to me like Excalibur has a desktop replacement model (Subwoofer wow). That thing must be somewhat heavy.
But I peg you for a 1400 to 1700 dollar range kind of user… though I have no idea.
Wireless capability is nice (it would work better than having to burn CD’s like Ticket does) as long as your base computer is set up that way. Don’t misunderstand I think being able to burn cd’s/dvd’s is something that is needed now a-days.
If you care to research you should find something that uses better quality components like for system memory (ram), hard drives, and so on. Make sure you are getting what you want and what you pay for in other words. Like how fast the hard drive is and the memory and so on.
If you want to play movies on it (even if it’s just a ‘It would be nice’ kind of thing) don’t go for a Celeron processor. | |
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| Computer Purchasing Question
Posted: 5/3/2005 2:47:12 PM | Wireless capability is nice (it would work better than having to burn CD’s like Ticket does)
Wireless, Infrared, 10/100 or whatever is still too slow ...
Network Connection Speed or Type is completely irrelevant to me.
I would have to haul the Laptop back into the office, unpack, boot it up, copy 300 MB's of workfiles over (or File-Sync the Thing), shut it down, pack back up into its case and haul it back.
That's 15 - 30 minutes ... no time for that Non-Sense.
Burning a CD-R is 3 Minutes max ... | |
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| Computer Purchasing Question
Posted: 5/3/2005 4:21:42 PM | I'm looking too. I'm interested in checking emails while traveling, but also graphics and
burning cd's while in my hotel room. I create fliers on the (uhhum) fly.
Thanks for your help guys - any more is appreciated. | |
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| Computer Purchasing Question
Posted: 5/4/2005 7:04:26 PM | | One thing to think about - WHERE you buy it is probably just as important as WHAT you buy. Buying from a big chain and getting a warranty sounds good, bbut then you ahve to lug it all the way back when (notice I said WHEN, not IF) things go wrong. It's worth spending an extra 100 or so to get it from a place close to your home or office. They will remember you, and give you better service than the buig chain, where you are nothing but another meanlingless, faceless receipt. | |
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| Computer Purchasing Question
Posted: 5/4/2005 7:16:12 PM | 1. how much do you have to spend
2. applications will you run?
I have a 15" dell m50 notebook. It's about two years old. It has a P4 chip, 1GB ram, CD burner, spare battery, and an NVIDIA Quadro4 700 GoGL video card. I got the spare battery and a floppy module for the swap-out bay. It handles the graphics and animation programs I use for graphic design work, as well as the CAD/CAM programs I use for engineering design. I would upgrade to a newer model but this one never makes me wait so it's plenty fast. I don't use my desktop anymore. Hmm. Anyone need a desktop?
It depends on what you use one for, but I would easily recommend a dell notebook, and see if they have any on their outlet site first. I got the 3-year everything warranty, and keep a spare hard drive back-up just in case. This box is a bit heavy but I don't travel every day. It fits on the fold-down tray on the plane OK. | |
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Posted: 5/5/2005 2:04:45 PM | Dell is good, except if there's a problem - the warranty is only good if you send it back to them. Then if it turns out to be a software problem. you've paid like $300 to have it shipped abck and forth, and you still ahve the problem. That's why I think it's always better to buy local.
JM2CW | |
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| Computer Purchasing Question
Posted: 5/6/2005 10:42:35 PM | Everyone has hit the highpoints and I'm just restating the obvious.
1. It depends on what the primary use will be.
2. Hard drive speed is ultra critical.
3. No less than a GB of RAM.
4. Avoid shared video memory whenever possible.
5. Test drive the system. Don't get a reduced keyboard if you are using it for word processing...unless that is your preference.
6. Reduced weight usually means reduced size and that means tighter tolerances and less heat reduction. When the system gets hot, most of them 'step down' to a lower CPU speed. | |
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| Computer Purchasing Question
Posted: 5/7/2005 4:10:02 AM | I haven't updated my laptop FAQ in a while, but I will try to give you a few pointers
- Regardless of the brand on the front, virtually ALL the laptops in the world are designed and built by about 12 companies in Taiwan.
- DVD burners are still "premium" hardware so you will have to pay a lot. Do you really need a DVD burner?
- Any processor introduced in the last few years will be more than adequate.
- If you have to make financial trade offs, put the money into memory.
- CIOs plan on laptops lasting about two years before they are junked. With a little care, a personal one might last a little longer. Note also that the technology in the laptop will be obsolete the day after you buy it. Keep this in mind when you think about how much to spend.
- For 90%+ of my clients I tell them to get the least expensive "D" brand laptop then can get so they won't be as unhappy when they drop it one day. For most people the least expensive is more than adequate. Note that "D" brand laptops are designed by Quanta and Compal, two of the largest laptop makers in the world.
- The folks in the computer stores don't know any more than you do. If they actually knew what they were jabbering to you about, they wouldn't be working for minimum wage in some computer store, but would be working for MS, Dell, HP or one of the major corporate IT departments. Think about it, retail pays zilch so if they were any good they wouldn't be there.
Now as to whether I know what I am doing ... I was part of a team that designed laptops jointly with Quanta and Compal. The memory module in your computer has one of my patents in it.
Basically, think very carefully about what you will use the laptop for and try a bunch out to understand which ones feel best to you. DO NOT OVERSPEND
Jim | |
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| Computer Purchasing Question
Posted: 5/10/2005 6:16:27 PM | Honestly, if your going to spend the money:
IBM T42
1.7GHz CPU Centrino
1GB of RAM
24X CDRW/DVD (Not DVD writer only CD writer)
14.1 TFT
Wi-Fi
Gigabit Lan
80GB HDD (5400RPM)
Titanium casing
$2900.00
I've supported and seen these dropped off a desk and keep ticking. Dells are hit and miss, some work flawlessly, others you have to replace a componenet every other month, but in perspective, depends if you just want the funtionality of the odd jont around town with the notebook, or your intending on it being your mobile carry my life PC. If your intending on it being your everything, your needs, your.... precious.... then you might wanna move into a tough book. Nice thing about the IBM's is the integration of bio-metrics which is just trendy at the moment, but does deter people from poking around your notebook while you get up and talk to someone in a library, college, university. (Quicky on Biometrics if its the first time you've heard about it, its essentially using your figer print to access the system which corrilates your passwords to the swipe of your print)
Overall, its like someone posted earlier, depends on what you wanna use this for. | |
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| Computer Purchasing Question
Posted: 5/11/2005 2:40:11 AM | Ok here's a quick guide for ya for buying computers and what to look for.
If you want a long battery life... get one with a Centrino Processor. Average battery life is between 4-6 hours depending on how you're using it. Moving parts (watching movies) = drain. A Centrino will keep ya from having to carry an extra battery around because it's about double the charge life of a standard battery.
A case is a necessity. They rarely come with cases. Expect to pay about $40+ for the average case.
A mouse is optional. Many people I meet don't like the touchpads for a laptop by itsself. A mouse is easier to use and if you play any games... it's usually necessary but as for just surfing... well some people like the wheel and convenience of mouse control.
In-line surge protector. This is a surge protector made for a laptop. It straps onto the power adapter and connects in-line with it so wherever you go you have protection.
Wireless cards usually come with most laptops now... if you do traveling to hotels they'll usually come with it so having a wireless card built-in or bought separately is advisable.
You say you only use to surf the net but yet you want a dvd burner and a lot of hard drive space. That leads me to believe you might be doing a bit more than just surfing  512MB of RAM should be in the system at least for any movie editing if you decide to do that. Average laptop harddrives are between 40-80GB (Gibabytes). They get up to 100 or more but you'll pay for that. If you're not planning on doing any video editing then probably I'd say stick to about 60-80 GB if you're gonna put a lot of music on it. If not then I'd assume you'd probably never use more than 40.
USB Jump drives or Flash drives have become very popular. It's rare that you find a laptop with a floppy drive in it so having a USB drive is very convenient. You can keep it on your keychain and simply plug it into any computer Windows ME or higher and it'll automatically pop up as a new drive without installing anything from a disk. Windows 98SE requires you install drivers for it to work which are usually on the drive's manufacturer's website. These babies usually start around 128MB (Megabytes) for about $20 and which is equivalent to about 77 floppy disks worth of information. Save and delete to it just like a floppy. They rock. They can get over 1000MB (1GB) in size.
That's pretty much what you're looking at. If you buy it at a Best Buy then I know the 3 year plan on it will cover the battery when it's not holding a full charge. This can save ya a bunch of $$$ because I know the Sony batteries can get well over $350 a battery.
Good luck and if ya have any questions PM me. | |
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Posted: 5/18/2005 9:38:31 PM | I do graphics for web and animation at home I have a G5 with all the goodies and for the road there is either my G3 or G4 laptop.
You will need the following for a laptop to be useful beyond 1yr
Speed Minimum 1.2Ghz or more. If you can afford a faster chipset then go with it. 1GB of RAM or you will be waiting forever for your mp3's to load
Memory 30GB HDD or better hard disk drive. I can fill this within a day and expect a regular user to fill this up within a month.
Combo drive CD RW DVD RW at least 32xCD 4xDVD or you will be spending a half day or more just burning a single CD or DVD
Video and sound get a good card such as a Radeon graphics card from ATI Technologies and a Soundblaster PCMCIA card to plug into your machine and run speakers and earphones off of.
Connecting to the internet is of utmost importance make sure the laptop has internal modem, ethernet and wireless connections. In most PC's wireless connections are on a PCMCIA and a few models have this as an internal option–G3, G4 and G5 Macs being notable for this.
Connections make sure you have video out and sound out ports, ethernet, modem, Firewire and USB ports for connecting to your external acessories the standart configuration is 1 Firewire and 2 USB ports, a video and sound port (earphone/headphone jack) and your network connections.
Battery life on average batteries will last 2-4hrs between charges, a backup battery is always a good idea as is a charger and a backup charger. IME the points where the wires connect to the plugs are the first to go and usually within a year or 2 at the most.
I think that about sums up the basics. For our next lesson we'll deal with setting up the computer and software.
Byanara  | |
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| Computer Purchasing Question
Posted: 5/29/2005 6:53:56 AM | First i don't like laptops : reasons??? .... can't upgrade them , slower than dosktops, most run pretty hot ..not good overall, very expensive to fix if they break down.
but if you really need one then from my personal experience:
1: Toshiba
2: HP-COMAPQ
3: IBM
4: DELL
My favorite is Toshiba but but even the best make mistakes. Stay away from the new Satellite Pro series . ex. the 6100 has many problems so don't even consider.
Good Luck.. | |
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