notebook for uni (1 Viewer)

[McLake]

Get a Mac if you have the cash ...
(Save up for a Mac if you don't)

 

[neuro_logik]

Get a Mac if you have the cash ...
(Save up for a Mac if you don't)

I concur, get a mac. You know you want to

 

[jayz]

i thought the TPG Widescreen notebook was a good buy

it has a good screen, but can't say alot about the weight, graphics card and battery life.

for a budget of 13hundred, honestly there isn't too many new notebooks on offer. however i was lucky enough to come across, i guess a 'stolen' good from newspaper ad, $1400 for a $3500 retail product, but because it was 2nd hand with no warranty...plus, supporting criminals isn't a good thing , it all turned out to be just another story.

few important factors you shud consider when getn a notebook,

weight-porportional to the size of the screen
heat exhaustion-i suggest using the product b4 hand
screen-brightness (especially under the sun)
keyboard-(ibm win hands down)
wifi-a/b/g
and the usual performance factors (dothan chip, 5400rpm...)

http://www.notebookreview.com

 

[pirate]

ill be working in the summer holidays so hopefully afford a better one.
but a simple comp is sufficient.
QUOTE]

Yeah in relation to the whole working thing, i worked last summer holidays, only about 5 weeks, during the yr11-12 break which earnt my $7000, which easily provided me with my new laptop. But remember, don't buy a laptop unless u really have too. i found the $1800 i spent on mine, isn't sufficient at the moment. thats why at the end of the year, i'm working again, this time for about 8 weeks, earning close to $10000 and then spending building my own computer for aobut $2000, which will have everything i need plus a hell of alot more for about the same price as the laptop. just a helpful hint, cheers.
over and out rubber ducky

 

[neuro_logik]

you cant go war driving (www.wardriving.com) with a desktop

 

[anti]

Note that laptops depreciate very fast because it's hard to upgrade them..

 

[jayz]

Note that laptops depreciate very fast because it's hard to upgrade them..

also note, as a result of personal experience/annoyance, the price of notebooks don't generally fall (ie. market price), however the specs generally rise in performance, thus the value of YOUR notebook is really dependant on YOUR satisfaction.

btw, laptops can be easy to upgrade, it all depends on what you want to make the upgrade upon, i.e. HD, ram, external devices, PC cards etc

 

[r0wlzii]

Just get Centrino thats all I ask. Battery lasts longer, lighter and thinner, dont get as hot and have inbuilt wireless so you can connect to the uni network from anywhere around the premisess. If you live near it then free internet.

 

[klh]

ive read alot abt apples recently and they dont have v. long battery life abt 3.5 hrs.
how abt centrino?

also, ive seen most centrinos with widescreen, but i just want a compact one so its easier to bring around

 

[jm1234567890]

compact ones are really expensive, more than 12in powerbook (but better specs)

3.5h is enough for most purposes, centrino won't be much longer, an ULV centrino lasts around 5hours

good thing is powerbook has FX5200 while most slim laptops stay with integrated graphics

 

[klh]

one fo the things is that lecture nots are in powerpoint, i dont think applewroks reads powerpoint. someone prove me wrong.

 

[r0wlzii]

LG ones come with Radeon 9200SE I think, or the equivilant. Better Graphics, but hey, you dont buy a laptop if you wanna play games on them.

 

[jm1234567890]

one fo the things is that lecture nots are in powerpoint, i dont think applewroks reads powerpoint. someone prove me wrong.

open office if you don't want to download office.mac

 

[loquasagacious]

Best value for money and only new one near those specs and price is the TPG widescreen notebook. Which has recently recieved free upgrades to the optical drive, ram and processor.

Shop front is better to buy from because you can haggle.

I bought a Toshiba Tecra A2 for myself and a 12" ibook for my girlfriend about 4months ago, i'm very pleased with both. Here are some observations:

For The ibook I was paying more for less, eg price versus specs and performance.
OS X is excellent.
The ibooks build quality is suberb.
Virtual Pc is a joke and a waste of money as it is very slow.
There are no drivers for any canon multifunction printers.

Centrino is excellent, look online for details and if someone tells you its just wireless or something like that they're an idiot, centrino is three things: wireless connectivity, chipset and processor. The most important part is processor, basically its speed and power use is lower but its performance is the same.
Celeron M (not the same celeron as you see on older entry level notebooks) is quite adequate performance wise as it is identical to a centrino chip just has less Level 2 cache.
XP professional is a must for security reasons.

And now for some general notes:

DDR is better than SDRAM, don't (if at all possible) buy anything with SDRAM.
Haggle and get more ram (didnt work for me with the ibook so at the shop I got mine I negotiated for 512MB of brandname ram for the price of 256mb of cheap ram) put extra 256 in both, great investment.
Upgrading is actuley quite possible, the parts are more expensive than desktop ones and you probably wont want to upgrade wthin a year, so you can keep warranty.
Resale value of all notebooks is quite high, apples slightly higher.
Buy new or at the very least from a vendor so you have a warranty of some kind.
If you can get wireless chucked in for free take it, dont pay for 802.11a or 802.11b if they are offering 802.11g cheap then take it if not do the upgrade youself later.
Expect cross-platform compatibility issues with OS X but if you have a fairly good knowledge of computers you will adapt quickly.
Upgrading ibook a littel harder but still do-able.
Openoffice is very good.
Stop using IE use Firefox.

My final advice:

Get a windows laptop because then you can get lots of {free} programs of your mates and the internet.

Get one with a DVD burner (if possible), cough more {free} stuff.

 

[equiski]

Word.

Open office is rather dandy.

 

[jayz]

Best value for money and only new one near those specs and price is the TPG widescreen notebook. Which has recently recieved free upgrades to the optical drive, ram and processor.

True in circumstances

Get one with a DVD burner (if possible), cough more {free} stuff.

i'd wait for dvd to get a bit more development in the notebook front i.e. faster than 2 times speed and most likely purchase an external burner due to battery drain

 

[loquasagacious]

likely purchase an external burner due to battery drain

Don't buy an external drive, build one. www.arc.com.au.

As little as $82 for a burner (8x) $150 gets you dual layer burning and 16x. Couple this with a USB/firewire external case for it ($50, seen t5hem for less elsewhere) and you have an external drive for as little as $130 and a pretty good one for $200.

Same goes external hard drive 250Gb maxtor aprox $600 make your own for $300 or less.

 

[jayz]

actually, it's good of you to bring that pt up, if a boxed up internal burner does match the performance of an authentic external burner...then why isn't the external burners cheaper? (this is exactly the same pt with LCD tvs and LCD monitors with usb tv cards)

 

[jm1234567890]

iBook G4 prices dropped

http://www.apple.com/ibook/specs.html

$US999 for 12" model

heaps cheaper than competing laptops of similar size

you must remember if your gonna be bringing a laptop around in uni you don't
want anything much more than 2kg

 

[neuro_logik]

The new iBook cant be beaten!!!!

http://www.apple.com.au/ibook/specs.html

A 12" iBook is $1695 with Airport Extreme built in and now running at 1.2Ghz!!!

g0ts to buy my own.... when i have money