Author Topic: LapTop Suggestions??  (Read 858 times)

Offline redman555

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LapTop Suggestions??
« on: July 06, 2009, 10:24:09 PM »
Well, started college.  I need a laptop that will last me atleast 4 years, can play afew games, not many though, and are pretty fast.  Needs a good amount of memory.  Anyone have some suggestions?  I kinda wanna find one WITHOUT vista..... considering how many issues its had.  I have a fairly large price range, prolly anywhere up to 1200-1500


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« Last Edit: July 06, 2009, 10:25:50 PM by redman555 »
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Offline Selino631

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Re: LapTop Suggestions??
« Reply #1 on: July 07, 2009, 12:41:47 AM »
If i were u i would buy a Laptop from Costco, they have a amazing return policy. You can bring stuff back to them even if its been used and over 6 months old! and get cash back! They also have alot of specials too


http://www.costco.com/Common/Category.aspx?ec=BC-EC5-Cat84&pos=1&whse=BC&topnav=&cat=56670&eCat=BC|84|56670&lang=en-US
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Offline MrRiplEy[H]

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Re: LapTop Suggestions??
« Reply #2 on: July 07, 2009, 02:24:45 AM »
If you need a laptop for school and perhaps hobby (pictures, music etc.) a macbook pro is an excellent choice. It runs OSX instead of Vista ;)

It comes with fairly handy built in applications that handle photo retouching, composing etc. Everything works plug&play where in Vista you need to hunt and download drivers and third party apps to do simple things.

Basically it's only downside is it doesn't play windows games.
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Offline RTHolmes

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Re: LapTop Suggestions??
« Reply #3 on: July 07, 2009, 04:07:26 AM »
If you need a laptop for school and perhaps hobby (pictures, music etc.) a macbook pro is an excellent choice. It runs OSX instead of Vista ;)

It comes with fairly handy built in applications that handle photo retouching, composing etc. Everything works plug&play where in Vista you need to hunt and download drivers and third party apps to do simple things.

Basically it's only downside is it doesn't play windows games.

with the education discount you should get a 15" macbook pro for ~$1500, only with onboard 9400M gpu though :( the mid 15" has a 9600M GT which would probably run AH ok.

plays windows games just fine :aok (use boot camp and an old copy of XP)
« Last Edit: July 07, 2009, 04:09:13 AM by RTHolmes »
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Offline MrRiplEy[H]

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Re: LapTop Suggestions??
« Reply #4 on: July 07, 2009, 07:15:27 AM »
I used to be an avid MS supporter and I thought Mac users were some kind of a joke.

I knew they were used in photoediting and composing by professionals though. Then came the day when through work I had to get a macbook pro. Stress have to - it was the last thing I wanted to do really. I was totally pissed off because it meant relearning everything.

After a transition period I grew to like certain things about it. How fast it starts (1 sec from hibernation) how hardware works plug and play in a snap, how it has iLife built in (some say iLife is a joke but it beats paying 1000 bucks for pro software if all you do is tinkle around on freetime).

All things added I've grown to like this laptop a lot. It still has a few things that really irritate but overall I'm thinking this is not the last mac I'm going to get. I never thought I'd say this in public but there I just did.
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Offline Apeotomy

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Re: LapTop Suggestions??
« Reply #5 on: July 07, 2009, 09:45:04 AM »
Well, started college.  I need a laptop that will last me atleast 4 years, can play afew games, not many though, and are pretty fast.  Needs a good amount of memory.  Anyone have some suggestions?  I kinda wanna find one WITHOUT vista..... considering how many issues its had.  I have a fairly large price range, prolly anywhere up to 1200-1500


-BigBOBCH

You most likely will not find one without vista on it. Vista is not the devil, don't make it seem like it is if you are acting on hearsay. You could contacts your school and for a fee they may be able to provide you a copy for your machine. For 1300 you have a very wide selection of machines if you go on many website such as newegg.com or tiger direct.

Offline Spikes

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Re: LapTop Suggestions??
« Reply #6 on: July 07, 2009, 10:06:12 AM »
BigBob...I once hated Vista and vowed to myself that I'd never get it. My mom ended up getting a Vista Basic desktop, it was okay and I still didn't like Vista. My new laptop (Studio 15) has Vista Premium on it and I've not had any problems with it. Vista is fine now, most kinks are worked out. For 1200 you can easily get a Dell Studio 15, 17 with a helluva lotta upgrades. In this I got Vista Premium, Core 2 Duo 2.2Ghz, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, 256MB Radeon, Backlit keyboard (which I love, btw), all for about $900. For 1200+ you can get a better Vid card, processor, maybe even bigger HDD.
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Offline Shuffler

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Re: LapTop Suggestions??
« Reply #7 on: July 07, 2009, 11:07:42 AM »
Mac is ok but I am still mac intolerant. I'm not a MS fan but most folks are used to windows. Last thing someone going into college needs is having to learn their computer along with class loads.

For the money go ahead and get a vista machine. Once you turn off all the garbage it will be fine for school work and gaming. You should be more interested in battery life. If you see yourself using the machine outside on a bench or under the trees alot then you need more battery life. If you will use it plugged in most of the time then this is not such an issue. You will want built in WIFI also to access the schools system while away from hardwired areas.

In any case good luck with your choice and good luck with your schooling!
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Offline Hoarach

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Re: LapTop Suggestions??
« Reply #8 on: July 07, 2009, 12:42:40 PM »
Do what I did...go to cyberpowerpc.com

All their laptops are gaming laptops and can be purchased for under $1000.  I have mine and it plays CoD fine and AH with graphics and high res easily.  While they dont produce mine anymore, I had gotten a AMD dual core, 2GB RAM, 160GB HD, and a nvidia 7600 for $760.  A lot of their upgrades can be done for $10-$15 such as 4GB of RAM or 320GB HD.

Cyberpower still offers their machines with XP last I knew but honestly, when you go to school the bookstore will have software extremely cheap.  To upgrade to Windows 7 shouldnt cost much at the store which is what Im waiting for.  Im waiting to go back to school to get my copy.

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Offline Skuzzy

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Re: LapTop Suggestions??
« Reply #9 on: July 07, 2009, 01:35:24 PM »
Laptop suggestions?

Boat anchor
Paper weight
Door stop
Sandwich press
Frisbee
Night light
Roadside Emergency light
Slide under tires to escape from mud/snow/ice
Obstacle to hide your paper airplane making
"Go fetch" with the dog

Need more? :)
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Offline APDrone

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Re: LapTop Suggestions??
« Reply #10 on: July 07, 2009, 01:35:49 PM »
If you need a laptop for school and perhaps hobby (pictures, music etc.) a macbook pro is an excellent choice. It runs OSX instead of Vista ;)

It comes with fairly handy built in applications that handle photo retouching, composing etc. Everything works plug&play where in Vista you need to hunt and download drivers and third party apps to do simple things.

Basically it's only downside is it doesn't play windows games.
+1  .. except if you go dual-boot with windows XP you can play games..

I used to be an avid MS supporter and I thought Mac users were some kind of a joke.

I knew they were used in photoediting and composing by professionals though. Then came the day when through work I had to get a macbook pro. Stress have to - it was the last thing I wanted to do really. I was totally pissed off because it meant relearning everything.

After a transition period I grew to like certain things about it. How fast it starts (1 sec from hibernation) how hardware works plug and play in a snap, how it has iLife built in (some say iLife is a joke but it beats paying 1000 bucks for pro software if all you do is tinkle around on freetime).

All things added I've grown to like this laptop a lot. It still has a few things that really irritate but overall I'm thinking this is not the last mac I'm going to get. I never thought I'd say this in public but there I just did.

+1

I converted over to MacBook Pro last fall and I've gotten hooked.  The thing runs awefully cooler than either of the two Gateway laptops I had before.

Another thing.. the battery life is WAY beyond the other laptops I had.  I get 4 hours out of mine.  The last gateway had a 17" screen, but the darn thing was a bit clunky to lug around.  I dropped back to a 15" MacBook Pro with no regrets.  

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Offline Motherland

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Re: LapTop Suggestions??
« Reply #11 on: July 07, 2009, 02:45:31 PM »
I have only really used two Apple OS's, both with school computers...

When I started elementary school our computer lab had some kind of computers... I know they were made by Apple I can't remember what the OS was called. We had these from the time I started kindergarten in '99  (and they were not new at the time) until I was in third grade or so when the school district started to upgrade to HP machines with XP. I can't really comment on it too much because it was so long ago and I don't really have much experience with the contemporary Windows OS (which I would assume would be 95 because it certainly was not up to the same standard as 98).


In the past couple of years my school district has been renovating all of the schools, and as well we've been getting funding from Pennsylvania's Classroom of the Future program we've been getting lots of fun electronic toys. This includes computers and projectors in every classroom and (with XP of course), for the Art and English departments, Macs.

In middle school we only got to use a desktop in the Art room with OSX (as far as Macs go at least, we of course had HP's all over the place). I should say, the second year we got to use it, because the first year it sat and collected dust because it never worked. Apparently the second year it was there it was trouble free, though. It was used for Photoshop and Safari so considering they probably spent twice as much on it as on the HP's and it couldn't do anything special it was totally worth it, because you HAVE to get a Mac if you're doing anything artisitic, because Macs are better at that for some reason.

At the high school every English classroom gets 30 or so Macbooks. I have to keep in mind that this was the first year we had them but.... well...
 I don't really like laptops in the first place so that wasn't exactly a great experience. Usually about 5 or so of the Macs would be missing from each classroom because they refused to work for whatever reason and they had to be sent somewhere or someone called in because no one knew how to fix them. As far as my personal experience with the interface goes, as someone who's pretty much only used Windows machines, I found it totally bass-ackwards and generally retarded. On top of that, the things performed miserably... near the end of the year I was playing a flash game on it for about a half an hour with it on the desk, and when I took it off and put it on my lap it was HOT... and then it froze as I tried to log off.The only thing I really liked was the touchpad which was better that any that I've used before. All in all it was a worse experience than using my sister's miserably bloated two year old $600-ish Acer laptop with Vista (which I put W7 on and now works pretty well, I dual boot Windows 7 on this machine now and I have to say I like it a lot).

In comparison to the miserable failures that the Macbooks were, all of our HP's are up almost all the time (I say almost because even though I've never had a 'don't use that computer, it doesn't work' personally I'm sure it's happened a few times throughout the year), and if anyone has a problem XP is so familiar to everyone it's a pretty easy to get someone to fix it (like another student/teacher, not sending the thing to admin like the Macbooks :lol )

Personally with my, probably biased experience with Macs I would never buy one, mainly because I play games.
« Last Edit: July 07, 2009, 02:47:44 PM by Motherland »

Offline redman555

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Re: LapTop Suggestions??
« Reply #12 on: July 07, 2009, 03:49:56 PM »
The main issue i have with vista, it seems like everything you download has to download a different version because of it, just seems like its more of a pain then helpful lol


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Offline Shuffler

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Re: LapTop Suggestions??
« Reply #13 on: July 07, 2009, 04:16:31 PM »
Years a go macs were better at graphics and video... but not any more.
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Offline Skuzzy

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Re: LapTop Suggestions??
« Reply #14 on: July 07, 2009, 04:24:43 PM »
I beg to differ on that point Shuffler.  It was and still is true for the desktops, for the most part.  Laptops, however, are another ball game.  Vista has all but crippled laptops and made them useless for any power type applications. 

Current Mac laptops will run circles around the current Vista based laptops.

Me, I will never own a Mac anything.  I will also never own a laptop of any kind.
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