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General Category => Technology and Programming => Topic started by: Drule on October 25, 2007, 04:42:36 am

Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: Drule on October 25, 2007, 04:42:36 am
Hey!

I'm going to buy a cheap laptop because my current computer has been screwing up a lot lately. I intend to use it for browsing, movies, music, webdesign, 2D game making and if possible, music making. Maybe a little bit of retro gaming too. I'm not looking for a great laptop or anything but I do want the best option, so I was hoping you could help me choose one of the cheaper options I've found. My stationary computer is a Pentium 4 with 2,50 GHz, 512 MB RAM and a GeForce FX 5200, for comparsion.



Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: Drule on October 25, 2007, 11:46:16 am
whos gonna receive the first smooch...
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: Carrion Crow on October 25, 2007, 02:48:18 pm
State your budget.
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: Zeratul on October 25, 2007, 02:56:29 pm
You're gonna need something better than a Celeron or a Sempron if you want to create music on the computer (unless you're just talking about MIDIs or something). Other than that qualification, pretty much any laptop on the market will do.
Like Eddie said, it would help a lot if you stated your budget.
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: mooty on October 25, 2007, 04:04:45 pm
macbook! ftw.
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: goat on October 25, 2007, 04:19:32 pm
make sure the laptop has got a good sound card, or at least set aside a piece of the budget for a good external one.
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: Drule on October 25, 2007, 05:41:59 pm
I just want to get as cheap of a laptop as possible, and these were the cheapest options I could find, so yeah. Budget is irrevelant. I just want to know which one of these to pick.
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: Carrion Crow on October 25, 2007, 06:08:20 pm
In the UK they have some stonking cheap laptops on ebuyer.com. There's an ebuyer US but I'm not sure if the deals are as good. If you buy a laptop it will come preinstalled with Windows Vista most likely and you'll want to put XP on it since most cheap laptops come with 512 mb of ram which is not sufficient memory. It's pointless having Vista on a laptop since the only discerable advantage it has over XP is that it's more "stable" and runs hardcore DX10 games (Something laptops won't have the power to run for years).

So in simple terms, ebuyer, install XP and you'll have a hoot.
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: Drule on October 25, 2007, 08:25:25 pm
I live in Sweden and I don't want to buy online, so it'll have to be one of the options I posted I guess.
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: ATARI on October 26, 2007, 12:23:26 am
If you are doing any sound recording (I am assuming here you mean with actual vocals and/or audio inputs (eg: guitar)), you will want all the possible ram that you can get.   At least a gig.  I see some of the ones you have listed are 512, so stay away from those for sure.  Also yeah Zeratul is right.  If you really want some processor intensive programs (eg sound recording or video recording) you want to stay away from the Celerons and Sempron kind of level processors.   Also if you want better results in that as well, I would suggest something with dual core capability as well (from what I can tell none of the ones you listed give you that.  Then again, I'm not sure if Celeron or sempron even have dual core models)  Unless these are your absolute only options, I would suggest something outside of these personally.
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: Lord_Abriel on October 26, 2007, 09:44:39 am
Can't recall if you are studying or not, but if you are check Mecenat and the laptop deals there. There can be some pretty good stuff up for reasonable prices, although it's mostly Macbooks and ThinkPads (which aren't cheap). I think Dell and Fujitsu has deals on a regular basis too.

If you don't want Vista the Zepto Znote is probably a good idea. I think they have some more powerful ones too, and you'd probably want to add stuff like WLAN anyway. Not getting Vista preinstalled is also nice, since it really is a bad idea to use it on lower-end laptops.
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: Stadsport on October 26, 2007, 03:32:02 pm
Well, I know MacBooks have optical audio in/out. I don't know if any other laptops do or if that's even important to you, but it seems like it would be!
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: ATARI on October 27, 2007, 02:49:09 am
Well from some of the things he listed, (eg: retro gaming etc) it would probably require windows to do so.  I mean, I know he could install bootcamp and do windows on it, but if you don't want to go through all that trouble, don't get a macbook.  Personally though, even though I'm not a very big fan of Apple, I can say that the macbook pros are pretty good (my cousin has one and it's not bad at all).  They are very pricey though towards the sort of specifications that you are currently looking at (all apple products are pretty much overpriced anyway though, so you can expect this)
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: dada on October 28, 2007, 08:34:45 am
Quote from: ATARI on October 27, 2007, 02:49:09 am
Well from some of the things he listed, (eg: retro gaming etc) it would probably require windows to do so.  I mean, I know he could install bootcamp and do windows on it, but if you don't want to go through all that trouble, don't get a macbook.  Personally though, even though I'm not a very big fan of Apple, I can say that the macbook pros are pretty good (my cousin has one and it's not bad at all).  They are very pricey though towards the sort of specifications that you are currently looking at (all apple products are pretty much overpriced anyway though, so you can expect this)
Drule is perfectly able to install Boot Camp if he did decide to get one, since it's not a problem at all for somewhat able computer users. It takes less than an hour anyway. For retro gaming, you won't need it, since DOSBox 0.70 is cross-platform and runs just as well on Mac OS X as it does on Windows or Linux (60 FPS, no slowdown whatsoever, no frameskip, et cetera).

As for the price, Apple computers aren't really that more expensive than other similar computers. In fact, they're perfectly within normal price range. The only difference is that they don't sell low-end computers. They only sell mid-end and high-end computers, which is why the old truth of Apple computers being more expensive is still believed to this day, whereas, in fact, it hasn't been true anymore for quite some time.

But anyway, I don't think he wants to get an Apple in any case, since he seems to be looking for computers in a lower price range. Though I don't recommend not getting at least a Core 2 processor.
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: dada on October 29, 2007, 08:33:27 pm
You can stop debating this, Drule went ahead and bought a laptop without telling us!
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: ATARI on October 29, 2007, 09:14:58 pm
Quote from: Dada on October 29, 2007, 08:33:27 pm
You can stop debating this, Drule went ahead and bought a laptop without telling us!

no double posting :<<




also drule what laptop did you get (you could at least post that here yo because i'm curious)
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: Bandito on October 29, 2007, 11:11:45 pm
if you have around 1300 you can buy  HP computer.
SPECS:
1.6 gb intel core duo
2 gb ram
120 gb HDD
with a nvidia 256 shared video card


I don't see this as a bad bargain  and you can even play some 3d games like Unreal and such....and this is where i live. In USA you can find the same computer at cheaper prices (I am from Puerto RicO)
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: headphonics on October 30, 2007, 07:10:07 am
Quote from: Dada on October 28, 2007, 08:34:45 am
Drule is perfectly able to install Boot Camp if he did decide to get one, since it's not a problem at all for somewhat able computer users. It takes less than an hour anyway. For retro gaming, you won't need it, since DOSBox 0.70 is cross-platform and runs just as well on Mac OS X as it does on Windows or Linux (60 FPS, no slowdown whatsoever, no frameskip, et cetera).

As for the price, Apple computers aren't really that more expensive than other similar computers. In fact, they're perfectly within normal price range. The only difference is that they don't sell low-end computers. They only sell mid-end and high-end computers, which is why the old truth of Apple computers being more expensive is still believed to this day, whereas, in fact, it hasn't been true anymore for quite some time.

But anyway, I don't think he wants to get an Apple in any case, since he seems to be looking for computers in a lower price range. Though I don't recommend not getting at least a Core 2 processor.
i dunno about apple prices where you are, but macbooks (the low-end ones, anyway) are pretty cheap here!  like... a grand, which i think is very acceptable as far as pricing goes, for what you get.  i guess if you're really pinching pennies you might prefer to spend $800 or something but i rarely see notebooks under a grand that don't, in some way or another, kind of suck.  mostly it is subpar cpus but small hdds, lackluster amounts of ram (how are people even still buying computers with 512 in them anymore?), and so on.  i would think he'd be willing to spend the extra couple hundred and get something nice, considering he's probably going to be using this for a few years.
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: Vey on October 30, 2007, 10:13:02 am
Actually buying a laptop with only 512 mb RAM could be smart, since it usually is cheaper to buy RAM separately and put it in there yourself.
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: dada on October 30, 2007, 03:25:28 pm
Quote from: bazookatooth on October 30, 2007, 07:10:07 am
i rarely see notebooks under a grand that don't, in some way or another, kind of suck.
Yeah, that's right. The low-end Apple MacBooks are in the right price range, in my opinion. Like you say, you need something that will last a while, too. Though I don't think you really need a Core Duo 2 when all you need to do is use Word (in that case you might as well get a Celeron), but that's probably not the case if you're asking around here.
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: Drule on October 30, 2007, 08:48:35 pm
I got the very first option.
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: lightrain on November 06, 2007, 07:29:02 am
Hey Drule ,have you got your laptop , last week I got to kwow a good and quite cheap laptop , the Compaq Presario C714NR Dual Core 15.4 inch Notebook :
Intel Pentium Dual-Core processor T2310 with 533MHz frontside bus, 1MB L2 cache and 1.46GHz processor speed
1GB DDR2 memory for multitasking power .
It is on sale for $500:
http://www.dealstudio.com/searchdeals.php?deal_id=66541
Title: Help me pick a laptop
Post by: dada on November 06, 2007, 10:53:10 am
Quote from: lightrain on November 06, 2007, 07:29:02 am
Hey Drule ,have you got your laptop
Yes, if you'll read the topic.