Need some laptop suggestions

[Pugs]

That said remember that viruses for OS X do exist... they are FAR less common and you generally dont have to worry about them, but they are not unheard of.

Technically (insert geek emoticon here) Trojan Horse's exist for Mac/Unix not viruses. Unless you get tricked into typing your sys admin password it's virtually impossible to get owned. That being said, they're pretty much as vulnerable to MS office malware as anything else.

 

[Brett327]

Depending on your needs/usage, I would look into the Asus notebooks. My laptop died a few months ago, and as a student, I didn't want to shell out 2k.

http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-1005HA-P...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1251917818&sr=8-1

I have one similar to this and its all less the $400. Keyboard is slightly smaller than full size, but only took about 10 minutes to get used to. Smaller screen is annoying if you are the type to run 4 programs at once though. Not as much memory as the bigger laptops, but I have several movies stored on mine as well as tons of music and it runs great. Plus the battery life is amazing - it really does go about 8 hours on a single charge.

I'll second the ASUS line. I've used their motherboards for years in my desktops and bought a really nice laptop last year. Very happy with their performance and customer service. Best prices for them are going to be online, so do your research there.

Don't buy a Mac.

Brett

 

[porw0004]

I love that the last two posters were NFO's.

*cough*

All due respect, of course, gentlemen.
(In reality I'm probably just as much a geek, if not moreso)

 

[Raptor2216]

I just purchased this one a few weeks ago and I love it: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9370049&type=product&id=1218093003998

I looked at the Mac's but they are wayyyyy over priced for some silly ass reasons. I have had 3 or 4 PC's and never had one go out on me because of a virus or whatever else Mac will have you believe. I also didn't want to spend another couple hundred bucks trying to set it up for PC software I like using. I just don't see the point in paying twice as much for half the capability so that's my suggestion.

Check circuitcity.com because they have a bunch of sony laptops for cheaper than bestbuy. Good luck.

 

[BUDU]

I'll second the ASUS line. I've used their motherboards for years in my desktops and bought a really nice laptop last year. Very happy with their performance and customer service. Best prices for them are going to be online, so do your research there.

Don't buy a Mac.

Brett

I'll third it. My brother just bought their gaming model. Got it for $1000 and it runs like a charm. Little bulky for my taste, but to each his own.

 

[SynixMan]

I'm not going to get deep into this, but a MacBook is what you're looking for. There is a bit of a relearning curve to Mac OSX compared to Windows, but nothing you shouldn't be able to figure out quickly. Not bad, just "different". You can get into a MacBook for $949 w/ Military or Student pricing.

At this stage in the game, I'd only recommend a PC Laptop to a power user who knows their way around Windows, and how to fix the problems associated with it when they crop up, or someone that is married to a piece of PC-only software.

If you did get a PC, the only one's I might be able to recommend are Lenovo's ThinkPad line. Not their budget stuff. HP/Toshiba/Gateway is junk nowadays. Dell is okay I guess, had one as my company computer, nothing special. Sony has generally by higher priced boutique things, but has been coming down recently. Can't say much about ASUS besides the fact that they aren't very mainstream laptop wise. One's I've seen generally have good build quality, but tend to be vanilla/generic.

As to the value you are getting for $949, the Mac comes preloaded with iLife '09 which is a really nice software suite. iPhoto will import you pictures off camera/memory card and organize them by event, tag people's faces, upload quickly to MobileMe/Flickr/Facebook, and let you order calendars/photo albums/prints easily. iMovie and iDVD are great for video editing and making DVDs. View some cool videos here that explain how they work: http://www.apple.com/ilife/ . Additionally, your Mac won't need Virus and Spyware protection, so you save $$ there by not purchasing.

You may pay a bit more up front, but I highly doubt you'll regret it. I was a long time PC user and Mac hater (why are they so expensive? blah blah apple tax blah blah stupid OS X), but they really are better built hardware and software. Stuff just works, quite the opposite of many PCs out of the box. There are a lot of "Ah ha!" moments, where you wonder why you ever did without this. I've turned a lot of people onto Macs and no one has been disappointed.

 

[desertoasis]

I'd recommend a Mac, OP.

They aren't way overpriced for a silly reason, they're priced exactly as you would expect a high-quality machine to be priced. Macs are the BMWs of the computer world, in both brand-name purchasing power and in build quality. You're going to pay a little more (though that margin is rapidly diminishing, what with Apple's release of less expensive computers and their yet-to-be-announced touchscreen netbook; stay tuned ), but with that little amount more you're going to get hands-down the best-built machine in the business. Every major PC magazine and website (ars technica comes to mind) has nothing but good things to say about Apple's build quality and workmanship. If you're willing to shell out, you definitely won't be disappointed.

And the post about OS X taking almost no time to learn is right on. It's a bit of a change, but you get used to it really quickly.

Macs, however, are every bit as vulnerable to viruses and trojans and whatnot as PCs are, the reason that they aren't attacked hardly ever is threefold. One, Macs simply don't have a big enough market share to be worth the average hacker/identity thief's time. There are 10 PCs to every Mac out there, and its just not worth it to write a virus for UNIX systems. Second, UNIX systems are harder to write malicious software code for, because of the nature of the OS. I don't want to bore with technical details, but suffice to say that the nature of the UNIX roots upon which OS X was originally based, combined with the smaller market share as I mentioned above makes Macs a less desirable target for malware than Windows-based systems. Third, I can't think of a major government or official body that uses Apple hardware for anything, so almost the entire 'official' world is run off Windows and Microsoft Exchange Servers for email and whatnot. Personally, I think that the government and Fortune 500 companies could do with a little Mac efficiency (can you imagine?), but that's just wishful thinking on my part.

If you want a great gaming computer, get a PC. Macs still don't have anything on those overclocked jobbies. That said, I've been on Macs since high school and haven't looked back. Most Mac converts will probably say something similar.

Happy hunting!

 

[Pugs]

I love that the last two posters were NFO's.

It's worse.
We're both ECMO's
it's even worse than that, I'm a engineer,
it's even worse than that, I do some of this for a living and was actually a MS Certified System Engineer back in the Win2K days.

I still recommend a Mac.

 

[Ave8tor]

+5 for the Mac! I've had mine for 5 years now and it's still running strong!

 

[lowflier03]

Also highly recommend a Mac. I used to be against them for many years. I've owned and built numerous PC's; overclocked rigs for gaming, high powered rigs for gaming, normal PC's, laptops, Alienware, etc. Without a doubt the best purchase I have made was my Macbook. I keep an Alienware for video gaming purposes and hate even having to turn the thing on. Windows is such a clunky, error prone, inefficient OS it's incredible. Between Crossover and Bootcamp I now play almost all of my video games on the Macbook and it cost 1/3 of the Alienware. I could go on and on, but the Mac comes with tons of useful software already installed, has incredible battery life and will stay "useful" for much longer in the ever evolving world of computing than any PC will. If you add up the cost of equivalent software for Windows plus the time dealing with inevitable PC errors the Mac's are more than a bargain.

 

[christaphurrr]

I'm not nearly as technically oriented as other posters in this thread, but I bought a 13" Mac Pro a few weeks ago. I was torn between a Mac and an HP. I and my family have used HPs for a while, and I always got along fine with them.

I chose the Mac, and I have been really happy with it so far. After getting the hang of OS X, you can navigate it just as easily as Windows. I have found it to be a very easy transition. As far as price is concerned, yeah, there are less expensive laptops out there. There are also more expensive laptops out there, too. It all depends on what you compare it to.

 

[devil_dog_wife]

So majority of you guys say mac.. Most of my friends say mac.. I'm just not sure I'm ready for the big change. I guess I'll make a trip to the store to play with one for a while and see for myself. I have a few weeks to shop around and figure out exactly what I want.

Thanks for all of the suggestions!

 

[LazersGoPEWPEW]

So majority of you guys say mac.. Most of my friends say mac.. I'm just not sure I'm ready for the big change. I guess I'll make a trip to the store to play with one for a while and see for myself. I have a few weeks to shop around and figure out exactly what I want.

Thanks for all of the suggestions!

If you are close to an apple store they have lessons you can take to help you with the transition. However when I switched over I found it to be easier to deal with than windows even though I was extremely proficient in windows.

Also there is a wealth of information on Apple's website on how to use each program. This includes videos. The iLife suite opens up with an intro that plays a video to help you get started.

I've used PCs since DOS and I was proficient at a young age with Win 3.1 and so on and so forth.

I also used the early Apples.

PCs may be cheaper but unless you're really savvy it's pretty easy to pick up a virus or spyware, adware.

There are quite a few free programs out there to prevent it but some of the better programs cost money. PCs also need to be defragmented whereas not the case with OS X. You'll get your money's worth in upgrades when the OS is updated. PCs are bad but they aren't user friendly machines.

Also the support with Apple in my opinion is by far some of the best I've dealt with.

The slight extra cost is the assurance that you probably won't need to upgrade your hardware for 3-4 years. If you have any specific questions about using OS X feel free to PM me.

 

[QuagmireMcGuire]

Buy an eMachine. These sonuvabitches actually work!

 

[le lyon]

I had used a PC since I was in second grade, was extremely windows proficient, and was damn happy to upgrade to a mac my freshman year of college. There is no learning curve; they're literally retard-proof. I started out with an iBook (which still runs perfectly), then upgraded to a macbook pro last winter. They just run so much smoother. The price tag is a small aggravation; but in the long run I think it pays for itself if only in the grief and frustration it will save you. I use a computer for pretty much everything I do in school, so having a reliable machine is paramount. Even if you're just looking for something to upload photos with, the iLife software that macbooks come pre-loaded with has more than what you need.