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September 19, 2007
Reasons to get a new laptop
11:58 PM | nothing
rants
- Toshiba tablet arrived in my hands on Sep. 13, 2004. That makes it just over three years old, which in computing years — especially portable computers — is pretty damn old.
- In that period of time, it has gone to the shop at least twice, for motherboard and keyboard issues respectively.
- Hard specs: 1.60GHz processor, 512 MB of RAM. GeForce FX Go 6200 graphics card is probably its best asset.
- Fan is starting to make some weird ass noises and I’ve taken to running it with the “cooling system” on the lowest setting, so I don’t have to listen to it chug… (disrespectful to have a noisy computer in a lecture, too).
- My screensaver is shot and showing symptoms of the fried-motherboard problem.
- Presenting on this laptop is not very comfortable, because of a hardware issue where the display comes out tinted yellow… so that’s very unattractive. And it’s probably going to become increasingly important that I be able to present from my own computer here on out.
- The need to run programs that require more powerful processors is becoming rather pointed… we were in class the other day doing Processing exercises, and you could see a huge framerate difference when comparing my computer to the people next to me, who both have laptops they bought two months ago. I know I have my desktop for running more processor intensive things, but again… it’s increasingly important that my portable computer be where I do most of my work.
Reasons not to get a new laptop
- I don’t know what to get.
- A laptop to MY specifications would probably cost anywhere from $1500 to $2200, which is really, really, REALLY depressing in terms of omg-grad-school-so-expensive-ahh.
you know, i’m thinking about getting a new laptop lately too (my last laptop is the powerbook G4… let’s not talk about it). i’m a little surprised that a laptop to your specs would cost $1500~2200? you know that you can get a core 2 duo laptop for much lower than that nowadays?
you are a media person, so maybe you need a laptop more powerful than i do. for me, i’ve been looking at the dell vostro (yeah i know dell laptops aren’t known to be good) but realize this — vostro 1400/1500 is $549 base, that’s a core 2 duo 2.2ghz 4mb cache (!) cpu laptop. that’s one of the best there is. (with the core 2 duos, when you hit 4mb cache already, higher ghz isn’t huge improvements)
posted by bigi at 1:21 AM, 09/20/07
Uh. Holy crap. I did not see those. That’s what I get for not clicking on “Small & Medium Business”.
It’s a little bigger than I like… I’m very used to my 12” tablet and I love how small and lightweight it is, but 14” isn’t too terrible…
… Better do some more research to find the catch. O_o
posted by Kass at 2:10 AM, 09/20/07
When did you start deleting comments left and right? :/
posted by Alex at 2:37 PM, 09/20/07
When they became a waste of time to read.
Although I do somewhat regret deleting Lloyd’s post, since it was actually on topic, but I was intensely angry at getting tired Mac rhetoric where I thought it would be obviously unwelcome.
posted by Kass at 3:03 PM, 09/20/07
That was not rhetoric. That was an actual suggestion. And I posed three facts, not arguments:
(1) That Windows has been shown to run faster on a MacBook Pro than on virtually any PC laptop;
(2) The MacBook Pro would cost more than the Dell Vostro;
(3) You’d get 2 computers in one, with the MBP: A Mac OS X machine, and a Windows machine.
The only thing close to ‘rhetoric’ that was in that post was the suggestion that the Vostro would look/feel clunkier and be heavier than the MBP (the latter is in fact, a fact).
posted by Lloyd at 6:52 PM, 09/20/07
1. That cannot possibly be true if you purchase a PC laptop that has a faster processor and more RAM than the MBP.
3. I have no desire to use a Mac OS X machine. Why should I pay an extra $1k to use half of a machine?
4. Every single Dell configuration I have created — not just Vostros — give me faster configurations than any MacBook and MacBook Pro configs, for the same or lesser price. And yes, I have been playing with Mac configs.
5. I do not buy a laptop for it to look good. I need it to work well.
This decision on whether to buy a new laptop has been extremely agonizing to me, because I have actually seriously considered purchasing a Macbook/MBP. But do you know why that is? IT’S TO GET YOU GUYS TO LEAVE ME ALONE. Which is the absolute wrong reason to buy anything.
I did not react well to your previous insinuations that I am an idiot for not buying a 2-in-1 computer. This is only an echo of the same.
posted by Kass at 9:10 PM, 09/20/07