What Laptop?

[jaydee]

My brother needs a laptop for college. Being myself, I suggest the Duron, and GeForce2 GO!, but upon reflection, thats not what he needs. He needs to check his mail, log into the school network, lots of word processing and have good battery life at the best price. A DVD player would be convenient as well. I am not familar with these non-gaming, non-power user requirements. AMD, Intel, Cyrix, Transmeta, whatever gets the job done, I'm not specific. What do you think?

 

[Flat]

Apple Apple Apple Apple Apple Apple Apple Apple Apple Apple
get the iBook great value, you can get it with a student discount too. great for everyday apps, great monitor, and a nice dvd player

 

[Cenalian]

Oh boo to the apple.... I say take a bit out of apple and go with something else

Check out this Toshiba Satellite 1805-S203, comes with your DVD player, 800mhx Celeron (I know, Celerons aren't that great, but hey), 15gig HD, 128mb Ram (upgradable to 512), and a 9 cell Li-Ion battery to give you the lasting life that you wanted.

All reasonably priced at $1299.

Hope that helps

 

[jaydee]

Thanks guys, I'm pretty sure, I'll stray from Apple as the school network is Windows based. Anyone know anything about the Transmeta Crusoe chip?

 

[Hyudra]

Get a dell? Those are nice and cheap now, w/ huge screens too.

 

[Conroy9]

i don't know about the transmeta, my impression is that performance won't be very good

for a laptop, i would concentrate on deciding on a brand instead of looking for specific processors; you probably want to get it from somewhere with a good warranty/customer service - this is much more important than with a desktop (i generally ignore CS quality when i look to build a desktop), because it's such a pain to fix laptops

that said, dell has great cs and their prices are very good, esp compared to toshibas, ibm's, sonys,...

i bought the inspiron 8000 a few months ago (right before they started using geforce2go (ugh))

[edit] if all he's doing is checking his mail and wordprocessing, an apple should still be okay; what do you mean by logging into his school's network? waht will he be doing there?
if i didn't program, i would have loved to have bought the titanium g4 powerboook[/edit]

 

[Flat]

jaydee, it does not matter what the schools network is based on... be ignorant if you like

 

[kylef]

... and ignorant is exactly what you would be if you bought an Apple.

 

[Flat]

we arent talking a workstation here, if you could get a grip on your apple hatred you might could see the serious pluses to buying a Apple laptop ie: Ease of use, Size/Weight, battery life, Support, high quality... like i said we arent comparing the latest gaming machines here

 

[jaydee]

I am not ignorant. Apparently nor a beautiful unique snowflake either. My high school runs Macs. I know you CAN run an Apple through a Win2k network. My problem lies in converting different graphic formats, and having to deal with MacOS. I can't stand the weak software, the instability, or the constant application errors I have encountered. It's too bad, because the hardware ain't all that bad. The RISC-based G4 might have something going for it if it wasn't for MacOS.

 

[Conroy9]

i agree with flat

if he doesn't program or play games at all, i think an apple would be great (for all the reasons he listed)
not sure about ease of use, windows isn't that hard to use

 

[Cenalian]

You don't know that connecting to the school network isn't important... that might possibly where hes checking his mail from.

And also, since the schools workstations are windows based, it would be alot easier to buy a machine that is windows as well, as it won't take nearly as long to learn. That and they're better looking.

Also, I personally feel Dell has crap CS.... I mean, if I buy something, I pay shipping. No big deal, seems fair. If I want to return it or have warranty work done, I have to pay for shipping both ways, and if returning it, pay shipping for it to get back to them, which is non-refundable. So I can basically pay $150 to get a non-working peice of junk. Don't know if its that way in America, but it is/was here in Canada.

 

[Flat]

<< I am not ignorant. Apparently nor a beautiful unique snowflake either. My high school runs Macs. I know you CAN run an Apple through a Win2k network. My problem lies in converting different graphic formats, and having to deal with MacOS. I can't stand the weak software, the instability, or the constant application errors I have encountered. It's too bad, because the hardware ain't all that bad. The RISC-based G4 might have something going for it if it wasn't for MacOS. >>



Apple can run every grfx format that I know of (and does for me), Weak software is a myth, exept for the gaming enviroment, your grief with the OS stems a good deal (or probaly does) from your lack of know how with the Mac OS, such as extensions etc... (no offense, none, zero,not flaming here). OS X is great, 9.1 is very stable if configed properly. I am not Mr.Newton for desktop Macs, but I feel very stongly that Apple laptops blow PC laptops out of the water, due to the absolut performance factor being eliminated, plus in the laptop world Apples value is much higher that their Desktop solutions.

 

[Flat]

<< You don't know that connecting to the school network isn't important... that might possibly where hes checking his mail from.

And also, since the schools workstations are windows based, it would be alot easier to buy a machine that is windows as well, as it won't take nearly as long to learn. That and they're better looking.

Also, I personally feel Dell has crap CS.... I mean, if I buy something, I pay shipping. No big deal, seems fair. If I want to return it or have warranty work done, I have to pay for shipping both ways, and if returning it, pay shipping for it to get back to them, which is non-refundable. So I can basically pay $150 to get a non-working peice of junk. Don't know if its that way in America, but it is/was here in Canada. >>



LoL, ok just a little flame here... Dude, if you couldnt connect to Winblows servers then, well, Macs would have a hard time using the internet at all!

Most universitys have both Macs and PCs or all the ones I have been to.

and btw, I belive most people are against you in the &quot;way better looking department,&quot; that is certinetly a selling point for iBook &amp; TiBook...

 

[Conroy9]

I have never paid shipping for warranty work on Dells
The three times i've dealt with them, they've fedexed me a replacement the same day, along with a prepaid shipping bill for me to stick onto the box that i send back to them

windows machines better looking?? when someone is asking for advice, better looking is one of the most useless things to say it's in the eye of the beholder

and it doesn't matter where he's checking his mail from, the mac should be able to check the mail just as easily.

 

[Flat]

Also arent most PC notebooks shipping with ME? I wouldnt touch ME with a... never mind i would just never use ME

 

[Conroy9]

nah you can upgrade to win2k, it should be cheaper for students

or &quot;borrow&quot; win2k from your good brother jaydee!

 

[Cenalian]

That last thing about being better looking was a joke

As for just checking mail, if the school system runs only windows based clients, then I would suggest keeping to a Windows based laptop. Alot easier if you just want to print something off from a school computer.

<< Dude, if you couldnt connect to Winblows servers then, well, Macs would have a hard time using the internet at all! >>

huh??? What are you talking about???

 

[jaydee]

<< Apple can run every grfx format that I know of (and does for me), Weak software is a myth, exept for the gaming enviroment, your grief with the OS stems a good deal (or probaly does) from your lack of know how with the Mac OS, such as extensions etc... >>


Mabey I'm not a Mac guru, but I really don't think it should be necessary to mess with the extensions manager or control panels everytime I want to access a web page, because 'explorer has crashed' on certain sites, or figure out why the imac crashes on reboot, or whatever else.

Go linux.

 

[Flat]

Cenelian... how would it be easier to &quot;print his mail and stuff&quot; on a PC? I just dont get it man... what are you smoking there...

 

[Gunbuster]

What do you have to be smoking to lay out ~2k for a apple Ibook with dim 12.1 screen when you can spend less and get more with a X86 laptop

 

[Cenalian]

What I'm saying Flat (btw thanks for taking the time to spell my name right), is that if hes running a windows based laptop, they'll more that likely be using programs such as Word and Excel. Its much easier to tie those in with the workstations they'd be using on the school network.

I never said it would be easier to &quot;print his mail&quot; as you say. I may have worded it a little differntly, but what I was trying to get across was that it would be easier for this person to run the same e-mail client as the workstations as his school does, as they will be used to them by that point and not have to learn something completly new.

I would also like clarification on the statement that you made about &quot;if you can't connect to a windows servers then, well, Macs would have a hard time using the internet at all!&quot;. Please do clarify what you mean by that.