Buying a laptop

[blueyecicle]

Re: Buying a laptop

I don't understand why most of these laptops only have 512 Ram...especially with Vista now running. Can't even Find one with 2GB! Heaven forbid!
And why do the salesmen INSIST I HAVE to have their GEEK squad do things? I can do it myself...then when I say no they act as if I was bombing the store!
How frustrating this shopping is.

[Ecntrc]

Re: Buying a laptop

Yup were in the process of buying a new one. With the kind of work I do I need something with atleast 2 gig harddrive and memory space. Thats what the dude at best buy told me. I still have yet to look around. It would be easier when I see clients, which I do need more of!! (hint hint) I can just bring it along. Make my life and clients ideas and suggestions come to life a little more.. But I like the toshiba ones. I like the security finger print. hehe. He also recommends AMD over intel celron processor.

[blueyecicle]

Re: Buying a laptop

Well, I think I set myself on a 850.00 HP. It has a T5200 Dual Core and 1 GB Ram and 120GB hard drive but I will add another GB of RAM. I hope it works well. I am skipping the protection plan! It is 250.00!!
If I start having issues I will buy one but My hubby works with a computer guy....he runs the entire company's computers...so i will take it to him if there is an issue.

[helen]

Re: Buying a laptop

With the kind of work I do I need something with atleast 2 gig harddrive and memory space. Thats what the dude at best buy told me.

Don't you mean 2 gigabytes (gigs) of RAM (memory space) and at least a 40 gigabyte hard drive?

[blueyecicle]

Re: Buying a laptop

Yup were in the process of buying a new one. With the kind of work I do I need something with atleast 2 gig harddrive and memory space. Thats what the dude at best buy told me. I still have yet to look around. It would be easier when I see clients, which I do need more of!! (hint hint) I can just bring it along. Make my life and clients ideas and suggestions come to life a little more.. But I like the toshiba ones. I like the security finger print. hehe. He also recommends AMD over intel celron processor.

That's funny because the guy at Best Buy lastnight told me NO on the AMD! LOL he recommended not getting it!
I think it depends on their own experience or something! They are all just liek car salesmen! Can't believe a word they say....at leats that it is cynical approach I take....!

I walk in and say "DON'T try to sell me ANYTHING! I know what I need and if I want your advice I will ASK FOR IT!".....

Can ya tell I am done shopping???

[Ecntrc]

Re: Buying a laptop

I walk in and say "DON'T try to sell me ANYTHING! I know what I need and if I want your advice I will ASK FOR IT!".....

LMAO! haha that sounds like something I would do. I am pretty sure its all based on what they have been through and what they personally recommend. But he explained to me what he meant because I asked, since I would be running atleast 3 applications at the same time I need something that wont work work work hard and fast and then slow my comp and wont allow me to work as good when its slowing down and has to take time to start working fast again.. I want something working and working but not at a fast enough pace where it will have to slow itself down to I guess lets say recharge itself. Sorry if it dosent make sense, im trying to explain what hes said to me.

Don't you mean 2 gigabytes (gigs) of RAM (memory space) and at least a 40 gigabyte hard drive?

yeah i did mean 2 gigs of RAM and 120 gigabytes, the guy said 120 also equals out to 2 gigs. but im going to have husband and I go again and maybe try talk to different dude and see what he says.. we have maybe a couple weeks before they take our stuff to ship back to hawaii..

id like either this one
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1166236072092
or
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1166236115763

but im also thinking about it now, i wouldnt mind getting something with intel celeron processor. Ive used comps all the my life that uses intel but this is a laptop so I cant have it shutting down especially during a project for a client and possibly loosing everything. I would totally cry!

[helen]

Re: Buying a laptop

yeah i did mean 2 gigs of RAM and 120 gigabytes, the guy said 120 also equals out to 2 gigs.

Gigs is slang for giga, which is multiplier. Sometimes people would drop the word "bytes" when referring to RAM and/or hard disk space which is unit of storage. But a byte of RAM and byte of disk space holds the same amount of data, just that one can access it faster than the other (RAM is faster than disk space) and other one can retain longer than the first one (disk space stores it using magentically while RAM uses electricty to hold the data).

So a 120 gigs does not equal to 2 gigs.

[jimnyo]

Re: Buying a laptop

i looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooove my intel macbook, which we got last may. there was a problem with some of the macbook's (including mine) heat sinks, but applecare took care of it (thank god we got the extended 3 yr warranty--we almost never buy the extended warranties, but a friend pointed out with the portability of a laptop, it's worth the money b/c of the increased risk of something happening to it). we were also pc users but switched when the macs went intel. i originally had it partitioned with apple boot camp and had windows xp on the 2nd half, but it was taking too much space and i was NEVER using it (what a waste of money on buying xp again--sigh). if you're gonna use both windows and mac, i would just recommend that you upgrade your processor to 2ghz and memory to at least 1gb. and increase your hd space too b/c i only have 60gb and i found it filled up fast. i eventually removed the windows partition b/c i needed the space and i was never using windows. but even with that, i'm still finding i wish i had increased to 80gb.

[adrian]

Re: Buying a laptop

Yup were in the process of buying a new one. With the kind of work I do I need something with atleast 2 gig harddrive and memory space. Thats what the dude at best buy told me. I still have yet to look around. It would be easier when I see clients, which I do need more of!! (hint hint) I can just bring it along. Make my life and clients ideas and suggestions come to life a little more.. But I like the toshiba ones. I like the security finger print. hehe. He also recommends AMD over intel celron processor.

Right now, for the price you can get a pretty good Core 2 Duo.

I think there's a few laptops with 2gb of RAM and 120gb HDs when I went to circuit city a few weeks ago.

(and don't listen to those people on the other board, we're one big happy family of mistake makers)

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Buying a laptop

LMAO! haha that sounds like something I would do. I am pretty sure its all based on what they have been through and what they personally recommend. But he explained to me what he meant because I asked, since I would be running atleast 3 applications at the same time I need something that wont work work work hard and fast and then slow my comp and wont allow me to work as good when its slowing down and has to take time to start working fast again.. I want something working and working but not at a fast enough pace where it will have to slow itself down to I guess lets say recharge itself. Sorry if it dosent make sense, im trying to explain what hes said to me.


yeah i did mean 2 gigs of RAM and 120 gigabytes, the guy said 120 also equals out to 2 gigs. but im going to have husband and I go again and maybe try talk to different dude and see what he says.. we have maybe a couple weeks before they take our stuff to ship back to hawaii..

but im also thinking about it now, i wouldnt mind getting something with intel celeron processor. Ive used comps all the my life that uses intel but this is a laptop so I cant have it shutting down especially during a project for a client and possibly loosing everything. I would totally cry!

Why go with 2 GB of RAM but limit yourself to the small cache size of an Celeron?

What kind of applications are you doing that requires 2GB? If it's just Powerpoint presentations 1Gb is sufficient, heck I've run PP on 512Mb with no crashes.

You have to remember another thing, when using more RAM, your power requirements go up. If your power supply is a 90-Watt module and you're running a P4 laptop, running 2 gigs of RAM and taxing your video chipset can cause the system to shut down if you try to run multiple apps. Now with Dual Core running I can't imagine what the power requirements are for those.

For most business applications 512Mb is sufficient and even a modest 80Gb hard drive enough. It's when you start loading up with your personal video collection is when you really need to up the storage. Now if you're a serious gamer, then 2Gb is where you start.

It comes down to what your applications are.

[blueyecicle]

Re: Buying a laptop

Why go with 2 GB of RAM but limit yourself to the small cache size of an Celeron?

What kind of applications are you doing that requires 2GB? If it's just Powerpoint presentations 1Gb is sufficient, heck I've run PP on 512Mb with no crashes.

You have to remember another thing, when using more RAM, your power requirements go up. If your power supply is a 90-Watt module and you're running a P4 laptop, running 2 gigs of RAM and taxing your video chipset can cause the system to shut down if you try to run multiple apps. Now with Dual Core running I can't imagine what the power requirements are for those.

For most business applications 512Mb is sufficient and even a modest 80Gb hard drive enough. It's when you start loading up with your personal video collection is when you really need to up the storage. Now if you're a serious gamer, then 2Gb is where you start.

It comes down to what your applications are.

Good info Craig, thanks.

[reineke]

Re: Buying a laptop

I agree, however the two laptops come with Vista preinstalled and that thing needs at least 1 gig just to stay pretty and not crash. Vista'll basically eat two gigs for breakfast.

Dedicated video card, 7200 RPM hard drives, multiple drives, large extra bright screens etc all consume more power.

Core 2 duo is very efficient, however the cpu of the first laptop she linked is a dual core AMD Turion. These are cheaper but also less powerful and energy efficient than core 2 duo's and they heat up more. The second laptop is based on core duo technology -older than core 2 duo and less desirable - no reason to buy it now.

Dual core cpu's are optimized for multiple heavy-duty applications. I'd stick with Core 2 duo -they're cheap enough and install Windows XP regardless of the amount of RAM you settle on. Check newegg and HP sites, steer clear of stores except to get a good feeling of what you want to buy. Forget about Celeron.

Why go with 2 GB of RAM but limit yourself to the small cache size of an Celeron?

What kind of applications are you doing that requires 2GB? If it's just Powerpoint presentations 1Gb is sufficient, heck I've run PP on 512Mb with no crashes.

You have to remember another thing, when using more RAM, your power requirements go up. If your power supply is a 90-Watt module and you're running a P4 laptop, running 2 gigs of RAM and taxing your video chipset can cause the system to shut down if you try to run multiple apps. Now with Dual Core running I can't imagine what the power requirements are for those.

For most business applications 512Mb is sufficient and even a modest 80Gb hard drive enough. It's when you start loading up with your personal video collection is when you really need to up the storage. Now if you're a serious gamer, then 2Gb is where you start.


It comes down to what your applications are.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Buying a laptop

Just for kicks I ran my bench computer on Vista and pulled the amount of memory down from 1Gb to 256Mb.

It ran just fine. BTW my bench computer is a PIII running less than 833Mhz.

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Buying a laptop

Microsoft recommends 1GB. Past experience with MS's "recommendations" is take that a double it for decent real-life performance.

I know WinXP can run in 256MB, but it won't take off and run properly until it gets about 512MB.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Buying a laptop

Microsoft recommends 1GB. Past experience with MS's "recommendations" is take that a double it for decent real-life performance.

I know WinXP can run in 256MB, but it won't take off and run properly until it gets about 512MB.

I agree big difference from 256Mb to 512Mb on XP. Not too much difference after that though.

I ran my same bench computer on XP at 128Mb and yeah it loaded up a bit slower but once booted up and on the internet, there wasn't much difference as compared to 512Mb until you started to stream audio or video.