Apple or Other for LAPTOP PURCHASE????

[Frightcrawler]

Hmm, since he's looking for sleek, thin, and powerful, I guess we could basically count 17"ers out.
15" or 15"4' would be the best category to shoot for, with the best balance of performance and size. Pentium M, probably Dothan, would be the best processor since it fits his criteria of making the laptop "sleek, thin, and powerful."
Radeon 9700/9600's @ 128 mb would be the best graphics processor, for obvious reasons.
With that said, I would recommend a Hypersonic (high quality, great gaming), IBM (basically because IBM is at the top of the laptop food chain ), VoodooPC, or an Apple.
If it were up to me I would narrow it down to Hypersonic and IBM, because I dont really have much use for an Apple.

Good Luck.

 

[digitalsm]

Originally posted by: addragyn
Umm, with an apple, you won't be gaming much at all.

Huh? The selection isn't the biggest but that doesn't mean it's nonexistent.

http://www.insidemacgames.com/

- - -

Apple lappies look very well built but they're expensive and I don' know how well they'll take to my PC MS Word, Excel and Adobe documents.

Office 2004 was recently released. Many people say MBU(Mac Business Unit) pus out a better version of Office than their Windows peers.

By Adobe documents I'm sure you mean PDF otherwise just use the correct Adobe app. Preview will open PDF & EPS. It kicks Acrobat Reader right in the nuts. It's faaaaaaaaaassstt! Plus great searching capabilities. OS X also give you the option to "print" to a PDF file (or fax) as part of the OS wide print function. Works for instant messages,, web pages, everything you can print. Viewing PDFs in Preview has made my life a little smoother. Quartz 2D is PDF based.


I'm basically looking for a lappy 15" or bigger.....that has enough power to game well and watch videos.

A 1.5GHz G4 with 512K L2 and a 128MB Radeon 9700M is not slow. You can definitely get faster stuff on the PC side. But I find the PowerBooks to be *very* well balanced packages. I'm sure Apple could make an 8lb G5 desknote that got 90 minutes of battery life. Know what I mean?


Budget is not a concern, but I'm looking for top while giving me great performance

Go for the top 15" or 17" 1.5GHz then.
Grab that 128MB VRAM upgrade.
You're getting SuperDrive, AirPort Extreme, Bluetooth, and Backlit keyboard standard.
Do the "1GB DDR333 SDRAM - 1 SO-DIMM" upgrade.
Upgrade to the 5400rpm drive.
I recommend you try .Mac (it's discounted) and consider a second AC adaptor.
Checkout the iSight if you want to do video chat.
A Bluetooth keyboard and mouse can be nice to use while the PB is on your desk, same with a stand, 2.

Then for kicks pop in some more RAM.

For any videos QuickTime can't handle use VLC.

That or a ThinkPad would be my recommendation.

*Shurg* Add on tax and shipping, and it will cost more than the VoodooPC Envy 360, which weighs .2lbs less, same thickness, and roughly the same battery life.

If price isnt a concern I still say go with a VoodooPC. The VoodooPC Envy 360 is the MOST well balanced notebook out there.

 

[Wuzup101]

I'd go for the 15" Powerbook or a nice new 15" IBM T42. I really don't think apple is overpriced anymore. Their laptops are very nice for the price IMHO considering the build quality. The 15"ers have beautiful screans that I'm sure you would be happy with. However if you need high rez, the IBM is probably the way to go!

 

[addragyn]

*Shurg* Add on tax and shipping, and it will cost more than the VoodooPC Envy 360, which weighs .2lbs less, same thickness, and roughly the same battery life.

If price isnt a concern I still say go with a VoodooPC. The VoodooPC Envy 360 is the MOST well balanced notebook out there.

I can't find that machine on their gimmicky website.