The Energon Pub

Hey ya'll,

Since my laptop was stolen recently and I'm going to have insurance money soon, I'm looking for advice on laptop computers.

I'm looking to spend about $1000. I don't see myself needing a machine which would be more powerful than something in that price range. A MacBook is likely the most costly thing I'd look to.

So, what's good right now? What's a good deal? How has yours treated you? What sucks?

Much obliged.

(oh, and I primarily use the laptop for remote internet, documentation of pictures and text, and movies. I may try to do some video editing this coming year, I don't know...)

I know they're not all that popular, but I've got a Gateway laptop that I've been using for awhile now. Not the fastest newest one out there, but it was less then what you're looking to spend and it's given me absolutely zero troubles. Actually so far the only computer other then a Mac that has been problem free.

When I sprung for an expensive Sony Viao or my old Compaq Presario I spent about 3,500. on each of them, and both of them were just giant headaches with tons of problems.

I'll be sticking with Gateway for a while now since it's been so problem free, but that's just my own experiences.

Good luck man, cheers.

I think acer makes a pretty good laptop, and there's always dell.

The upside is, all new laptops are faster, more powerfull then my pc, the downside, they all have Vista installed now and from what I've been hearing that is the most crapiest system ever.

Agreed, Acer has come a long way with their Laptops. Ofcourse, Mac has a huge advantage in that there are walk in service centers everywhere. No need to mail the laptop back and forth for problems.\

Best thing you can do for yourself CP, is to check out the forums at anandtech.com. Highly recommended, great, helpful and very knowledgable community.

Bonger wrote:Agreed, Acer has come a long way with their Laptops. Ofcourse, Mac has a huge advantage in that there are walk in service centers everywhere. No need to mail the laptop back and forth for problems.\

One question I keep coming back to on MacBooks...

Is the increase in price and smaller screen worth the 'Mac'ness of the computer?

i have a new HP pavilion "entertainment PC", and i love it. the only downside, as mentioned, is that it has vista on it.

HPs are pretty good. My girlfriend's has held up quite well.

Oh and btw folks...

Acer bought out Gateway, which owns eMachines, so now all three names belong to the same company.

Gateway owns eMachines?! Crap, I thought I was rid of them for good...

Well, I've had no problems with Vista so far. I've made the XP-to-Vista transition pretty good. When you get used to the minimal changes, and some of the pointless features (Some of which are actually pretty handy) and/or lack thereof (Can I run a gif and not have to run IE? Nay!) it's not much different than XP.

So far, I haven't had much experience with some newer laptops. I think the last one I used couldn't quite get to 32bit color. (About four years ago)

I'm going to refer you to Pricewatch.com which me and my dad have been using for years. Apparently, good laptops only go for around $400-$600, (as opposed to a Mac, which is usually more expensive) so you can get that, then get it new memory, and possibly even some programs and games you may not even need. (Computer - Games = Pointless)

The Toshiba Satellite that I'm using right now is pretty good. It comes with vista and costs about $800 and a little more what with insurance. When I get home I can get out the receipt and give you all the price info on it if you like.

Shadowman wrote:Gateway owns eMachines?! Crap, I thought I was rid of them for good...

Yessir. Gateway bought out eMachines about two to three (perhaps even four) years ago.

eMachines started out as the brainchild of Korean PC manufacturer Trigem, and they sold it to a group of investors (actually a small group of rich doctors) and Gateway then bought it from them. In the deal, the head of eMachines became one of the heads of Gateway and controlled portions of both companies.

Now...Acer bought out Gateway sometime this year (quite recently from what I gather) and it's all the same company now.

Funny thing is, I own a Trigem original eMachine and even though it's seven years old and seriously outdated, it still runs better than Gateway's eMachines.

Gateway's a terrible company anyway. I know of at least four people who have had all of their's fail. Hard drives, memory, motherboards, PSUs, you name it, it went.

Hopefully, Acer will force them to put some quality behind the name.

Gateway sucks. Sucks like a Hoover connected to a black hole on steroids. (Yeah...not sure where I was going with that last piece, but it sounds good...sorta. Kinda. Not really.)

I'll give you the lowdown on the Macbook. I freakin' love mine! I use it everyday for everything except major photo retouching. I haven't used my PC in almost a year. The wife has one too and she feels the same way. And because it's widescreen you don't really notice the smaller size. Actually I wouldn't want anything bigger, and I'm used to working on 21" monitors for Photoshop. There's also very good video editing software available. But make sure that you jam that sucker full of RAM, Macs need it.

The only downside that you're going to find is that very infrequently you'll find a file or website that just won't work. It's pretty rare though.

Geekee1 wrote:I'll give you the lowdown on the Macbook. I freakin' love mine! I use it everyday for everything except major photo retouching. I haven't used my PC in almost a year. The wife has one too and she feels the same way. And because it's widescreen you don't really notice the smaller size. Actually I wouldn't want anything bigger, and I'm used to working on 21" monitors for Photoshop. There's also very good video editing software available. But make sure that you jam that sucker full of RAM, Macs need it.

The only downside that you're going to find is that very infrequently you'll find a file or website that just won't work. It's pretty rare though.

My uncle swears by his, still to this day. It's around five years old or so (I think, but I can't confirm that for sure) and he's never really had any problems with it. So it sounds like it might be a viable option.

I still prefer Windows based systems, but that's because I grew up with them and understand them. If I had grown up with Macs, I'm sure I'd be a fan for life.

Autobot032 wrote:

Geekee1 wrote:I'll give you the lowdown on the Macbook. I freakin' love mine! I use it everyday for everything except major photo retouching. I haven't used my PC in almost a year. The wife has one too and she feels the same way. And because it's widescreen you don't really notice the smaller size. Actually I wouldn't want anything bigger, and I'm used to working on 21" monitors for Photoshop. There's also very good video editing software available. But make sure that you jam that sucker full of RAM, Macs need it.

The only downside that you're going to find is that very infrequently you'll find a file or website that just won't work. It's pretty rare though.

My uncle swears by his, still to this day. It's around five years old or so (I think, but I can't confirm that for sure) and he's never really had any problems with it. So it sounds like it might be a viable option.

I still prefer Windows based systems, but that's because I grew up with them and understand them. If I had grown up with Macs, I'm sure I'd be a fan for life.

I've used both quite extensively, PC's until college, then Macs, then back to PC's, then back to Macs, and I'm just a big fan of the Mac OS. It never lets me down like Windows does. The thing is just solid, and once you figure out how to navigate in it, you just can't understand why Windows can't be more like it.

Although I've heard that Vista stole a lot from Mac OS navigation, but I can't confirm that because I haven't used it.

Geekee1 wrote:

Autobot032 wrote:

Geekee1 wrote:I'll give you the lowdown on the Macbook. I freakin' love mine! I use it everyday for everything except major photo retouching. I haven't used my PC in almost a year. The wife has one too and she feels the same way. And because it's widescreen you don't really notice the smaller size. Actually I wouldn't want anything bigger, and I'm used to working on 21" monitors for Photoshop. There's also very good video editing software available. But make sure that you jam that sucker full of RAM, Macs need it.

The only downside that you're going to find is that very infrequently you'll find a file or website that just won't work. It's pretty rare though.

My uncle swears by his, still to this day. It's around five years old or so (I think, but I can't confirm that for sure) and he's never really had any problems with it. So it sounds like it might be a viable option.

I still prefer Windows based systems, but that's because I grew up with them and understand them. If I had grown up with Macs, I'm sure I'd be a fan for life.

I've used both quite extensively, PC's until college, then Macs, then back to PC's, then back to Macs, and I'm just a big fan of the Mac OS. It never lets me down like Windows does. The thing is just solid, and once you figure out how to navigate in it, you just can't understand why Windows can't be more like it.

Although I've heard that Vista stole a lot from Mac OS navigation, but I can't confirm that because I haven't used it.

No surprise there. The Windows 95 design was stolen from Apple, so it's easy to believe they'd pull the same thing again at Microsoft.

My cousin complained about Vista's widget bar and interfaces being swiped from MacOS. She said it was a nice copy, just doesn't have the same quality under the hood.

But let's face it, what hasn't been stolen in this industry?

Ive got a pentium 3 Thinkpad and it does a pretty good job. They seem to be pretty reliable. I got mine second-hand and have gotten a larger hard drive since.

If you go Windows-based make sure you can get XP-pro

I personally dont like Macs and think they are just overpriced, especially since Windows is the standard virtually everywhere you go. I tried using a Mac once and had no idea what I was doing. i just didnt like it

OptimusN1701 wrote:Ive got a pentium 3 Thinkpad and it does a pretty good job. They seem to be pretty reliable. I got mine second-hand and have gotten a larger hard drive since.

If you go Windows-based make sure you can get XP-pro

I personally dont like Macs and think they are just overpriced, especially since Windows is the standard virtually everywhere you go. I tried using a Mac once and had no idea what I was doing. i just didnt like it

The most stable Windows OS is 2003 server without a doubt. If you're into computers...setting up a server to have at home is a great way to go- you can have it handle all those boring tasks:storage, streaming,etc. It also keeps logs of everything, so you can keep up if anyone is messing with your PC. If you get into it, you can deploy packages to other PCs on your home network,etc.

Xgamer wrote:

OptimusN1701 wrote:Ive got a pentium 3 Thinkpad and it does a pretty good job. They seem to be pretty reliable. I got mine second-hand and have gotten a larger hard drive since.

If you go Windows-based make sure you can get XP-pro

I personally dont like Macs and think they are just overpriced, especially since Windows is the standard virtually everywhere you go. I tried using a Mac once and had no idea what I was doing. i just didnt like it

The most stable Windows OS is 2003 server without a doubt. If you're into computers...setting up a server to have at home is a great way to go- you can have it handle all those boring tasks:storage, streaming,etc. It also keeps logs of everything, so you can keep up if anyone is messing with your PC. If you get into it, you can deploy packages to other PCs on your home network,etc.

That sounds pretty cool

OptimusN1701 wrote:

Xgamer wrote:

OptimusN1701 wrote:Ive got a pentium 3 Thinkpad and it does a pretty good job. They seem to be pretty reliable. I got mine second-hand and have gotten a larger hard drive since.

If you go Windows-based make sure you can get XP-pro

I personally dont like Macs and think they are just overpriced, especially since Windows is the standard virtually everywhere you go. I tried using a Mac once and had no idea what I was doing. i just didnt like it

The most stable Windows OS is 2003 server without a doubt. If you're into computers...setting up a server to have at home is a great way to go- you can have it handle all those boring tasks:storage, streaming,etc. It also keeps logs of everything, so you can keep up if anyone is messing with your PC. If you get into it, you can deploy packages to other PCs on your home network,etc.

That sounds pretty cool

It reduces the stress on other PCs on your home network. It makes life easier, especially for laptops at home.

Autobot032 wrote:No surprise there. The Windows 95 design was stolen from Apple, so it's easy to believe they'd pull the same thing again at Microsoft.

Okay, now I'm seeing a pattern: First, Windows 1 was stolen from Apple. Then Windows 95 was stolen. And now all the Mac fanboys are saying Vista is as well.

Autobot032 wrote:My cousin complained about Vista's widget bar and interfaces being swiped from MacOS. She said it was a nice copy, just doesn't have the same quality under the hood.

Huh. Didn't know I had one of those.

Autobot032 wrote:But let's face it, what hasn't been stolen in this industry?

A games library.

Shadowman wrote:

Autobot032 wrote:No surprise there. The Windows 95 design was stolen from Apple, so it's easy to believe they'd pull the same thing again at Microsoft.

Okay, now I'm seeing a pattern: First, Windows 1 was stolen from Apple. Then Windows 95 was stolen. And now all the Mac fanboys are saying Vista is as well.

Autobot032 wrote:My cousin complained about Vista's widget bar and interfaces being swiped from MacOS. She said it was a nice copy, just doesn't have the same quality under the hood.

Huh. Didn't know I had one of those.

Autobot032 wrote:But let's face it, what hasn't been stolen in this industry?

A games library.

Bwahaha!

Counterpunch wrote:Hey ya'll,

Since my laptop was stolen recently and I'm going to have insurance money soon, I'm looking for advice on laptop computers.

I'm looking to spend about $1000. I don't see myself needing a machine which would be more powerful than something in that price range. A MacBook is likely the most costly thing I'd look to.

So, what's good right now? What's a good deal? How has yours treated you? What sucks?

Much obliged.

(oh, and I primarily use the laptop for remote internet, documentation of pictures and text, and movies. I may try to do some video editing this coming year, I don't know...)

What I've gathered from the Chans is that non-satellite Toshibas are very good for the money.
Lots of people swear by Lenovo Thinkpads(formerly IBM branded).

Honestly, I'm not too up-to date on Laptop hardware.

As for an O/S:
Try to avoid Vista. Anything in your price range is likely to have a problem with that horrible bloatware.
XP Pro shouldn't be a problem for anything you buy first-hand nowadays.

Ubuntu is an option. If you go the Dell route, you can be fairly sure that a most of their laptops will work nicely with it, as it's something they preinstall on a number of models.
Don't buy a laptop with Ubuntu from Dell though, as they're typically more expensive than the windows based equivalent.
Just get a Vista based laptop, and install Ubuntu.
The great thing about Ubuntu is that it's relatively easy to set up a Dual-Boot configuration with both Ubuntu and Windows.

Otherwise you could use Mac OSX. On ordinary PC Hardware.
http://www.osx86project.org/
If you don't own a copy of OSX, then it'll involve piracy, and if you do it's a violation of the EULA, but this is the internet so we don't really care.