OT: Laptop Recommendations

[tmanley]

I'm in need of getting a new laptop to replace my old tower (circa '98). Through my employer I can get a discount on either HP's or Dell's. I've used both in the past on different jobs, but haven't extensively used either over the past 3 years. Any recommendations are welcomed.

-Thanks, Todd

[catulle]

I've had both. Presently my regular computer is a Dell, and my lap-top an HP (with Centrino Duo stuff). My Dell has been bullet-proof for a couple of years now. The HP, I love it to death. Before the HP I had a Dell lap-top which I ended up giving away. It was way too heavy and for some reason it was always slow.

I really believe that now days all computers, like TVs, are very much the same thing. You might be unlucky and get a lemmon but that'd be the exception and not the rule, atmo.

[texbike]

My first question is what do you want to do with it? Are you looking for a business-use PC or are you looking for more of a home use, multi-media capable model? As mentioned, what would you like to do with it?

That can have a huge impact on which way to go.

Also, another thing to keep in mind is that Wintel PCs are about to experience a significant change in their OS with the Microsoft Vista release this month. I believe the consumer version of the Vista OS is scheduled for January release.

With that said, any of the major manufacturers (HP, Dell, Lenovo) will have a good product. I use a Lenovo Thinkpad (T43) on a daily basis (typing on it now) for work and pleasure and absolutely love it. The Thinkpads have a number of built in features that help minimize the loss of data and reduce potential downtime without the need to call tech support. The battery life is outstanding and I can usually pick up wireless signals where friends with HPs and Dells cannot.

Cheers,

Mike

[tmanley]

I'll be using the laptop for mostly multi-media stuff, but I'm not a guy who'll be doing hard-core video or photo editing.

100% home use.

[catulle]

What is Vista..? Should I get it..? Thank you.

[dbrk]

I used to think that I didn't have a preference and since it's all corporate enterprise, it's not like you are rooting for the little guy or the one-off artisan. But I am, as all would suspect, an Apple guy: academic, more like the Apple guy than the PC guy in the recent commercials, never eager to support the biggest of the big guys, and besides they're about ten million times better. I use a PC when I have to but never because I'd want to. I currently feel the same way about Shimano: I have tons of it and prefer it for downtube shifting but have come to realize I like the Ergo hoods about the same amount as the Apple.

dbrk

[Grant McLean]

Get a Mac

You can run windoze on it if you're really crazy.

g

[gt6267a]

the look and feel of my t43 and powerbook are fantastic. clearly superior to any hp, dell, compaq, panasonic, toshiba... that i have tried. not that you'll be able to do so much more or less because of them, but if you care about the non technical astributes, i would look into these products.

[catulle]

I used to think that I didn't have a preference and since it's all corporate enterprise, it's not like you are rooting for the little guy or the one-off artisan. But I am, as all would suspect, an Apple guy: academic, more like the Apple guy than the PC guy in the recent commercials, never eager to support the biggest of the big guys, and besides they're about ten million times better. I use a PC when I have to but never because I'd want to. I currently feel the same way about Shimano: I have tons of it and prefer it for downtube shifting but have come to realize I like the Ergo hoods about the same amount as the Apple.

dbrk

My daughter just switched from a Viao to an Apple, and I'm amazed at the things she can do with her new computer. And virus free to boot. However, my brain's too lazy to deal with the new Explorer (7?) so you can imagine how it whines when I ask it to try to deal with a Mac system.

[big shanty]

Lenovo ThinkPad T Series. T43p is the best laptop ever.

[Ken Robb]

My wife has a newish Mac laptop and it's a fine piece of gear in every way but it won't work with my Realtor MLS system and some other esoteric software. Macs cost more than equivalent PCs. Apple Stores have walk-up help desks.

My last Laptop was an HP and it was clunky in comparison with a keyboard that was terrible. The hard drive was dying at 3 years so this year I gor a Toshiba A105-S4004. It is as nice a machine as the Mac and cost about 1/2 as much. It runs everything I need. CompUSA has a walk-up service similar to the Mac Store.

I hear good things about Dell but I wonder about customer service convenience if you buy one direct.

[rwsaunders]

Once on a Mac and you'll never go back. I've had Macs for 15 years or so, but I'd say only in the last 5 years have their laptops been designed to compete in the Windows world.

My current laptop is 3yo and my partners tried to bribe me with a new ThinkPad. While a nice machine, I gave it back after a month, as I'm used to the Mac format, which I think is simpler.

The new Macs run Windows very cleanly, so the corporate world is no longer an issue. If your looking for personal use only, perhaps the lower end Mac is in your future.

Hopefully there's a Mac store in your town, which makes things easier.

[swoop]

my macbook is a kind of happiness. at least until it breaks again.

[texbike]

Along with the Thinkpad T43, I also own an Apple iBook that I purchased new at the beginning of 2005. Neat looking machine. However, I can't stand it.

It may be that I'm accustomed to Wintel machines, but I find that it takes me twice as long to accomplish something on the iBook as it does the Thinkpad.

After buying an iPod, I was pumped up about the iBook and was sold on how intuitive to use they were rumored to be. It just didn't work out as well as I thought it would. After a year of frustration, I bought another Thinkpad (the t43) and haven't looked back. The iBook now sits in my desk and hasn't been used in close to a year.

Apple has a ton of RAVING fans, but I can honestly say that the iBook was the most disappointing and frustrating technology product that I've ever purchased. I should have spent the money on another bike to take up more room in the garage! :rolleyes:

Texbike

[SoCalSteve]

Dell makes a very high end gaming line called the XPS.

I am sure you will not ever need most of its capabilities...

That being said, it an incredible, stable machine and you will be happy with it for many years to come.

I own 2 of them. Laptop and desktop. Both incredibly fast, stylish and stable.

Good luck,

Steve

PS: Dell has an online outlet store that usually has some pretty smokin deals on refurbished computers. They come with the same warranty of a new one.

[gt6267a]

texbike,

i bought a powerbook about 2 years ago. at first, i found that using the mac was really annoying. my brain was mapped to all things windows and unix(from work). i spent half my time looking for the control panel and the other half with a terminal open running commands. it was a mess.

finally, i actually tried to ue the mac for real. i looked up the hot keys and memorized a bunch. then i installed ms office. it happened so fast, i had trouble understanding that it was installed. it took me about 5min to open an app and realize it was not going to ask me to click next. after that it was all down hill.

i didn't realize how microsoft focused my computer interfacing was until i did it somewhere else, on the mac. it is amazing how well trained the mind gets. on a winblows machine you really think, hmmm, i am using a windows machine. i want to do xyz, how might i do that in a way that blows. then you do that and it works. it does not take long before you think this way. once you have mind-blow-thinking down, the pc is pretty easy to use.

to retrain one self to think, hey what is a logical and intuitive way to do this, try and it work. is so non-logical for a winblows user that the mac is actually hard to use. if you take enough time to retrain yourself, the mac is a wonderful toy.

regards,
keith

[Grant McLean]

Along with the Thinkpad T43, I also own an Apple iBook that I purchased new at the beginning of 2005. Neat looking machine. However, I can't stand it.

It may be that I'm accustomed to Wintel machines, but I find that it takes me twice as long to accomplish something on the iBook as it does the Thinkpad.

After buying an iPod, I was pumped up about the iBook and was sold on how intuitive to use they were rumored to be. It just didn't work out as well as I thought it would. After a year of frustration, I bought another Thinkpad (the t43) and haven't looked back. The iBook now sits in my desk and hasn't been used in close to a year.

Apple has a ton of RAVING fans, but I can honestly say that the iBook was the most disappointing and frustrating technology product that I've ever purchased. I should have spent the money on another bike to take up more room in the garage! :rolleyes:

Texbike

The original thread was about what computer would be best for "100% home
use" for media. I think whatever frustration someone might have switching
from PC to Mac in this case is very minimal. I can't for the life of me understand
what PC does better than Mac for the home. I read about "frustration" switching
all the time, but people never explain what they mean.

g

[texbike]

Grant and Keith,

You both bring up valid points. My goal was to use the iBook as a business PC, but found that I wasn't efficient enough in its use for me to continue using it. The reality is (as Keith points out) that I should have invested the time to learn how best to utilize the strengths of the Mac. As it was, my expectation was to jump in and immediately see an improvement in my daily productivity by using the Mac. The machine should have bent to MY needs and demands like machines are supposed to do (right?)! ;)

As Grant points out, for a 100%, home-use machine where one has the luxury of learning new commands, etc. at their own pace, moving to a MAC shouldn't be an issue. The MAC OS has a number of distinct advantages that led me down the path to a MAC purchase in the first place. I just wasn't sharp or patient enough to learn a new machine.

T, good luck in whatever you choose. There are a lot of good machines out there. However, I still love my Lenovo Thinkpad and would choose it again! :)

Cheers,

Texbike

[Ray]

On Mac vs PC, I've used both and both work just frickin' fine. In the bad old days, Apple was, as Douglas says, about a zillion times better. Today, maybe 1.1 or 1.2 times better. Not enough difference to sway a decision if you work in one environment or the other or need to use a particular app. Go with whichever one floats your boat and be happy.

In the PC world, I've owned Dell, Gateway, and HP. I'll never own another Dell. They may build some good machines, but the tech support hassles I had with the desktop machine I used to have were truly epic. Had to send back a defective machine, they didn't have the same level machine to replace it with, they wouldn't replace it with something newer, I was without a computer for MONTHS while they built up a refurbished unit. Horrible horrible horrible beaurocracy and terrible service. I don't care how much better they may be now - I'll never go near 'em again. Gateway was fine. My HP tablet laptop has been wonderful, but I bought a business machine so it should be built to last and seems to be dealing with all of the abuse I can throw at it quite well. I bought another HP laptop for my daughter to take to college and she hadn't killed it yet, so figure that's a solid recommendation.

-Ray

[CarbonTi]

i didn't realize how microsoft focused my computer interfacing was until i did it somewhere else, on the mac. it is amazing how well trained the mind gets. on a winblows machine you really think, hmmm, i am using a windows machine. i want to do xyz, how might i do that in a way that blows. then you do that and it works. it does not take long before you think this way. once you have mind-blow-thinking down, the pc is pretty easy to use.

to retrain one self to think, hey what is a logical and intuitive way to do this, try and it work. is so non-logical for a winblows user that the mac is actually hard to use. if you take enough time to retrain yourself, the mac is a wonderful toy.

I agree with the forumites that are encouraging the OP to switch to an Apple Mac as a home based desktop replacement. If you are not bound to using the computer to augment Corporate America-based work tasks then that frees you from the associated MSFT thrall. Get as far away from the MSFT business model and practices as fast as you can. (BTW Vista will drive another hardware upgrade cycle, software bloat, DRM, etc.)

I use Sun/Solaris at work and Linux at home. No computer environment is perfect but I'm glad Windows isn't a part of what I need to interact with daily. Derision like calling the OS Windblows always brings a chuckle not just because I agree but for some, no one raises the bile more than BG, SB and the wrecking crew at Redmond.

There is more to computers than MSFT and if you cross the threshold to another way of using a computer you will never look back. Good luck.

[texbike]

Here is a link for the Luddites who would dare consider a new, non-MAC OS computer:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/expressupgrade.mspx

And yes, CarbonTi is right, Vista is expected to drive a huge amount of spending on hardware, software, peripherals, etc. IDC is estimating that 90 million consumer PCs will ship with Vista in 2007. The same analyst is also estimating that for every $1 Vista generates for Microsoft, it will generate an additional $12 or more for the global economy.

What the heck, with a cooling housing market, increasing household debt, increasing fuel prices, a weakening US dollar, and disappointing retail numbers, the economy could use another bump. So support the US economy and buy a Vista-equipped PC! :)

Cheers,

Texbike