Need a new laptop any recommendations or what NOT to get?

[gary-r]

i had an acer - it died

i had an asus - it fell to bits, plastic junk


i now use a macbook(alloy pro) - had it 4 years and it just works, no crashes or bugs. works like the day it was bought and does everything windows can do only better.

ps windows is crap

[Wolfracer]

$hittin' ell folks... I thought there might be a general concensus of opinion here. Now i'm more confused than when I asked the question in the first place.

So ARE Macbooks good, or not.

What's the latest "intel" chip I need in the new box, and is 4Gig enough for most stuff?

other than that its all mumbo jumbo to me, and I don't really have the time to "gen up" on the world of computers, just ewant one thatll work, well, and not break as soon as I stare at in the wrong way!

PS thanks for all the replies, there's a lot of info here.

Logging off again, TTFN.

[dieselboy]

It all depends on how much money you have to play with and what you aim to achieve. Stay clear of fads like iPad or other devices which don't actually fit a purpose. The manufacturers have designed something, and the purpose is the afterthought. Their entire marketing structure is based on making us believe we have that many desires which those devices fit the bill.


If you want something to browse the web, some email and possibly write the odd letter you probably want some kind of netbook or Apple equivelant like an Air. These usually have small screens and are small themselves.

If you want more of a personal computer then go for the larger notepads or laptops.

As mentioned, the i5 chip or above is the desirable one, it'll be better performance wise and for longevity. I personally went for the newer i3 for budget reasons.

Don't completely disregard either operating system type. I use primarily software which is used on Windows. This software is usually cheaper than the Apple equivelant. I also know Windows better than Apple's OS and I like Windows 7 as an OS.


- Funny story but actually true. One of our clients has an office in central London. They all have standard Windows desktops but for showing off purposes a lot of them have iPads. So that they can use the iPad more easily for work purposes, they have gone and bought Bluetooth mice and keyboards. The weight of their bag with all of that weighs much more than a laptop and really negates any benefit of a tablet design, plus the cost is roughly £700.
For £400 you could get a cheap netbook, running Windows with a solid state hard drive which will out perform most higher end laptops with standard hard disks.

Key things for whichever option you go for:
- must have a dual core processor at least and should be above 2GHz
- must have 4GB of RAM at least
- I highly recommend upgrading the disk to solid state. When you remove the disk that came with it, buy a 2.5" hard drive caddy which will turn that into a USB storage device for extra storage.

With the above you will future proof your purchase for a little while at least.

[Shaft120]

@Shaft - Corsair Force3 SSD on Ebuyer floating around the £120 mark. The fastest one for the price.

Yeah - I've been monitoring them for a while. Don't need a new laptop any time soon, but will be rebuilding a new main PC soon. It's amazing how much it still runs, as I've had it for about 4 years and it still holds its own on Windows 7. The Q6600 chip (overclocked to 3.6ghz) was awesome...

I've been waiting for those SSDs to go up in size rather than down in price though. I need something at least 200gb or more to use as the main application drive.

[Vultch]

Actually disagree on the anti Apple stance..

Name the virus.. apart from the marketing scares put out by those who sell anti virus software. If a genuine virus had taken hold the press would be full of Apple bashing.

If your business needs a stable no messing platform - then Apple, when deadlines need to be met and money may be lost.
IPad superb..

If a company builds a better hardware software solution for my companies needs then we will move .. at this moment apple ticks all our boxes.

[Shaft120]

Actually disagree on the anti Apple stance..

Name the virus.. apart from the marketing scares put out by those who sell anti virus software. If a genuine virus had taken hold the press would be full of Apple bashing.

If your business needs a stable no messing platform - then Apple, when deadlines need to be met and money may be lost.
IPad superb..

If a company builds a better hardware software solution for my companies needs then we will move .. at this moment apple ticks all our boxes.

There are a number of security holes found within Apple OS and software loaded onto it. The claim on Apple not having any (or few) virus' is only correct if you consider the term virus in a very narrow definition.

The lay person wants to know how likely his computer can be hacked into regardless of what way.

The problems with Apple are

1) That generally, there is a perception by users that they are impregnable, so the user is less wary and thus more suseptable to being hacked.

2) Apples response times on dealing with serious security flaws once identified are woeful.

I recommend these two pieces of reading to back up my arguments:

http://blogs.technet.com/cfs-file.as...D00_report.pdf

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/sec...i_apple_2.html

[dieselboy]

@Shaft,

Regarding the SSD size, I agree 120GB is a little small. However you're really only benefiting from OS, games (if any, none in my case), and applications. I run my overclocked desktop on a 1TB primary drive, partitioned for 70GB OS and application partition. The desktop, documents, music etc are redirected to the other, larger partition. Even with all my stuff installed I'm no where near 70GB. On the laptop with the SSD, I've partitioned that also. The OS partition is smaller still (Think I did 50GB). The main reason for doing this is so OS rebuilds are easier

Regarding viruses, the general idea is that Microsoft is more widely used therefore is targeted more. Everyone should still be careful about which websites they go to, what software they install and which networks they connect to. Technically, Apple OS (Unix, like) is easier to code for!

[Vultch]

yesterday Apple became the richest company in the world before being overtaken again by an oil giant.
Apple are incredibly protective and vigilante about all their products, the idea of Apple sitting back and being lax about security issues is a little hard to believe.
Look at the outrage over the missing iPhone prototype.
Think of the prestige associated with being the first group to crack Apple iOS. The two articles in question are from the journalists prospective (i.e they need to sell there work to make a living, the fact Apple wont talk to them is not surprising).

"That generally, there is a perception by users that they are impregnable, so the user is less wary and thus more susceptible to being hacked."
You could use that argument against any system..if a windows user purchases the latest most expensive anti viral protection they could think themselves impregnable.

Apple generally caters to a market who just want technology to work, they may not be IT savvy so any patches are throughly tested and are one click operations as per the article.

[Karma Supra]

I'd personally not get an apple, as said above they are largely used by poseurs. Proper designers these days use monster spec PCs. Going back to the original post, this machine is wanted for running Microsoft office products and web surfing. You can do all this on a PC for about 1/3rd the price of a Mac.
My work laptop is a few year old Dell latitude D630 on Windows 7. I absolutely love it. It’s not amazingly fast, but the optical drive can be swapped out for an extra battery, and I have a high capacity battery that sticks out the front a bit like a wrist rest, I can do a full day on a client site without having to plug it in. But it has enough grunt to run demo virtual machines.

For home I have a very elderly Sony Vaio that has worked flawlessly for about 7 years, just a bit slow now! The original battery is still good for nearly 3 hours use.

Also totally agree about solid state drives. I run a Corsair force (as mentioned above) on my home desktop as the system drive (90GB) windows 7 desktop is up in 17 seconds from pressing the power button (including the bios post!), they make even more sense in a laptop as they are lighter, more resistant to being bumped about, run cooler and use less power.

What’s next? Android vs. iPhones

[dieselboy]

What’s next? Android vs. iPhones

Since getting my HTC Desire, I really, really hate touch screen things. May be I just have fat fingers and am as warm as a dead person but they just don't work for me!

[Karma Supra]

I was always against them, I wanted a phone that was a proper phone, with focus on cell signal, and battery life.

Unfortunately when my Sony Ericsson C902 died (read it was looking a bit tatty so I tried to recase it and broke it) I needed new phone, and it seems you can't get a none smart phone these days without it being uber budget tat.

Settled with a Galaxy S2 and I must say I'm converted! Maybe there is something wrong with it? Do you stuggle with laptop track pads?

[biosurf]

I have always used PC's as they are cheaper than Apple equivalents. My other half is an Apple devotee and I'm now convinced only because they are a lot more hassle free.

Everything is locked in unlike a PC where you can use a variety of different virus software, photo software etc. etc. which I'm sure is frustrating if yoyu like loading your machine with lots of tweakable gubbins but, if you're like me and you just want a machine that works without you needing to do anything then Apple fulfils this pretty well.

Most techie people I know use PC's but it seems to me that its often because they love something which they can tinker endlessly with, add millions of different programmes to, pull to pieces and tinker with some more.

Me, I just want it to work with the minimum of input from me (oddly the opposite to how I feel about women... ) So, when this laptop goes south I'll probably go Apple (and cope with the Apple nerds thinking I'm one of them!)

As an aside If you ever need a non computer savvy person to use the machine (i.e. an elderly parent) Apple seems to be easier due to the lack of left/right click options which always seem to confuse.

[Overland Tonka]

Had Apple products since 2002,

Never gone wrong....simple and easy to use with no complications or jargon.

My son spent £5000 on Alienwear computers before he saw the light...it was the first and last time he has said " dad, you was right"

In my job I drive all kinds of people about....one was a very senior chap from Microsoft..

I know you may find this hard to believe but people say all kinds of things in a car..

He said that windows will always have problems and that it is sub standard due to it being over blown and full of holes. He also said that he wishes that they could just rip everything up and start again as this is where Apple has had the advantage.

[Wolfracer]

Thanks for all the info, Apples seem a little out of my budget atm, so will be looking at i5 4 or 6Meg Ram laptops I think...
Had a quick look in PC world, and they're all much of a muchness around the £450 mark, so hoping I can get a better deal on line.
Don't stop this debate because of me though. Pretend I wasn't here...

[shokenore]

I think Aleksandr may have a computer for sale?