which laptop?

[RyanNicholson]

Visit techbargains.com, keep an eye on the Dell specials, buy whatever you want. Opinions on computers are like assholes. Everyone has one and most of them are full of shit.

haha +1

for the record I don't really have anything against macs, I think apple is an awesome company. That said I use a PC both at the office and at home for my design stuff.

[DucDave]

I have to agree with Ryan. Security by obscurity is the mac way. osX gets boring really quick no matter how 'simple' to use. Simplicity comes at a price and it really shows its weakness in some of its higher end apps.

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning.

or

Design a system that is idiot proof and only and idiot will use it....

[-jro-]

I have a dell and it blows....its gone through 2 screens and 2 hard drives. If you end up going Dell, make sure you get the extended warranty with it and you'll be fine.

[obsolete]

Your daughter is in college, you better get her the Mac. You don't want her to hate you when you get her a Dell and she tells you you're trying to make her a loser. Mac = much trendier.

[obsolete]

I have a dell and it blows....its gone through 2 screens and 2 hard drives. If you end up going Dell, make sure you get the extended warranty with it and you'll be fine.

I have a Dell and it's been great. I've had it for 3 years and no problems.

[TheIglu]

I have a Dell and it's been great. I've had it for 3 years and no problems.

I have in my basement over 30 Dell C610's from 2003 that were high school student machines for 4 years. Kids are the hardest on machines of anyone. Most of them are on their original drive and screen.



ALL laptops will last a long, long time if taken care of. Behind a Toughbook ($$$$$$), Lenovo Thinkpads are the best built. Just too much money.

Treat it right and a Dell (or any machine for that matter) will last you.

Warranties are useless unless you plan on really travel a lot with it. Spend 1/4 of the money for a warranty on a good case and USE IT and call it a day.

[kermita]

...hey folks!!...i know that most of you guys are computer literate....(im not)....i have a daughter that needs a laptop (soon)shes in her last year at college.....we are hoping to help her with this purchase...can you make any reccomendations?...thanks in advance!!!

Call the user support department of the college and see if they have any recommendations. My husband works in the computer services department at a college and they do a deal with a local company that sells laptops and supports them for the students. Perhaps her school has a similar program. They will also know which manufacturers support their students the best. Support is a HUGE issue as you don't want to be without your laptop for a long period of time.

[kbroderick]

...dont bother trying to get a Garmin GPS to work with it...

fuckin' macs

Hang on, let me finish download the tracklog from my eTrex before I respond to that...


So what's the issue, again?

[kbroderick]

I have to agree with Ryan. Security by obscurity is the mac way. osX gets boring really quick no matter how 'simple' to use. Simplicity comes at a price and it really shows its weakness in some of its higher end apps.

I'd argue that the OS should be boring. I want my computer to do stuff with, not to spend time figuring out how to make it work. If you want to use a bike analogy, I expect the clutch, brake lever, and other controls to perform the same function every time I get on the bike. That doesn't make riding boring.

And what weakness in the higher-end apps? At both of my last two jobs, I've had a PC and a Mac on my desk. Aside from a period of time when I was using an outdated Mac that I had paid for myself and a new desktop my employer had paid for, the Mac has been my preferred machine (and most of the time, even when I had the old Mac versus the new PC, I preferred using the Mac).

[kbroderick]

Call the user support department of the college and see if they have any recommendations. My husband works in the computer services department at a college and they do a deal with a local company that sells laptops and supports them for the students. Perhaps her school has a similar program. They will also know which manufacturers support their students the best. Support is a HUGE issue as you don't want to be without your laptop for a long period of time.

This is probably the best advice in the thread. I've used non-supported platforms in educational environments before (particularly in college), and I was on my own for a lot of figuring stuff out. A better IT Department will be comfortable with a heterogenous network, but smaller institutions may not have the breadth of knowledge or the time and equipment to figure things out. If you don't personally have the aptitude or inclination to deal with issues like figuring out how to provide credentials on a per-application to the MS Proxy Server client, you probably want to have the same platform everyone else is using.

In a mixed environment, or where a Mac is an option, I'd still recommend a Mac (as I do for our students). On the PC side, I've had lousy experiences with sub-$800 laptops and much better experiences with most of the over-$1000 laptops; although my sample size isn't as big as TheIglu's, I'd still aim for a $1000-ish base price and got for at least a 3-year warrantee. Lenovo has some nice Centrino 2-based platforms out now at pretty good pricepoints. Don't forget an external drive of some sort, too...even mostly-reliable computers fail sometimes, and it's a lot less painful if you have a backup copy of your data.

[DucDave]

Hang on, let me finish download the tracklog from my eTrex before I respond to that...


So what's the issue, again?

I could be wrong....

but, that's not what I meant. What I meant was using MapSource software to create routes and then upload them to a ZUMO or whatever...

...can you do that? Or, if I sent you a .gbd file could you upload that to a Garmin from a MAC. Seriously, I have a friend who thinks he's gonna buy a cheap PC just so he can get the full functionality of his Garmin.

[kermita]

I could be wrong....

but, that's not what I meant. What I meant was using MapSource software to create routes and then upload them to a ZUMO or whatever...

...can you do that? Or, if I sent you a .gbd file could you upload that to a Garmin from a MAC. Seriously, I have a friend who thinks he's gonna buy a cheap PC just so he can get the full functionality of his Garmin.

You should be able to do that with Parallel installed on the mac. I love Parallel. I only use it for a couple programs that I prefer in PC mode (quicken for one) rather than Mac. I don't get the people that purchase a Mac and then used it in Parallel mode more often than Mac.

[kermita]

Don't forget an external drive of some sort, too...even mostly-reliable computers fail sometimes, and it's a lot less painful if you have a backup copy of your data.

+100000000000....

If even a machine is used for "fun" purposes only...think of the photos and music you'd lose if you didn't have a backup. That would suck BIGTIME. It usually takes losing some important items to get you to backup on a regular basis. Been there....

[kbroderick]

I could be wrong....

but, that's not what I meant. What I meant was using MapSource software to create routes and then upload them to a ZUMO or whatever...

...can you do that? Or, if I sent you a .gbd file could you upload that to a Garmin from a MAC. Seriously, I have a friend who thinks he's gonna buy a cheap PC just so he can get the full functionality of his Garmin.

I don't have one to try, but does Bobcat (or one of the other Mac utilities at Garmin | Mac OS X - Current Software, news and more) handle that?

If he's willing to futz with it a bit more, gpsbabel seems to support GDB files and runs fine on the Mac.

And as another poster noted, if you can't get any Mac OS X software to work, it probably makes more sense to run Windows on your Mac via Parallels (which I have, and am not a big fan of) or via VMWare Fusion (which I don't have and may buy if I find myself needing to run Windows stuff on my mac with any regularity in the future) rather than buying a cheap PC just to run Mapsource.

[nefarious]

I'd argue that the OS should be boring. I want my computer to do stuff with, not to spend time figuring out how to make it work. If you want to use a bike analogy, I expect the clutch, brake lever, and other controls to perform the same function every time I get on the bike. That doesn't make riding boring.

And what weakness in the higher-end apps? At both of my last two jobs, I've had a PC and a Mac on my desk. Aside from a period of time when I was using an outdated Mac that I had paid for myself and a new desktop my employer had paid for, the Mac has been my preferred machine (and most of the time, even when I had the old Mac versus the new PC, I preferred using the Mac).

I own a top shelf MBP and have been mac and pc my whole computing career. There are a few major weakness between FC Studio and other video editing suites, nothing that an avg college student may care about. Macs are not about computing they are about a way of life, and if people choose that lifestyle cool, but no anal for me thanks!

And lets not forget the limited configurations of mac hardware which make it 1000x easier to get repeated stability out of the OS but at the same time restricts one choice of components.

[kbroderick]

I own a top shelf MBP and have been mac and pc my whole computing career. There are a few major weakness between FC Studio and other video editing suites, nothing that an avg college student may care about.

Aren't the other video-editing suites multi-platform, though? I thought Avid and Premiere were the only other games in town (I could be very wrong, but I'm curious...we are looking at expanding our ability to support students with video editing classes, and I'd like to make sure we have the right software packages available).

And lets not forget the limited configurations of mac hardware which make it 1000x easier to get repeated stability out of the OS but at the same time restricts one choice of components.

Aside from the damn lack of a right-click button on the MB and MBP, I kinda like the simplified hardware configurations...it's a heck of a lot easier for me to spec and price an Apple than a Dell.

I will agree that the lack of a competitor for the $600 business desktop is annoying (i.e. something with the expandability of a Mac Pro but in a lower price bracket).

[Hauptman]

Last I checked the guy just wanted a laptop for his daughter at school...the mac is the best choice for that app. If you want high end graphics/video editing then you buy beastly quad core desktops cough cough still macs