Laptop

[Bushie]

My eldest daughter is looking at a laptop for tech next year, what are the better brands around to give us a starting point.


Martyn

[djam1]

Better brands IMHO are Toshiba, Asus, IBM/Lenovo, HP. I personally avoid Ac3R and D3ll whatever you buy get an extended warranty and plenty of memory.
People often say buy the cheapest and get a good warranty but remember when its being fixed you cant use it I have seen this take close to months out of the first 12 months of thier life.

[WhiteD3]

My eldest daughter is looking at a laptop for tech next year, what are the better brands around to give us a starting point.


Martyn

How old is she? My advice would be to buy second hand if all you need is MS Office and email. Once the excitment dies away you can look at something flash.

[Xavie]

Go with what she knows and depending on what she is studying a particular brand or Operating System may suit better. I.E I use a Macintosh for somethings and I think they are the best system for everything except gaming but I use a Microsoft windows system for other things like games but it doesn't sound like she needs games.

As one other said The more memory the better... get a minimum of 1 gig ram and more if you can spare the cash and a good size hard drive. As for processor.... it is difficult. If it is general word processing it doesn't need to be fast but any basic graphic design or imagery usage and you'll be looking at the possibility of what they call dual core system (they don't really cost much more so don't worry)

battery life is also important (usually). and if she is on a train/bus she may like a dvd player for a long trip to quell some boredom but that's a usual inclusion now anyway.

I agree about Toshiba and ASUS but 3 friends recently had big probs with over heating with Toshiba's and the prob with that is it can cook your hard ware hence lose everything.

Good brands are without a doubt

macintosh,
phillips (expensive),
ASUS,
Toshiba (with teething problems i think but nothing which can't be dealt with), IBM's are the bees knees and
Sony vaios (big premium but great machine)

[MarknDeb]

My eldest daughter is looking at a laptop for tech next year, what are the better brands around to give us a starting point.


Martyn

I just got new "ASUS Mobilite", Celeron 1.8 dual core wireless DVD burner and all the stuff accept for bluetooth & 1GB ram. I got it on special for $750 with no operating system (i already had XP PRO), iam very impressed with the performance so far (only had it a week).

I got mine through Colonial Soft Computers in Brisbane, you could probably contact them to see if they can give you a contact for where you are.
Geoff or Krystal
PH 07 38513119

[duncanw]

Get her an apple, you wont regret it

http://www.apple.com/au/macbook/macbook.html

If for some crazy reason you want to run Windows applications then you can do, but there are plenty of better apps out there for the mac which will open and save word documents and things like that.

The best thing about it ? you don't need a computer on par with Nasa's command centre to run Vista. Software is dirt cheap and its just better, for $1600 you will have a more powerful notebook than most of the others out on the market.

[abaddonxi]

I'd go cheap, forget about the extended warrantee and spend the extra money on a good external back up.

If she's taking it to uni every day it's going to cop a huge beating and likely to be pinched, too.

Extended warrantee is great, if you're spending a couple of thousand. If you buy a $600 laptop, and there seem to be plenty of them around, the extended warrantee is going to cost a signifcant percentage of the hardware.

In eighteen months a cheap laptop or an expensive laptop are probably going to be toast, if you go the cheapie you've still got money to replace/upgrade.

Not much point going second hand when new is so cheap.

Remember that it's the data that is important, not the hardware.

Cheers
Simon

[Captain_Rightfoot]

Just get a mac. No viruses...spyware... and most things work **really** well. :)

[Xavie]

Get her an apple, you wont regret it

Apple - MacBook (http://www.apple.com/au/macbook/macbook.html)

If for some crazy reason you want to run Windows applications then you can do, but there are plenty of better apps out there for the mac which will open and save word documents and things like that.

The best thing about it ? you don't need a computer on par with Nasa's command centre to run Vista. Software is dirt cheap and its just better, for $1600 you will have a more powerful notebook than most of the others out on the market.

That's for sure!

[Blknight.aus]

If you have to use a windoze environment the best laptop is the toshiba I have 5 working and one Im trying to resurect

I have two old 440's that I use in the workshop that I got as trade for mechanicing, 2 newer satellites models that got busted up in the move to the switch (one has no USB or sound ATM) one thats just dead for no apparent reason and 2 brand new A200's thanks to the insurance on the sattelites.

but IMHO if your just using it for DTP and the like you cant go past an apple laptop. as already pointed out they rarely, if ever, get hacked, crash or any of the wierdo things that microsoft OS's do.

if your local (ipswich/brissy) and want to have a loan of one to see how she goes with it before splurging on a new one for her your welcom to borrow the sattelite thats got no sound or USB.

[incisor]

all the big name brands are fine

toshiba have very expensive support IME... and they arent all they used to be i a lot of ways these days.

much better value for money to be had with asus and hp or even dell actually.

$360 for a replacement dvd drive is more than enough reason for me to never want to buy one.

find the brand that has a service center nearest you would be a big one as well.

[waynep]

We used Dells at work until just recently ( dozens of laptops ) and they were very robust. I ran over mine with the Disco once, the screen cracked but it kept working !
Dell have some reasonably good online deals sometimes.
Work has now gone over to HP/Compaq ( contract renewal and I guess HP were cheaper ) and reports so far are these are not as well put together or as robust as the Dells.

This contradicts what someone earlier in the thread was saying, but you're going to get that of course.

[incisor]

Work has now gone over to HP/Compaq ( contract renewal and I guess HP were cheaper ) and reports so far are these are not as well put together or as robust as the Dells.

many/most hps's have a 2 year warranty these days, dell have 1 year as standard last time i looked, which could have been a factor as well.

flame suit on, i see a lot of horror stories with laptops and all the worst ones so far have been dell and acer by a country mile, so i tend to agree with the djam1....

maybe dell have better QC on contract builds, dont know....

i have lost count the number of women i have come in here in tears over the way they get treated by some of these bigger companies, it astounds me to be frank. I show them notgoodenough.org and point them in the right direction...

[EchiDna]

do you apple guys realize the 'thief attraction factor' carrying any apple product carries with it?

ipods, laptops and flash mobiles would have to be the most stolen items in universitys... buying something flash is like putting a neon sign on her head saying "rob me please"... i say buy a decent brand's cheaper models and backup very regularly...

[willvine]

Thanks numptys missus,

I have numbed over to switch to mac or keep with a microsoft OS. I mainly use my lap tops to programme Clipsal c-bus or dynalight smart homes which at the moment only support m/soft system.

thanks for the read points taken,

cheers
Will

[HangOver]

We use Dell's at work.
Sales staff are next to useless do you homework don't even bother contacting them BUT .........

The laptopas are exeptionally hardy ours get put through the wringer and in 4 years only two have died. They were working again within 24 ours thanks to Dell's EXEPTIONAL after sales/warranty/repair services IMO they have the best after sales care.
Also do yourself a favour and pay a bit extra and get the extended warranty you can now pay for Dell waranty for up to 5 years. It's worth it.

I am so impressed be Dell's service I bought a Dell for home. Dell notebooks, (never call them laptops, I'm sure you know why?) performance are pretty ordinary until you get to top models. We buy the D830's and 630ATG's can't fault them. Maybe XPS next time?

Saying that Toshiba have an excelent reputation but are very expensive, Dell's compair quite well with the likes of Asus and other hight street brands cost wise.