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Warwick

Warwick

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Feb 17, 2006
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Mod Note: This thread is now for any IT related questions to be asked and (hopefully) answered by those with some knowledge in the field.

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I'm looking at getting a new laptop and need a bit of advice on the best ones out there.

Basically I will be using it primarily to surf the web and use Microsoft applications, and possibly download movies/tv shows etc. I don't play computer games or anything like that.

I'm looking at something around the $1600-$2000 price bracket and around a 13' screen. I don't need it to have a particularly long battery life.
I've heard mixed reports on many models and there are so many reviews out there.

Any help out there for a non-tech-savy n00b? Any advice on the best places to buy as well would be much appreciated.
 
Re: What laptop should I buy?

Your post couldn't have come at a better time for me....I'm thinking of getting one too, and I've got no clue as to what to get or even how they work!..

Will be interested in the answers you get:)..
 
Re: What laptop should I buy?

Apple MacBook. They have come down considerably in price, particularly in the lead up to the launch of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system.

My three year old laptop died a couple of weeks ago and I lost everything, apart from a backup to external hard drive, one year ago. It had been degrading the last year or so - 10 minutes to start up, 10 minutes to shut down, sound system warped, following a trojan attack.

I was surprised that the Mac doesn't require any of the virus/phishing etc protection, which is an additional yearly cost.

The only extras I bought were Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, email system called Entourage) for Mac, and two additional years of warranty.

PM for the price and shop. Don't think Chief likes this forum to be used for unpaid advertising.

I will never go back to Windows or PC.
 

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Re: What laptop should I buy?

I have a Toshiba "Satellite pro". I won't be getting another. In fact, the only reason to get another laptop would be for when traveling to download photos and to have internet connection. Otherwise, no more laptops for me. They cost too much and break down to often.
 
Re: What laptop should I buy?

Crimso said:
I have a Toshiba "Satellite pro". I won't be getting another. In fact, the only reason to get another laptop would be for when traveling to download photos and to have internet connection. Otherwise, no more laptops for me. They cost too much and break down to often.
Click to expand...

Satellites are their vanilla model to be fair. The Tecra series Toshiba make have always been excellent products.

Stay away from LG.
 
Re: What laptop should I buy?

I have an ASUS and it's a pretty good laptop only ever had one issue with it. That was when it started up after a windows update and no files or anything appeared then I restarted and every thing was magically there again lol. The battery life is average - around 2 hours.
 
Re: What laptop should I buy?

Since the stuff you will be doing is pretty low power stuff you should just get a $500-600 jobbie and replace it after the warranty runs out. In 4 years time when you have spent $2k on laptops, you will find that your latest cheap unit will be a better pc than any 4 year old $2000 unit.... and would be in better condition too.
 
Re: What laptop should I buy?

TurboHead said:
Since the stuff you will be doing is pretty low power stuff you should just get a $500-600 jobbie and replace it after the warranty runs out. In 4 years time when you have spent $2k on laptops, you will find that your latest cheap unit will be a better pc than any 4 year old $2000 unit.... and would be in better condition too.
Click to expand...

For a cheapie, go the PC, always a danger of viruses though with .exe's and .dll's, which you don't get on a Mac (Unix system)
 
Re: What laptop should I buy?

Go for an Asus. Good laptops, reasonable price, work well. Plus they are one of the very few companies that have a service centre in brisbane. Not that i've had any issues with mine but nice to know that they don't have to send it interstate if there is an issue.
 

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Re: What laptop should I buy?

Fatcat08 said:
Go for an Asus. Good laptops, reasonable price, work well. Plus they are one of the very few companies that have a service centre in brisbane. Not that i've had any issues with mine but nice to know that they don't have to send it interstate if there is an issue.
Click to expand...

I got my Asus from the Umart store in Milton, great service and they help you find the right one your after and I was in and out in 20-30 minutes. Website here: http://www.umart.com.au/pro/newpost.phtml?bid=2
 
Re: What laptop should I buy?

Disclaimer: I sell PC's, Notebooks and Macs.

If you're looking for the best deal, i can tell you that with notebooks you won't get much discounts in the form of haggling as the retailers margins are generally very low (5%ish). However your large chains seem to do some great deals especially around their busy shopping times as they buy 1 model in bulk and can sell that for lower prices than what i usually can get from my distributor.

Haggis and DC are both right. Toshibas are generally very good and Macs have a really good rep when it comes to support and reliability.

One guy that purchased a Mac from me a few years ago found it froze on him once while in Sydney. He went into the big Apple store in the CBD and got it fixed there on the spot. Needed a new hard drive, was about 6 months out of warranty, didn't purchase from them and they just replaced it, just like that. I don't understand how their business model allows that because as i said, margins are tiny. However, i guess i am posting the experience passed onto me on a forum now. What better advertising can Apple ask for?

Although i sell Macs, i don't use one. I've always been a PC guy only because of the price:performance ratio. But Mac prices have come down lately and my next notebook may well be a Mac.

Word of warning though, stay away from eBay. Many sellers there sell reconditioned electricals without saying so and you find yourself without a warranty.
 
Re: What laptop should I buy?

Warwick said:
I'm looking at getting a new laptop and need a bit of advice on the best ones out there.

Basically I will be using it primarily to surf the web and use Microsoft applications, and possibly download movies/tv shows etc. I don't play computer games or anything like that.

I'm looking at something around the $1600-$2000 price bracket and around a 13' screen. I don't need it to have a particularly long battery life.
I've heard mixed reports on many models and there are so many reviews out there.

Any help out there for a non-tech-savy n00b? Any advice on the best places to buy as well would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...

If you don't play games, the best option IMO is a MacBook (base model).
You can get an educational or salary sacrifice it and put it around ~<$1500 (possibly $1300), with 13" monitor. Just go to MacBook store in the city or wherever

Just make sure you don't get any "add-ons" or "apple-care" crap, it really isn't worth it.

From a "noob friendly" perspective, I just think the Mac OS X is superior in terms of just getting "basic stuff" done without having to worry about like about all this spyware, antivirus, security, registry cleaning or what not software you need just to maintain your PC.

However, the trade off with having less "issues/problems", is that there are far less variety of something you can download. Rather than having say 50 bit torrent clients, you'll just have like 3 really good ones you can use.

There is Microsoft Office and all that for MacOS.

Another advantage is you can run windows using Virtual software on the MacBook, but the same can't be applied vice versa.

FYI: I've used all types of laptops and PCs, dell, asus, macbook. For games enthusiasts I would not recommend the Mac.
 
Re: What laptop should I buy?

Hey mate, did you end up buying that laptop?

I am going with a 13" MacBook Pro with a solid-state hard drive but that is coming in a little over your price range. The only reason I am going with a laptop is because I travel a heap for work (average 100 flights a year) so I NEED a laptop for portability.

Before I travelled, I only got desktops - hard drives do not like being moved around too much; therefore desktops will always be more stable and less prone to data loss etc.

It is also the reason why I am going with a solid state hard drive as it has no moving parts and so is less prone to data loss when traveling...

If you are sold on going with a PC platform, go with a Dell; they seem to be really good.

The only thing that you should absolutely never do is make the mistake of using FlexiRent or similar to finance your purchase...
 
Re: What laptop should I buy?

Just on the topic of data loss. Anyone using a laptop to run their business or do significant amounts of work on, should have an external hard drive sitting at home they can back up to every time they come in. I've seen a engineers lose 6-12 months worth of CAD work on massive projects, an ugly scene, and it's so easily avoidable. Not doing so is asking for trouble. There is only so much we tech geeks can do to recover data. If you've had a massive head crash on your drives, platters have been magnetised etc, there is nothing that will save your work. Also, keep a USB memory stick on your keyring or around your neck or in the briefcase. Any critical file you finish working on, whack it in & back it up once you're done. Then at least if the computer craps itself, what matters isn't lost.
 
Re: What laptop should I buy?

Haggis McHaggis said:
Just on the topic of data loss. Anyone using a laptop to run their business or do significant amounts of work on, should have an external hard drive sitting at home they can back up to every time they come in. I've seen a engineers lose 6-12 months worth of CAD work on massive projects, an ugly scene, and it's so easily avoidable. Not doing so is asking for trouble. There is only so much we tech geeks can do to recover data. If you've had a massive head crash on your drives, platters have been magnetised etc, there is nothing that will save your work. Also, keep a USB memory stick on your keyring or around your neck or in the briefcase. Any critical file you finish working on, whack it in & back it up once you're done. Then at least if the computer craps itself, what matters isn't lost.
Click to expand...

Damned good advice!
I lost some very critical files and managed to save a lot of junk. I now have that external drive I "was" going to get.
But how dependent on these critters should we be? They are only another hard drive aren't they & can crash just as easily as the one in the box?
 
Re: What laptop should I buy?

Crimso said:
Damned good advice!
I lost some very critical files and managed to save a lot of junk. I now have that external drive I "was" going to get.
But how dependent on these critters should we be? They are only another hard drive aren't they & can crash just as easily as the one in the box?
Click to expand...

They certainly can crash. In businesses where data security/storage is critical they will have the original work, backup drives there and also backup drives off-site in case of fire/flood etc. The avg home user can't really afford all of that if it's a sizable quantity of data you need to back up.

The main thing with keeping an external HDD at home is that it's going to get a lot less wear & tear than a laptop that's going everywhere with you. Hard drives are cheap as hell at the moment though, so it's quite affordable to keep a backup external hdd in the office and an identical one at home. I picked up two 1TB WD green drives (internal) on Monday for $99 a piece. I'd highly recommend Western Digital hard drives for their quality/durability, and would warn anyone away from Seagate especially. You'll find a lot of good deals on Seagate drives but they're hunks of s**t, prone to overheating & crapping themselves.

It all depends on how much data you need to store, but for most business users you could get away with spending $200 to have one external drive at home and one in the office that would ensure you never have that trouble again. It's ultimately worth it. Many people end up spending more than that burning disc after disc of the same s**t to back up, only to turf the old ones, and end up spending more on the discs than they would have on hard drives. And as someone that's lost data I'm sure Crimso could attest to the grey hairs that kind of setup would prevent ;)
 
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