First Laptop

bigstar

em hello people,

hoping to buy a laptop but finding it hard to make up my mind
i want it for college work, the home pc is getting a bit slow and is a few years old. willing to spend about a grand and want as current a spec as posibble, at least 2gigs ram 250 hdd and 2ghz processor. dunno about warrantys, there quite expensive for the possibility of something going wrong.

im also thinking of getting a macbook, just the price is a bit off putting, and the spec isnt as good as the latest pcs. i would like to try the apple operating system though. i know theres no use in asking are macs better than pcs but everyone i know who uses a mac swears by them and everyone who uses windows swears at it. so any insights are welcome on that.

anyway just wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction, i want it to last me three years so thats my main concern.
thanks a lot

Alanstrainor

Read this first and post back with more Info. Thanks.
How to get help on this forum.

Col_Loki

Have a look on these sites, see what you fancy the look of & what spec you can get for the money....then maybe come back with a couple you like and we can help you get a better picture.

Try....

www.pixmania.com
www.elara.ie
www.komplett.ie


They Should have a good range of laptops, see what you like. And you should be able to get that spec for ~€600-800 depending on what model you pick.

bigstar

some more info. a small enough lap would be ideal 13 -15 inches, and th e main uses will be word processing for college stuff, using the net, storing music, i wanna try and store my whole music collection digitally, thats about a 1000 albums and more in the future, probably start storing photos etc, gaming isnt a big deal not much into games. on external storage drives, theyre easy to set up right? at the minute im leaning towards a macbook, they seem very user friendly and more reliable than windows, also there is so much choice on pcs and all with varying prices for similar specs, dell and acer seem the most competitive priced but does that say anything about the quality. my mother has an acer, never been impressed with it. the front runners are the black macbook, samsung r510,sonyvaio cr42s/w, let me know what you think, thanks again

Alanstrainor

Big question. Budget?

bigstar

i have that in the first post, im willing to spend around 1000, the macs are slightly more, best priced mac i found was 1170. thats the only thing putting me off them, i might want a couple of weeks to see if the new macs come out and the current ones go down in price,is it just the badge your paying for

Alanstrainor

Sorry,didn't see that in the first post. Well here's the thing, you really dont need to spend that much if your priorities are word processing and storing music/pictures ect. You could probably spend a little over half that and get a machine that would more than cover your needs, that would be a PC by the way. Like the Dell studio line of laptops, or various samsung/toshiba laptops in the €600 mark. For that price you should be getting at core 2 duo, or at least a fast core duo, at least 2Gb of RAM and around the 160/250Gb Harddrive which would more than suffice.
Just had a quick look at Dell.ie and the 15" studios look to be well spec'd for the cashDell Studio

bigstar

thanks man those dells look nice and powerful, im gonna wait and see if the macs go down in price if new models come out, the only reason im stalling on a mac is the expense, id like to try the OS not a fan of vista really, thanks for your time

4zn76tysfajdxp

I doubt Macs will go down in price for a while, but you're clearly longing for a Mac so I say you should just go for it.

murphym7

I just ordered a Dell Laptop yesterday. 3MB RAM, 250GB HD space, standard type graphics & sound cards (don't know much about them anyway). Its got the Pentium duo processor which appently is good (don't really know).€600 ish.

All I can advise you on really is my previous experience. I have just come to the end of the road with a HP Pavillion, almost 5 years old. This thing was brilliant and it never let me down, I had to throw in some more RAM a couple of years ago (orig came with 256mb!!).

I bought it for college too, Word processing, web reasearch, Excel & powerpoint stuff.

All the rest of family have and always had Apples (brother works there). I never liked the look of the OS. Its OS X on all their laptops now and unless you are into serious Picture & movie edditing, graphic design, loads of music etc etc I would stay clear. If you are used to Windows operating systems it will probably only frustrate you.

I have to say though I am nervous about moving to Vista. i have only heard bad things about it. I find XP brilliant.

Anyway best of luck choosing.

gamer

no point in waiting,apple laptops are always 50percent more expensive pc laptops, get 2.oghz dual core laptop ,2gig ram,get tv out,4usb,600euro approx.IF you r in a hurry go to dell.ie ,or pcworld /currys.Vista is great ,much easier to use than xp, better security than xp,runs fine on dual core with 2gig ram.And theres loadsa free software like vlc,avaidable for windows /vista .
Download sp1 as soon as possible,backup all drivers with drivermax,backup the registry,theres a program that,does this ,cant remember its name at the moment.waiting for apple macs to drop in price,is like waiting for snow in june,its unlikely.if going for dell ,tick the option for restore cdroms,its its avaidable.

bigstar

i came on here to get help making up my mind you people just confuse me more argh, just joking. thanks for the input, im still gonna wait to see what happens with the macs, one poster said i was longing for a mac, hes right, theyre just so shiny and luring. but really i wanna try the os x plus if i really want i can boot windows too, tbh if they were a little less expensive i would of got one ages ago, but those dells are really excellent value for money. thank you one and all.