Which Brand for Laptop?

Try Toshiba - I had one and they're brill.

<font color=purple><b>Techie2001</font color=purple></b>
<i>(Crazy Alien)</i>
If it ain't broke, Don't fix it.

I had to send my toshiba away to have a bios password removed - The battery trick didn't work. And the machine was back to me in less than a week. no fuss no hassle. Plus they leave the Hdd intact rather than cleaning it like some companies do when you send your machine in for repair.

<font color=purple><b>Techie2001</font color=purple></b>
<i>(Crazy Alien)</i>
If it ain't broke, Don't fix it.

Ok, I've got him thinking about what he wants exactly. He'll be flying from one side of the state to the other once a week which is the reason he'll want a nice and big screen, lightweight, etc etc. There is only one problem that I just found out. The company he'll be working for is exclusively Mac. He can still get a PC, but I now have to consider the Titanium G4 (I don't think the other apple laptop is going to cut it for business. Too fruity). I need to find a PC that has everything a Titanium does thought to make this simpler. I don't really want him getting a Mac since I can't mooch off his software then I see that you can get a 15" screen just about anywhere, but what do the different types mean? What's a good, average, and top of the line screen?

Note: I think you just answered my last question, but are those the only screens out there nowadays?

<font color=red>God</font color=red> <font color=blue>Bless</font color=blue> <font color=red>America!</font color=red><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by dhlucke on 12/28/01 11:47 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

SXGA and UXGA are different in the number of pixels they have. In addition to having the highest resolution, the Ultra XGA is also the sharpest, brightest, and clearest out of the three. Note, your dad can also change the resolution to whatever fits his taste.

Hmmm....something equal to a G4 Titanium....probably nothing unless he plans on spending $2000+. Sure you can get the 8100 Inspiron model with the top-o-the line specs, but at a hefty 8 lbs. plus! IMO, I still think the 4100 Inspiron has the best balance between price, performance, and weight. Add the fastest PIII-M CPU and an ATI Mobile Radeon with 64mb of DDR, you have something that can compete with the G4.

See a real naked pic of Britney Spears <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/stick_e_mouse" target="_new">here</A>!!!

I can't sleep so you are getting advice if you want it or not. You mentioned that you wanted a light laptop but did not indicate the features you want. All the really light laptops are lacking something. Also a 15" is not going to be anywhere near as light as even a 14". ProStar has a 14" loaded with everything for under $1800.00 and a price drop is comming a matter of days (see next post for price update). When I say everything I'm talking 1.26GHz, 40GB, 512ram, dvd player/cdr/cdrw writer combo drive, 100base, 56k, li-ion, case, ac adapter, floppy, firewire and xp. Check out the 2273 at <A HREF="http://www.pro-star.com/" target="_new">http://www.pro-star.com/</A> under web specials. I weighs about 6.5lbs and has everything. Can you tell I want one? My little company sells ProStar and we have really good luck with them. You can get a ProStar direct under web specials for about what we pay for them so you would have no advantage in buying from me nor would I make any money so if you want one go ahead and buy direct. I just mentioned that we sell them so you would know something about how reliable they are.

You could find a lighter laptop if you are willing to give up a spindle or two. For example you could loose the floppy and save some weight. Be careful some makers rate the weight at a minimum configuration. ProStar is not the prettiest but I believe they offer great price for what you get. They do have a couple of 15" setups but the old one is really heavy(9.5lbs) and the new one is really expensive ($2400).

Remember if you ain't Muslim you ain't Shiite.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by lakedude on 01/05/02 05:49 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Good info. Thanks. I'm just waiting for my Dad to let me know when he's ready. I'll look into them as well.

<font color=red>God</font color=red> <font color=blue>Bless</font color=blue> <font color=red>America!</font color=red>

Buy a Tohsiba Tecra. I work as a Systems Engineer and first bought Toshiba's back in 1994. My Company buys Toshiba exclusively. However through testing, we found that the only model is the Tecra. (The 8100 or 8200 is good). I've installed Windows 2000 on models of Toshiba's that are three years old and never have a problem installing the operating system. Toshiba keeps up with the driver updates. I personally own a Gateway Solo and they quit building drivers for my laptop. I can't even upgrade to XP or 2000. I talked to Gateway about it and pretty was told tuff.

Good Luck

While I'm sure that Pro-Star's prices are very good, I would go with a big brand name on a notebook, if I were you. Dell, (some of the best, but you do pay a premium) Compaq, (their desktops are crappy, but their mid-to-high end laptops have always been good) Sony, (great-looking laptops that come loaded with features and software for the multimedia user) and Toshiba. (Probably the best bang for the buck as far as balancing performance and features)

Why would I recommend them over a company like Pro-Star or Seager(sp?) or other no-name brands? Support. Mobile users are going to find that if they need support, it's not like a desktop, where their techie friend can throw a few new components in and get it back to spec. Notebooks are proprietary beasts, and parts are expensive. Plus, the work generally has to be done by the manufacturer or by someone authorised by them do work on their machines. All the brands I listed come with good support and service options, and the non-Dell ones can be purchased at quality retailers who offer their own service and maintainence options above and beyond the manufacturers' own.

Also, as was mentioned elsewhere, those Pro-Star deals look suspiciously like desktop CPUs jammed into notebook form factors, which can cause all sorts of problems with heat and power consumption.

I'd be more worried about overheating issues, actually. If you don't use the thing for more than an hour at a time, you probably won't have that problem, but what happens after say, six hours straight. Would they survive a 72-hour burn-in process?

I won't unleash the "they made stuff better back then" cliche...promise.

I'm not suggesting that. What I always look for in a product is the support the manufacturer and/or reseller will offer me in the event that I am either unsatisfied with my purchase, or have some sort of problem with it. Why do you think places like Consumer Reports and the like factor in reliability and service/support in their reviews? Of course you don't WANT something to go wrong with anything you buy, but you don't WANT to become ill, either, and I am sure you've been ill at least once in your life. I know I have. I've also had service issues with products I have bought. The companies that stood by their products get my business again; the ones that don't, don't. End of story.

As far as knowing how good or bad service from Prostar is, I honestly do not know. I do know that the most difficult-to-repair notebooks that my work deals with are the "off-brand" ones, mostly due to the cost of parts, but also because of how difficult they are to get. You're talking about a company that probably doesn't do a fraction of the business that, say, Compaq does, so it's no surprise that they don't keep a big backstock of parts available like Compaq would. (and MUST)

It's great that you have had such luck with your system. I'm not knocking you for buying from a brand you have come to trust. I can only speak for the people I have dealt with professionally in regards to servicing products, and based on that, I would tend towards recommending "big name" brands for mobile computing.

As a caveat, remember that I am dealing with UNHAPPY people. People who have defective merchandise that needs to be serviced. So they are obviously going to have a MUCH different opinion of someone like Prostar or Seagar or whomever, just like someone stuck with a broken Compaq is going to have a much different opinion of the company than the person who's never had issues with Compaq. products.

what u people on about...?

looking for a light laptop? there are tons of them at about only 3-4 lbs or so... and less than an inch thick.

I would go check out the Asus or Acer brands of laptops

http://notebooks.asus.com/
http://www.acer.com/us

since you no looking for something that has the power for a graphic designer on the go, these system they wold robably be enough. They are all only the half the price of the G4 Titanium... ( what gives $3600 bucks for a 667 Mhz system..? Does apple really think people are on crack?)

anyways if u have the money to shell.. then I would look into the systems that are offered in Japan by the major brands like Sony, IBM, Toshiba, and Panasonic. We are talking about really cool systems that are less than 3 lbs.

you can see some of them at

http://www.dynamism.com

they specialized in bring the products that are targeted for the Japanese and asian market into the US.




O_o

Remember, the iBook's processor is a RISC processor. A totally different architecture that will run rings around x86 processors with clock speeds nearly twice as high, depending on the application. Macs excel at certain types of tasks (graphics, video, desktop publishing) and are aimed primarily at the professionals involved in such businesses.

I ain't no Apple expert but I know MHz ain't everything. Ask any AMD owner. If a 1.7G chip can do the work of a 2.1G chip why not buy it? Same goes for Apple. I believe their cpus are running twice the buss width so a 667MHz Apple would be roughly the same as a 1.3G Intel. Throw in a better OS and some custom apps and you could easily be faster then anything Intel sells.

Remember if you ain't Muslim you ain't Shiite.

Well, if you're comparing speeds on two COMPLETELY different processors, all the specs in the world won't tell you much. Look at the benchmarks. You can't compare CPU speed, bus speed, bus width. The truth is, a whole lotta stuff goes into the speed of a machine, not just quick labels.

As for which brand of laptop to look at, anyone with any experience will tell you to go with the brands with good reps. That pretty much boils down to Dell and Sony, then Compaq (though if you aren't a corporation they'll rape you on the price and just about everything else) and HP (not as bad as compaq, but not far off). Toshiba used to have good standing, but reports from all over suggest that their quality has gone down extremely and so has their support.

As far as Mac versus PC, if you're a mac user, get a mac, if you're a PC user get a PC. Both styles have the power needed to get the job done, the major software is offered for both (specialized is a bit more sketchy) and Mac's have had a better rep for multimedia, but that gap has closed a fair amount.

Unfortunately people get picky about mac/PC, I learned a long time ago that they both do the job, it's just a matter of preference. I'm not a mac-ish person so I get PC's. But Mac OS X looks pretty good. In fact from what I've seen it's a bit better than any recent Windows OS.

This is my first time at this site. I currently use a Web Terminal. I have never used a PC. I will buy one over the next 2 wks.<P> I am retired,travel a lot, & need a PC to track/research my stock market investments. I read a lot on the internet & surf a lot. Sometimes play games.<P>I lean towards a Notebook for mobility, price is no problem, at 66 yrs old this will probably be my one & only PC buy.<P> Please Advise, Please keep it simple, remember I know nothing.<P> Thank You!

You said it: CPU-speed isn't everything. The G3 processor is about the same performance as the equivalent clockspeed Intel chip. However, the G4... not sure about the official numbers, ; however, the new dual G4 1.25GHz desktop is supposed to be screaming fast.

However, this is all child's talk. All I have to say is this: go and try a Mac. If you don't like it, then fine; go back to the PC world. Just try it out.

The one-button mouse idea is a stupid remnant of the past that MAC sooner or later will have to drop; agree! However, you can put a 2 or 3 button mouse on the MAC, and the "APPLE" button in conjunction with the mouse IS a right mouse button, it's just a matter of getting using to it. I usually don't like to use the mouse: too slow. I love the key-bindings that I'm used to on Windoze (in the 90's) and in Linux (now), but it turns out that Mac has a similar set of key-bindings for quick operations that doesn't even require a mouse.

Just try it. Go to your local MAC shop and click around a bit. Try some applications: see what you'll get for the relatively high prices. You''ll get great hardware, including CD-RW and DVD (-R on some systems!), a fantastic screen, great design, long battery lifetime, etc. See what all this would add up to on a PC-laptop! To match the battery lifetime of a MAC, you'd need one or two extra batteries (at ~$100 each!); the higher resolution screens (SXGA and UXGA) really adds to the price...

Last, but not least: do you really want to run Windows? Have you seen recent reports on Slashdot and Wired on the re-occurence of security holes in IE and Outlook? I wouldn't wanna touch that sh*t with a stick. Slashdot also reported one of the leaked documents on an MS server that basically outlines why "BSD [UNIX] is better than Windows". Funny.

<b><font color=blue>gnintsakgnirkskir ksron</font color=blue></b>