-
Finished your HSC? Check out our University Discussion, Non-School forums or help out next year's HSC students! -
YOU can help the next generation of students in the community! Share your trial papers and notes on our Notes & Resources page
i want to buy a laptop (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter spin spin sugar
- Start date
- Status
spin spin sugar
it's gotta be big
how much would a good 12" one cost upfront?? do you have one?? i actually like the look of ibooks, theyre nice
lol they actually cost a fair bit... more than an actual windows laptop. But i think if you can get the student discount it's roughly the same as a normal laptop, the 12" ones look really cool and sleek, like they're nice and compact to lug around, and they come in white and silver, but its differ prices, the silver is made out of alluminium, and yeah
... however powerbooks battery when on wireless connection drains your batteries like crazy, unless u buy that long lasting battery, thats why i like centrino's a bit more better since i get about 5.5 hours out of mine.
*~Dazed~*
fuck a duck
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2003
- Messages
- 1,177
- Gender
- Female
- HSC
- 2003
winston... cost a fair bit? i think they are relatively cheap for laptops
http://store.apple.com/133-622/WebO...0SCPvxktaCerZQ/0.0.7.1.0.5.21.1.1.1.0.0.0.1.0
they are around 1700 plus you should get a $200 discount as a student.
And yeah i have one, i have the 14"...
check this out...
http://store.apple.com/133-622/WebO...0SCPvxktaCerZQ/0.0.7.1.0.5.21.1.1.1.0.0.0.1.0
they are around 1700 plus you should get a $200 discount as a student.
And yeah i have one, i have the 14"...
snapperhead
Has decided to retire
my brother bought the 12" ibook last year...fully tricked out (max ram, blue tooth+ extended warranty etc as he is a comp. sci. student at UNSW) and it cost him less than $2000 with student discount...I was spewing as I had bought my 14" ibook fours months earlier and it cost me $2100 with an educational discount.....
If you want an ibook (not an imac not panda... was talking about), go to an apple dealer and ask about an ex-demo model...essentially brand new as it was a show model and they would take $2/300 off theticket price.....saw a stack of 14" (the model I have/had bought about 6 months earlier) for sale from nextbyte (??..they keep changing their name) at $1799 earlier this year (just b4 the latest model came out)
just some further info to make your decision harder...LOL!!!
Last edited:
I was just about to make a new thread on laptops..
I want to buy a laptop too very soon, and I'm kind of confused as to which company I should buy off.
Some people are saying that Dell is good.. and some people say that they aren't.. what's the deal?
Generally I take it that Toshiba and Compaq are alright.. right?
And do any laptops come with 128Mb NVidia Geforce 4+ or 128Mb Radeon 9700+?
This laptop is gonna be used for uni aswell as playing games like Doom III (when it comes out soon).
My budget is $5,000.
I want to buy a laptop too very soon, and I'm kind of confused as to which company I should buy off.
Some people are saying that Dell is good.. and some people say that they aren't.. what's the deal?
Generally I take it that Toshiba and Compaq are alright.. right?
And do any laptops come with 128Mb NVidia Geforce 4+ or 128Mb Radeon 9700+?
This laptop is gonna be used for uni aswell as playing games like Doom III (when it comes out soon).
My budget is $5,000.
Alrighty, I'll lay down a few things for you people ...
Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Acer, Compaq... they're all good, depending on your needs.
Now Sony, Acer, Compaq and Toshiba all offter those aimed more at the business person.
If you want a laptop for just word processing then go ahead and get the cheapest one you can find with at least 1Ghz CPU and 512mb of RAM.
You people will want a pentium-m cpu in your laptop. That is important! Anything other then those will guzzle your battery power like nothing.
For your graphics card, if you are just doing word processing go for the cheapeset but if you are wanting to play Doom III in all it's glory you will need a minimum of radeon 9600 128mb. But if you can afford it go for a 9700 256mb!
If you are going to be playing games 512mb will be alright but you go better with 768mb or 1024mb, at least if you are wanting to play Doom III.
I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 with 768mb Ram, 7200RPM 60Gb HDD, 128mb Radeon 9600 PRO Turbo, 1.6Ghz Pentium-M and a nice 15.4 WSXGA 16ms screen, and I love it.
Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Acer, Compaq... they're all good, depending on your needs.
Now Sony, Acer, Compaq and Toshiba all offter those aimed more at the business person.
If you want a laptop for just word processing then go ahead and get the cheapest one you can find with at least 1Ghz CPU and 512mb of RAM.
You people will want a pentium-m cpu in your laptop. That is important! Anything other then those will guzzle your battery power like nothing.
For your graphics card, if you are just doing word processing go for the cheapeset but if you are wanting to play Doom III in all it's glory you will need a minimum of radeon 9600 128mb. But if you can afford it go for a 9700 256mb!
If you are going to be playing games 512mb will be alright but you go better with 768mb or 1024mb, at least if you are wanting to play Doom III.
I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 with 768mb Ram, 7200RPM 60Gb HDD, 128mb Radeon 9600 PRO Turbo, 1.6Ghz Pentium-M and a nice 15.4 WSXGA 16ms screen, and I love it.
Thanks for your advice Mithoric. Like I implied, yes I would like to play Doom III in all it's glory, so in the end chances are I will go for a high GPU spec notebook.
How much was your Inspiron anyway? Without sounding like an asshole, I do have quite a bit of money to burn, but I would still obviously like to save as much as possible while maintaining high specs.
I went to the Dell customization last night and ended up with this general modified configuration:
Dell Inspiron 9100.
- Intel Pentium 4 w/TH 3.2Ghz (15.4" WUXGA) (question: What the hell is the difference between 'WUXGA', 'WXGA', 'WSXGA' and 'WUXGA'? Note also that this isn't a Pentium 'M'.. will this cause a major problem?)
- 1024 (2 X 512) 400Mhz DDR Memory SDRAM
- 80 Gb Ultra ATA Hard drive. Now I assume it's probably not 7200 RPM, because for the 60 Gb one, they denoted next to it '7200RPM Performance Harddrive', yet didn't for any of the other ones.
- 128Mb DDR ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 AGP 8X Graphics.
Total: $4389. Now the funny thing is, I went and did a similar configuration for the 8600 series, and it came out more expensive. Heh.
Questions:
- Does 'Microsoft Works 7.0' contain Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc.? I don't want to blow extra hundreds of dollars on 'Office' if Works already contains the applications I need.
- Do you think it's worth spending an extra $20 buying a Dell optical mouse? As in, are they good enough quality for gaming? Or should I just spend a bit more cash on a better Logitech?
- When you buy the laptop, what are the initial steps for setting it up? Is the Windows operating system already set up and ready for use after you plug in the power for the first time, or will I have to do all the dirty work and partition the hard disk, install Windows etc. etc.
- Now with a performance beast, the notebook will obviously be considerably heavier.. but how much do you reckon? Hopefully not too much, I wanted to strike a combo for mobility (which includes convenient weight) aswell as hefty performance for intensive games such as Doom III.
- Finally, is it possible to install a custom sound card? I'm not usually very fond of motherboard-integrated sound cards. None of the Dells I looked at offered any sound card alternatives other than the integrated motherboard one, unfortunately. :/
Thanks for any responses.
How much was your Inspiron anyway? Without sounding like an asshole, I do have quite a bit of money to burn, but I would still obviously like to save as much as possible while maintaining high specs.
I went to the Dell customization last night and ended up with this general modified configuration:
Dell Inspiron 9100.
- Intel Pentium 4 w/TH 3.2Ghz (15.4" WUXGA) (question: What the hell is the difference between 'WUXGA', 'WXGA', 'WSXGA' and 'WUXGA'? Note also that this isn't a Pentium 'M'.. will this cause a major problem?)
- 1024 (2 X 512) 400Mhz DDR Memory SDRAM
- 80 Gb Ultra ATA Hard drive. Now I assume it's probably not 7200 RPM, because for the 60 Gb one, they denoted next to it '7200RPM Performance Harddrive', yet didn't for any of the other ones.
- 128Mb DDR ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 AGP 8X Graphics.
Total: $4389. Now the funny thing is, I went and did a similar configuration for the 8600 series, and it came out more expensive. Heh.
Questions:
- Does 'Microsoft Works 7.0' contain Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc.? I don't want to blow extra hundreds of dollars on 'Office' if Works already contains the applications I need.
- Do you think it's worth spending an extra $20 buying a Dell optical mouse? As in, are they good enough quality for gaming? Or should I just spend a bit more cash on a better Logitech?
- When you buy the laptop, what are the initial steps for setting it up? Is the Windows operating system already set up and ready for use after you plug in the power for the first time, or will I have to do all the dirty work and partition the hard disk, install Windows etc. etc.
- Now with a performance beast, the notebook will obviously be considerably heavier.. but how much do you reckon? Hopefully not too much, I wanted to strike a combo for mobility (which includes convenient weight) aswell as hefty performance for intensive games such as Doom III.
- Finally, is it possible to install a custom sound card? I'm not usually very fond of motherboard-integrated sound cards. None of the Dells I looked at offered any sound card alternatives other than the integrated motherboard one, unfortunately. :/
Thanks for any responses.
Last edited:
Because it isn't a mobile processor (it's your standard desktop cpu) it will guzzle your power faster so unless you have 2 batteries and are going to be near a powerpoint a lot a mobile variant is a better option. The standard processors are mainly for desktop replacement systems. The mobile processors conserve power by running at low and variable voltages. This is why they are a bit more expensive.
XGA stands for Extended Graphics Array, without getting to technical it basically sets out how 'big' your screen resolution can get, XGA is 1024, 768 pixels with a certain amount of colors (can't remember off my head).
WSXGA is widescreen XGA, so the 'array' is bigger again so you can have a larger resolution.
UXGA is ultra XGA, same thing as above. Might have more colors.
WSUXGA is widescreen ultra XGA.
LCD screens have a 'native' resolution. This is the maximum resolution they can have and it is also the default and 'best' looking resolution, other resolutions will give blurring, which is bad for text.. however you don't notice in low resolution games.
The drives that don't say 7200RPM are most likely 5400RPM or less. If you want to save money go for the non 7200RPM drive and you probably won't notice the difference. If you do a lot of network file sharing and multi-tasking, programming etc go for 7200RPM.
80gigs is nice, I wanted one but didn't come in 7200RPM.
My Laptop was a lil' over $3k.
It's not that heavy, but I think a 80gig drive would add a bit more weight to it for sure.. Mine is probably as heavy as I would go, can't remember the weight off hand I'll look for the order form and tell you later. Mine is the best I could come up with for mobility and power. It'll play Doom III for sure, but probably only on 10242x768 (although I'd use a 1.6 ratio res if I could because I'm on widescreen) which is still pretty good.
Works doesn't have Excel, it has Works Spreadsheet and it isn't as good. Works wordprocessor doesn't compare to Word either. And it doesn't have outlook or powerpoint, or anything similar. I haven't' used the works database yet but I'm sure it sucks in comparison to access.
You won't be able to fit a custom soundcard in. The motherboard they use probably doesn't even have a port for it. The integrated sound isn't that bad, it hardly compares to say an audigy but it works, I get no distortion from the speakers either.
Windows comes pre-installed. As does a lot of dell junk. Spend a few minutes uninstalling and disabling the usual windows xp services you don't need and you'll be crusing along.
I got the $20 USB mouse with my system, works pretty well ...
XGA stands for Extended Graphics Array, without getting to technical it basically sets out how 'big' your screen resolution can get, XGA is 1024, 768 pixels with a certain amount of colors (can't remember off my head).
WSXGA is widescreen XGA, so the 'array' is bigger again so you can have a larger resolution.
UXGA is ultra XGA, same thing as above. Might have more colors.
WSUXGA is widescreen ultra XGA.
LCD screens have a 'native' resolution. This is the maximum resolution they can have and it is also the default and 'best' looking resolution, other resolutions will give blurring, which is bad for text.. however you don't notice in low resolution games.
The drives that don't say 7200RPM are most likely 5400RPM or less. If you want to save money go for the non 7200RPM drive and you probably won't notice the difference. If you do a lot of network file sharing and multi-tasking, programming etc go for 7200RPM.
80gigs is nice, I wanted one but didn't come in 7200RPM.
My Laptop was a lil' over $3k.
It's not that heavy, but I think a 80gig drive would add a bit more weight to it for sure.. Mine is probably as heavy as I would go, can't remember the weight off hand I'll look for the order form and tell you later. Mine is the best I could come up with for mobility and power. It'll play Doom III for sure, but probably only on 10242x768 (although I'd use a 1.6 ratio res if I could because I'm on widescreen) which is still pretty good.
Works doesn't have Excel, it has Works Spreadsheet and it isn't as good. Works wordprocessor doesn't compare to Word either. And it doesn't have outlook or powerpoint, or anything similar. I haven't' used the works database yet but I'm sure it sucks in comparison to access.
You won't be able to fit a custom soundcard in. The motherboard they use probably doesn't even have a port for it. The integrated sound isn't that bad, it hardly compares to say an audigy but it works, I get no distortion from the speakers either.
Windows comes pre-installed. As does a lot of dell junk. Spend a few minutes uninstalling and disabling the usual windows xp services you don't need and you'll be crusing along.
I got the $20 USB mouse with my system, works pretty well ...
Once again, thanks for your reply Mithoric.
A few more questions, if you allow me.
- Are the Dell laptops reasonably durable physically, in comparison to the other good brands? I'm one of those electronic junkies who kinda stress about durability before a purchase, such as before my purchase of my mp3 player, iPAQ pocket PC etc. I mean, I don't want the thing to just call it a day after a few little bumps here and there etc. I want something THAT expensive to last a few good years.
- They give you a copy of Windows right? Like a recovery CD or something.. I tend to have a habit of reformatting my drive every 6 months or so, and yeah, a OS CD would be useful lol.
- Why does the Inspiron 9100 series have the normal Pentium 4s instead of the mobile versions? I speculate that perhaps it's due to the fact that they can't reach very high clockspeeds with the mobile versions, or that perhaps the mobile versions themselves are detrimental to performance intensive applications.. such as maybe Doom III? I'm kinda worried now that the battery wont last long enough for me to do anything really productive. I mean, how long does a laptop with a 'normal Pentium 4' last with continuous use? Parallel to your suggestion, yes I was planning to order a second battery anyway.
- How exactly do the 'Dell LAN MiniPCI cards' work? It's like 60 extra bucks, and obviously it just gives you wireless LAN, and some other stuff. But is it like easy to set up? And all the other computers you intend to hook up with obviously have to have one of these cards aswell right?
- By speculation, I assume that the 'mobility' ATI Radeons give less overall performance than their normal desktop counterparts, but is the difference that much noticable?
A few more questions, if you allow me.
- Are the Dell laptops reasonably durable physically, in comparison to the other good brands? I'm one of those electronic junkies who kinda stress about durability before a purchase, such as before my purchase of my mp3 player, iPAQ pocket PC etc. I mean, I don't want the thing to just call it a day after a few little bumps here and there etc. I want something THAT expensive to last a few good years.
- They give you a copy of Windows right? Like a recovery CD or something.. I tend to have a habit of reformatting my drive every 6 months or so, and yeah, a OS CD would be useful lol.
- Why does the Inspiron 9100 series have the normal Pentium 4s instead of the mobile versions? I speculate that perhaps it's due to the fact that they can't reach very high clockspeeds with the mobile versions, or that perhaps the mobile versions themselves are detrimental to performance intensive applications.. such as maybe Doom III? I'm kinda worried now that the battery wont last long enough for me to do anything really productive. I mean, how long does a laptop with a 'normal Pentium 4' last with continuous use? Parallel to your suggestion, yes I was planning to order a second battery anyway.
- How exactly do the 'Dell LAN MiniPCI cards' work? It's like 60 extra bucks, and obviously it just gives you wireless LAN, and some other stuff. But is it like easy to set up? And all the other computers you intend to hook up with obviously have to have one of these cards aswell right?
- By speculation, I assume that the 'mobility' ATI Radeons give less overall performance than their normal desktop counterparts, but is the difference that much noticable?
breaking
paint huffing moron
is HP a good brand?
Well my dell which although I've only had for about a month now but I'm happy with the durability, it's not like I throw it around or anything but I hold it in one hand and it get's swung a round a big when I walk in a crowded corridor or something and I dropped it a few inches onto a table accidently and it's fine.
It's a pretty solid computer, and the top of the laptop is aluminium.
A high 1.xGhz pentium m processor will rival a 2.xGhz pentium 4 processor in performance.
They give you a recovery cd, the serial for which is on a sticker under the laptop, this is like the standard for laptops for some weird reason.
A Dell Lan MiniPCI card is just a small PCI 10/100mbps LAN card. The wireless LAN is built into the motherboard I think, well it should be. They only offer Centrino based computers which have to have wireless built in. It is dell brand so I think that is where the extra $60 comes in.
As for the wireless LAN it's pretty simple. If you are in range of another wireless source, be it an access point or just another computer with a wireless card windows will notify you (unless you tell it not to) and you can just select the computer or access point and click connect (unless you tell it to do so automatically) ..
The performance difference between the mobility radeons and the desktop variants will not be significant enough to notice. They just run on lower and varied voltages and also are a different form factor to the desktop ones. My radeon 9600 pro turbo 128mb runs 1680x1050 in most games with no lag at all (like unreal II, halo, ut2k3, ron, bf)
And yes John Carmack is god..
It's a pretty solid computer, and the top of the laptop is aluminium.
A high 1.xGhz pentium m processor will rival a 2.xGhz pentium 4 processor in performance.
They give you a recovery cd, the serial for which is on a sticker under the laptop, this is like the standard for laptops for some weird reason.
A Dell Lan MiniPCI card is just a small PCI 10/100mbps LAN card. The wireless LAN is built into the motherboard I think, well it should be. They only offer Centrino based computers which have to have wireless built in. It is dell brand so I think that is where the extra $60 comes in.
As for the wireless LAN it's pretty simple. If you are in range of another wireless source, be it an access point or just another computer with a wireless card windows will notify you (unless you tell it not to) and you can just select the computer or access point and click connect (unless you tell it to do so automatically) ..
The performance difference between the mobility radeons and the desktop variants will not be significant enough to notice. They just run on lower and varied voltages and also are a different form factor to the desktop ones. My radeon 9600 pro turbo 128mb runs 1680x1050 in most games with no lag at all (like unreal II, halo, ut2k3, ron, bf)
And yes John Carmack is god
..Sweet, thanks for all great your help mate. I'm pretty much all set, just a little worried about the sound card, since that will pretty much be the only real thing detrimental to my gaming.
At the moment I've got a Sound Blaster Live! card in my desktop, and I always use my $70 Sony streets headphones when playing games, and it seems to give me pretty good sound quality and a certain scope of surround realism. Do you think that the integrated sound card will be that much more worse than the Live! card I've got in my desktop right now? (Assuming that I'll be using headphones for the laptop too).
At the moment I've got a Sound Blaster Live! card in my desktop, and I always use my $70 Sony streets headphones when playing games, and it seems to give me pretty good sound quality and a certain scope of surround realism. Do you think that the integrated sound card will be that much more worse than the Live! card I've got in my desktop right now? (Assuming that I'll be using headphones for the laptop too).
Well they used to be a front runner in the computer market. But nowadays they hardly compare to Dell and custom solutions from places like www.emagen.com.au ... Depends on your needs though and your financial situation. If you don't need financing and you want to do word processing, get something like a Benq joybook. If you don't need financing and you want to play games go for a custom from emagen or a similar business. However if you need financing I have posted some helpful info above about finding the right notebook for your needs.
Another thing, does practically all the companys' you buy off give you the same old crap in Windows? I.e you buy off Dell, you get a whole heap of Dell crap already in Windows when you first boot up, is this the same for a notebook from the other major companys like Toshiba, Compaq etc.?
- Status