Buying a Laptop

My parents have a Toshiba laptop and it seems to run fine. It has all the bells and whistles and probably cost $600 or so. I just hate using Windows. I was fine with MS until I got my first newspaper job and was forced to use a Mac.

I'm not against Windows, whatever floats your boat/makes you happy.

 

Based on my experience at Apple store trying to buy a Shuffle I can't see myself with a Mac.

From a value standpoint if you can buy a quality laptop for around $400 to $500 that is much better than the one you bought 5 years ago for around $ 2000 it seems like a no brainer.

As technology continues to change in 3 years you can buy another and still be less invested than you would be in a Mac.

 

I too am in the market for a laptop, and I've been told by one of the Best Buy drones that they're getting a whole new line of computers when Windows 7 debuts. Right now there's mainly dreck at their stores, although one has an HP with a quad-core processor, 6 GB memory, 500 GB HD and 1 GB of dedicated video memory for $1,100 that, had I the money, might interest me.

I'm sure I'd be happy with a Mac, but the cheapest one has 2 GB memory and a 160 GB hard drive, and it's $100 cheaper than the quad-core monster I described. Performance will probably force you to spend $1,500 pre-tax, mininum. Although I liked that I was able to pinch a closed Macbook Air and hold it like that with my thumb and forefinger.

As for netbooks: Most of them are only slightly cheaper than entry-level notebooks, have much weaker specs, and the size is both blessing and curse -- sure, it's tiny and portable, but good luck doing any long-form typing on it. Probably the best thing about them is they run on XP and not Vista. Unless you're a wee lad who doesn't want to lug around a regularly-sized notebook, you're probably better off passing.

 

Serioiusly, I saw a nice notebook in a pawn shop and I'm in the market for one. Is it a wise investment?

 

It was a Dell. Everything looked in order and in immaculate condition. It booted up well but I just didn't feel comfortable. I'm not a techno geek but I just got the feeling that the preivous owner could have a way of getting any information I put on it.
But thanks for the advice. I was wondering if anyone else went the pawn shop route to purchase a laptop.

 

I think the day is quickly approaching where hardware will not matter one bit in relationship to the OS you choose. Enterprising individuals have already figured out how to run Mac OS on PC hardware and I assume the process - which I have not tried - will become more streamlined as time goes on.

Out of curiosity, I decided to install the Linux based Ubuntu on an old laptop recently. Now, my Linux knowledge is limited to what some nerd guys showed me in college and what I remembered from elementary school when we were dealing with Unix. So, it took me about a week to really understand what the hell I was doing. Nothing in this process was frustrating though as every last problem I had was well documented throughout the multitudes of forums on Ubuntu.

When I finally produced a clean install and got the wireless card working, I was amazed. The computer ran roughly 50 percent faster. The boot time was almost non-existent. As for the interface, it's clean, simple and to the point. Everything you could possibly want is self-contained within the program from Office programs to Photoshop clones to music and movie players. All work fine and the whole thing is free.

If you're performing an OS reinstall and trying to revive an old computer, it's probably worth a shot to give this a try.

http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu

 

My lappie's going on six years.

 

Don't forget, with Macs viruses and anti-virus software is pretty much a non-issue.

That saves you some bucks in the long run. And not only do you have a better machine, you have one that is not under constant attack.

 

Prince is pissed at U.

 

There is more than enough freeware anti-virus software out there to suit ordinary users.