I had a fantastic Toshiba laptop, and once it met an orange juicy death, I got another one. I have brand loyalty. Despite the fact that its operating system is about as useful as a sack of wrenches to a brain surgeon, the machine is good. I'll recommend Toshiba.
Having said that, I am really looking forward to Google's new OS. I'll definitely be getting one - whoever the manufacturer.
man its been ages since ive posted here, must keep up with the forums a bit more often
im with Red here on the toshiba laptops, they are pretty good all round (well at least the ones ive delt with) another good brand to look at is ASUS.
Also the thinkpads did change company there now made by a chinese company called lenovo, they are still pretty good quality especialy compared to alot of the compaq's/hp's out there.
the big thing to think about is what your going to use it for, is it going to be a desktop replace ment (large/powerfull) or you want something thats ultra portable (slim/light) or somewhere that sits inbetween?
what price do you want to pay?
you mentioned in another post that your going back to study, ideally you'd probably want a 13 or 14 inch computer probably with a core 2 duo or core i5 processor, battery life will probably be important (i cant imagine that uni's would have heaps of power points) the other thing to think about is weight, you probably wont want to drag 3 - 5 kg (6.61 - 11lb) arround with you, so aim for something fairly light. and dont forget to factor in the costs of software, id say the computer will come with windows and thats about it, maybe a trail of office and anti virus software.
i dont know about in the US but in AUS we have big computer shops where you walk in point at what you want on the price list and they bring it out to you, no advice, no sales pitch and usualy quite cheap prices, have a look out for places like this to help get prices
Unless you plan on gaming, doing lots of FEA (my heart goes out to you) or video rendering, a Plain Jane model should have more than enough power for everything you need.
The weight thing is no joke. I had a backpack with a laptop pouch, and it was great. I barely noticed the weight. Then I got a man-purse. It looks a lot better, but carrying a laptop + power supply + a couple notebooks around on one shoulder wrecked my back. I could crack enough vertibrae in my neck to almost get someone to faint. Seriously, they went white.
And for the record, 15.4" screens suck. I vastly preferred 15.1s. The widescreen means that it puts up a fight every time I try to put it in a bag.
Well if you're like me, and don't need a Desktop replacement and just a nice little thign to Carry around, and want it for cheap but it still works. I got a Gateway 8'9 netbook costed about 255 dollars and works perfectly fine for school work and basic internet surfing.
netbooks arent a bad idea if the majority of your work is word processing and presentations, alot of them are now reaching 8 to 10 hours battery life, their trade off's are they arent realy good at doing more than oneor two things at a time.
Submitted by Mr. Pickles on October 28, 2010 - 11:36am.
It really depends on what you're going to do with it... unless you're a gamer, a moderate balance of cpu and ram is more than enough even with the weight of W7 (read smaller machine). A little Dell inspirion with twin 1.8's and 8 Mb runs Acad 2011 and movies just as well as the bigger gear. Paying attention to your other components pays off more than going with a bigger and fancier machine.
I made the migration from HP to Dell on the last one I got but I'll be going back to HP or Toshiba for the next (and not buying online so I can pick it up and play with it first).
Submitted by L473ncy on November 14, 2010 - 4:44am.
Mr. Pickles, try Lenovo. I love their machines plus if you have a Visa with "Visa Perks" you can get between 6-25% off certain models of laptops. Off hand I think with their tablet's you can get up to 26% off, with lower end (entry) models 6-10% and with mid end "business" models somewhere in between those.
Just for the record though. I'm actually running a Toshiba Sattelite M300 and the next machine I'm planning on purchasing is planned to be a Lenovo (possibly with a Bobcat chip depending on how that works out, but based on the Engineering Sample benchmarks I'm looking at they look really good).
But I digress and this thread is old anyways...
Also, amen to the hate for widescreens. Sure you get more horizontal space but you also "lose" vertical space. Although I'm torn between this because the Properties panel and ToC in AutoCAD and ArcGIS take up a lot of your screen space and you end up getting a square workspace anyways, (that is unless you run a multi monitor setup). My machine at home though will run a 4:3 and a 16:10 once I can manage to purchase a second monitor.
I only understood half that last post - but I'm pretty sure it wasn't gibberish. I'm a cardigan sweater away from being the old man who can't figure out how to work the internet-machine.
Submitted by L473ncy on November 15, 2010 - 2:20pm.
Yeah... a young whippersnapper tossing out those techical terms left and right. And not even an Engineer at that! In fact that young whippersnapper is in a *gasp* Bachelor of Arts programme (GIS specialisation).
God damn.... I just realised that I've started to spell things with an 's' instead of a 'z', also this morning while reading the instructions on some LemSip (apparently that's what NeoCitran is called here)....that they don't have things in English AND French. I was actually totally amazed by this revelation this morning it's actually funny and I've been here for almost 3 months. I guess that's what studying abroad will do to you though.
Submitted by L473ncy on November 17, 2010 - 5:43am.
Hahaha..... I'm actually in South East UK, specifically Canterbury (Kent). If you want, PM me with your MSN address if you use it maybe we could meet up if you're nearby.
PS: If you've ever been to Wales they have some pretty funky spellings for things. Like bws (bus), tacsi (taxi), and ambiwlans (ambulance).
PPS: Where do I buy pumpkin pie filling in the UK (already tried Asda and Sainsburys, I've heard Lidl and Tesco might have them but I don't want to make the trip just to end up dissapointed)? Everyone thinks I'm crazy when I try to explain it. Just like when I try to explain what poutine is and why it's so awesome.
I've been to Canterbury. Visited the cathedral, wandered the pretty streets, almost froze to death, drove in some areas where it isn't allowed. Had a good time.
I have been to parts of Wales. We stayed in Llanberis (pronounced like you are attemtping to dislodge a deer from your throat) and climbed Tryfan (pronounced more or less as you expect, weirdly enough).
Submitted by Mortosdersoulstealer on January 2, 2011 - 10:52am.
Avoid HP at all costs!!!
My sister and I combined have gone through 5 or 6 in the last year due to problems from motherboard failure to video card errors to just plain old crapping out on us. My girlfriend also went through 3 this year and finally went for a toshiba (it's working fine). For Christmas this year my parents got me a macbook pro. (I'm sure it will be great but a little bit of my soul died when I opened an apple product.)
All I can say is that despite the great prices and good looking deals HP is the devil do not buy.
I'm sorry Bill Gates...I tried to remain loyal...forgive me.
Submitted by L473ncy on January 27, 2011 - 8:34am.
I'm waiting to get my hands on an AMD Fusion netbook. Specifically the Lenovo ThinkPad x120e. I don't know why I've just always loved IBM ThinkPads and their design and would pick up one in a heartbeat.
Currently I'm rocking a Toshiba with a C2D Centrino chip at 2 Ghz (I've undervolted it using RM Clock, it's running at a "cool" 68C under full load and 53C at idle). It's good and all but I'd actually really like a 11.6" "netbook"/notebook with the latest and greatest low powerered/mobile chip in it (and an SSD.... maybe I get it with the standard HDD and replace it with an OCZ Vertex2... or whatever the best SSD out there is).
Anyways.... AMD Bobcat seems to be the thing to get once it's released in Feb (who can argue with a netbook that's able to play Crysis at a "playable" FPS (as noted by people who demoed the MSI U270).
I've heard good things about the new Windows 7 netbooks... unless you're looking for a desktop replacement.
We have a nice IBM Thinkpad, but I think they got bought out. And our battery kind of exploded (drag) :(
I've been doing the desktop thing for years and years and years, so I'm not sure what to recommend...
I had a fantastic Toshiba laptop, and once it met an orange juicy death, I got another one. I have brand loyalty. Despite the fact that its operating system is about as useful as a sack of wrenches to a brain surgeon, the machine is good. I'll recommend Toshiba.
Having said that, I am really looking forward to Google's new OS. I'll definitely be getting one - whoever the manufacturer.
man its been ages since ive posted here, must keep up with the forums a bit more often
im with Red here on the toshiba laptops, they are pretty good all round (well at least the ones ive delt with) another good brand to look at is ASUS.
Also the thinkpads did change company there now made by a chinese company called lenovo, they are still pretty good quality especialy compared to alot of the compaq's/hp's out there.
the big thing to think about is what your going to use it for, is it going to be a desktop replace ment (large/powerfull) or you want something thats ultra portable (slim/light) or somewhere that sits inbetween?
what price do you want to pay?
you mentioned in another post that your going back to study, ideally you'd probably want a 13 or 14 inch computer probably with a core 2 duo or core i5 processor, battery life will probably be important (i cant imagine that uni's would have heaps of power points) the other thing to think about is weight, you probably wont want to drag 3 - 5 kg (6.61 - 11lb) arround with you, so aim for something fairly light. and dont forget to factor in the costs of software, id say the computer will come with windows and thats about it, maybe a trail of office and anti virus software.
i dont know about in the US but in AUS we have big computer shops where you walk in point at what you want on the price list and they bring it out to you, no advice, no sales pitch and usualy quite cheap prices, have a look out for places like this to help get prices
Unless you plan on gaming, doing lots of FEA (my heart goes out to you) or video rendering, a Plain Jane model should have more than enough power for everything you need.
The weight thing is no joke. I had a backpack with a laptop pouch, and it was great. I barely noticed the weight. Then I got a man-purse. It looks a lot better, but carrying a laptop + power supply + a couple notebooks around on one shoulder wrecked my back. I could crack enough vertibrae in my neck to almost get someone to faint. Seriously, they went white.
And for the record, 15.4" screens suck. I vastly preferred 15.1s. The widescreen means that it puts up a fight every time I try to put it in a bag.
Well if you're like me, and don't need a Desktop replacement and just a nice little thign to Carry around, and want it for cheap but it still works. I got a Gateway 8'9 netbook costed about 255 dollars and works perfectly fine for school work and basic internet surfing.
netbooks arent a bad idea if the majority of your work is word processing and presentations, alot of them are now reaching 8 to 10 hours battery life, their trade off's are they arent realy good at doing more than oneor two things at a time.
It really depends on what you're going to do with it... unless you're a gamer, a moderate balance of cpu and ram is more than enough even with the weight of W7 (read smaller machine). A little Dell inspirion with twin 1.8's and 8 Mb runs Acad 2011 and movies just as well as the bigger gear. Paying attention to your other components pays off more than going with a bigger and fancier machine.
I made the migration from HP to Dell on the last one I got but I'll be going back to HP or Toshiba for the next (and not buying online so I can pick it up and play with it first).
And avoid the wide-screens if you can.
Mr. Pickles, try Lenovo. I love their machines plus if you have a Visa with "Visa Perks" you can get between 6-25% off certain models of laptops. Off hand I think with their tablet's you can get up to 26% off, with lower end (entry) models 6-10% and with mid end "business" models somewhere in between those.
Just for the record though. I'm actually running a Toshiba Sattelite M300 and the next machine I'm planning on purchasing is planned to be a Lenovo (possibly with a Bobcat chip depending on how that works out, but based on the Engineering Sample benchmarks I'm looking at they look really good).
But I digress and this thread is old anyways...
Also, amen to the hate for widescreens. Sure you get more horizontal space but you also "lose" vertical space. Although I'm torn between this because the Properties panel and ToC in AutoCAD and ArcGIS take up a lot of your screen space and you end up getting a square workspace anyways, (that is unless you run a multi monitor setup). My machine at home though will run a 4:3 and a 16:10 once I can manage to purchase a second monitor.
Proof I'm getting old:
I only understood half that last post - but I'm pretty sure it wasn't gibberish. I'm a cardigan sweater away from being the old man who can't figure out how to work the internet-machine.
Yeah... a young whippersnapper tossing out those techical terms left and right. And not even an Engineer at that! In fact that young whippersnapper is in a *gasp* Bachelor of Arts programme (GIS specialisation).
God damn.... I just realised that I've started to spell things with an 's' instead of a 'z', also this morning while reading the instructions on some LemSip (apparently that's what NeoCitran is called here)....that they don't have things in English AND French. I was actually totally amazed by this revelation this morning it's actually funny and I've been here for almost 3 months. I guess that's what studying abroad will do to you though.
The Brits spell things weirdly, and use random names for things that seem arbitrary. I've given up on trying to understand them.
Which corner of the world are you holed up in?
Hahaha..... I'm actually in South East UK, specifically Canterbury (Kent). If you want, PM me with your MSN address if you use it maybe we could meet up if you're nearby.
PS: If you've ever been to Wales they have some pretty funky spellings for things. Like bws (bus), tacsi (taxi), and ambiwlans (ambulance).
PPS: Where do I buy pumpkin pie filling in the UK (already tried Asda and Sainsburys, I've heard Lidl and Tesco might have them but I don't want to make the trip just to end up dissapointed)? Everyone thinks I'm crazy when I try to explain it. Just like when I try to explain what poutine is and why it's so awesome.
I've been to Canterbury. Visited the cathedral, wandered the pretty streets, almost froze to death, drove in some areas where it isn't allowed. Had a good time.
I have been to parts of Wales. We stayed in Llanberis (pronounced like you are attemtping to dislodge a deer from your throat) and climbed Tryfan (pronounced more or less as you expect, weirdly enough).
If you are desperate for some pumpkin pie, Amazon has you covered. http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=pumpkin+pie+filling
Amazon and Google are taking over the world, and I fully support them.
Avoid HP at all costs!!!
My sister and I combined have gone through 5 or 6 in the last year due to problems from motherboard failure to video card errors to just plain old crapping out on us. My girlfriend also went through 3 this year and finally went for a toshiba (it's working fine). For Christmas this year my parents got me a macbook pro. (I'm sure it will be great but a little bit of my soul died when I opened an apple product.)
All I can say is that despite the great prices and good looking deals HP is the devil do not buy.
I'm sorry Bill Gates...I tried to remain loyal...forgive me.
I'm sorry to hear that. I picked up a netbook in July, and I love mine.
Yeah, I got an HP Mini 110, its great but I had to remove the crappy HP linux distro and install Fedora, its all awesome now
Maybe I just got incredably unlucky, we'll know if my Mac dies too. I hear if your a computer killer like me then Macs are the thing to get XD
I'm waiting to get my hands on an AMD Fusion netbook. Specifically the Lenovo ThinkPad x120e. I don't know why I've just always loved IBM ThinkPads and their design and would pick up one in a heartbeat.
Currently I'm rocking a Toshiba with a C2D Centrino chip at 2 Ghz (I've undervolted it using RM Clock, it's running at a "cool" 68C under full load and 53C at idle). It's good and all but I'd actually really like a 11.6" "netbook"/notebook with the latest and greatest low powerered/mobile chip in it (and an SSD.... maybe I get it with the standard HDD and replace it with an OCZ Vertex2... or whatever the best SSD out there is).
Anyways.... AMD Bobcat seems to be the thing to get once it's released in Feb (who can argue with a netbook that's able to play Crysis at a "playable" FPS (as noted by people who demoed the MSI U270).