mllelaurel | (no subject)

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So. My laptop is a piece of shit. It won't play DVDs anymore. It freezes up when faced with anything more challenging than a pageful of plain text. It won't defrag completely.

Conclusion? I need to buy a new computer stat, before I can't access the internet anymore and thus am rendered incapable of buying said new computer.

Discuss.

Basically, I need to know what laptops qualify as non-shitty. My bare qualifications are: DVD player/burner; able to connect to the internet; more harddrive space than my current 55 gigs.

I'm none-too-fond of the Mac interface, but if I'm given assurances that Macs are less likely to break the hell down, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Cheap would be nice, as I need an external harddrive and/or an ipod to move all my junk onto. I can't think of another way to transfer it from one harddrive to another, but then I'm no expert.

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I'm a great big fan of flash drives for moving junk. Or a good Firewire drive, which is what we use for backups.

I'm a giant Mac junkie, and have been since about 1988, so I'm pretty useless in terms of comparison shopping. I've had many fewer breakdowns on my machines than my Windows brethren, but I also know people for whom Macs have just broken in amazing ways with amazing frequency. I think Macs are more in tune with the vibe of the owner than Windows boxes. :)

Flash drive! I used to own one of those, at least. The real question is, can I find it?

I'm thinking it may well be time to test my compatibility with a Mac. My luck with all things technological has never been good (or even decent) - maybe I just don't have the right rapport with PCs. Who can say?

I have to say based on my own experiences (with a PC laptop and mac desktop) that Mac has been waaaay more reliable than the PC. And the Mac is older.

That's definitely encouraging.

If you're looking for a mac laptop, I'd seriously suggest leaning toward a power-book. My father in law uses one and they're pretty out of this world.

What I WILL say about macs, that's not real hot, is that I'd stay away from imacs/emacs/all in one desktops. They tend to have monitor issues and that can be a bitch.

I'm definitely looking for a laptop, seeing as how it has to travel with me to Vermont. What's the approximate price range on the power-books?

From about 1100.00-4000. *G* Depends on the bells and whistles. You can get what you want for under 2000, definitely.

I'm glad to hear that. I'm not looking for anything particularly fancy. Just something for internet, movies and paper writing.

I will say that both my iBook and Akycha's have had one major hard drive breakdown each, the first ones that either of us have ever had with Macs (like I said, I've been using Macs since 1988, when I worked in the Apple/Mac classroom at college, and I bought my first doorstop used in 1992 or so, and she's been using them since she inherited

sepdet's doorstop somewhere around '93 or so). I've owned my machine since, um, 2002 or 2003, and Akycha's is a 2004 model. The breakdowns happened around the same age in both of them, and they were both entirely covered by standard AppleCare, so make sure you get AppleCare! And an external hard drive for backups will save your hide in the possibility of the breakdown.

Yeah, tech help is invaluable. I just hope they're good at explaining things to total newbs like me.

Mm...let me see. I'm a bit biased when it comes to OS's, so I won't go into that one. The Mac interface isn't hard to get used to, though -- I wasn't too fond when I first started using one either, but it's so, so worth it.

What's your price range? If you want to buy something that works now, and then get another computer in a couple years, it might worthwhile to try to find something used. Does Bennington have any specific networking requirements?

I actually might be selling my laptop in the near future -- the non-abundance of cross-platform graphic and game engines would make thesis-ing really hard without being able to boot to Windows at least sometimes. It's a PowerBook G4 with a 12"-inch monitor and a DVD player. No burner, but it's reliable and I've never actually lost data or serious functionality. It's also named Nanami and has enough sentimental value that I'd like to see it in good hands. :p (And yes, I do call it "her" sometimes! She's tiny and the screen hurts my eyes sometimes, but inside, she's got a lot going for her.) However, this depends on a lot of factors, and I'm probably going to hold off on it for a while. :(

An external HD (or iPod) is a very useful thing to have. Backups (especially if you've purchased anything in a purely electronic form) are great to have, and you're much less likely to miss something that way than if you spend time backing things up to CDs/DVDs.

Good luck!

I'd prefer to buy something that lasts. But if it costs over $2000 - or over $1500, really, I simply won't have that option.

I'm not sure. Considering half the student body have Macs and there are Macs in the computer lab, it shouldn't be a huge problem. In theory, anyway.

Awww, your computer sounds adorable!

I'm going to have a lot of discussions with my parents, who'd have to help me finance this endeavour, so taking time is a good thing.

I'll definitely be getting an iPod. External hard drive may have to wait. I just googled the price of the things and oi...

Thank you!

We got our external harddrive for 60.00 at Wal-mart. What are you googling?

My google search was "external harddrive". It came up with prices like $350. Those were the recommended brands, but still.

Are you interested? It sounded like you needed one right now, but if you're willing to wait, having someone I can sell the old one to would go a long way towards acquiring the new one. I'll need to get a way to appraise it, but it certainly won't cost as much as a new one and should last for some time if you're primarily using it for movies/writing/Internet. I just can't guarantee anything yet, but it's a possibility.

I might even be bringing it over on Sunday so I can use the bus ride to study.

If you get an iPod (and they come big), you shouldn't need an external HD at all. :) (You should still CD-backup up movies, TV episodes, and other files you're not going to actually edit -- external HD's can crash too. Use them for things like documents, pictures, and things you'll need to access frequently and edit.)

There's no gigantic emergency - just annoyance. I've talked to my mom, and plan to do more talking, but for now she's pretty adamant about getting a brand new computer.

Most of the stuff on my harddrive is movies, episodes and the like. Downloading is my happy shiny friend. I'm trying to burn off as much as I can.

If you want a PC, I've heard good things about Dell, and they look good on paper. I've also heard dreadful things about Dell /Service/, though.

I do love my macs (both of them) and you could get a powerbook or a mini, if you want to also pay out for a monitor and keyboard. The monitor and keyboard will outlast any box of any make and most work with both mac and pc, so I favor this approach; it's cheaper in the long run. My experience is that mac peripherals break down as often as pc peripherals, but the processor itself has fewer issues. Also attracts fewer viruses.

Do be aware that any pc you buy now will likely ship with the new windows, which a) looks a whole lot like the mac OS and b) is hugely bloated and will eat up processor speed and hard drive space like freaking tribbles. So if you get a pc, be sure to overestimate your speed and space needs by as much as you can afford to.

Huh. My current laptop is a Dell. It's broken down on me more than once before. On the other hand, I've found the service flawless.

I'm pretty much going to have to buy a laptop of some sort. Traveling back and forth with a monitor in a teeny tiny Toyota Corolla is fun for no one.

I'm pretty happy with my Dell (Latitude D800)--with the exception of wanting more hard drive space and special hinge issues, it's held up nicely for all of college. It is a giant monolith, of course, but a mostly useful one. I almost wish Dell was either consistently quality or consistently prone to breaking so I knew whether to recommend it or not! I don't know what their lower-end laptops are like, since this was purchased with the idea that it would be kinda expensive but hopefully be the last computer my parents buy for me.

It's brain-breaking, indeed. I was actually quite content with my Dell up until recent days, but if I can't watch episodes and movies, my sanity score takes a dive.

The problem you're stuck with here is that there's just no such thing as an indestructible laptop, they just don't have the shelf life of their desk-y counterparts.

That said, my whole family owns Dells, laptops and desktops, and we've only really had problems with the ones my brother gets his hands on long enough to spyware up. I'd rec them a thousand times over for being both cheap and pretty durable (my old Inspiron lasted through about four, five years of torment). My personal experience warns against Toshiba, as my very first laptop came from them and it snapped in half a year in after a long, painful battle with the sound system (that liked to crash and leave a giant florescent VOLUME marker written across my screen at all times). HP is also not a favorite of mine, as Sephy's desktop was from them and their service is awful. The thing lasted forever, but it never seemed to want to run any of her problems properly after the first couple of years. >>;;

Anyway, that's my $.02

Spyware's actually another excellent point. A friend suggested I back up my stuff and reformat the harddrive before going out to buy a whole new machine, and it sounds like a damn fine idea to me.

HPs are evil. My first computer was one. One day, I turned it on and it told me it no longer had a D-drive. Nuff said.

I'm on the don't buy HP train--don't know about other computers but when I am able to I'm getting Anything But HP. Could be my model, but both my old roommate and I had the same kind of HP computer and different things have gone wrong. I've gone through 2 harddrives in the past 2-3 years, a battery, and it overheats constantly--and if you don't get extended warranty fear HP service prices. LoL. Whatever you get, go for the warrenty.

Yeah, I, um... third the No HPs motion. They are of the crap.

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