As for the computer: I've recently read in a computer magazine that Intel's new dual- and quad-core chips use less electricity than their predecessors. That's pretty important in a laptop. Also, a huge harddrive never hurts. If you do a lot of work with graphics, make sure the graphics card has oodles of memory. And at least two gigs of RAM makes everything run smoother, especially if you're having to use Vista. If you're using XP, 1 GB is usually enough (it is for me).
About all the rest: go for the cheapest. Unless you're an avid gamer, you'll never notice the difference. If you are an avid on-line gamer: go for the most expensive stuff.
Also, try to get a laptop with both a clitmouse and a touchpad. That way you can work with whichever is easiest for you instead of having to tense your arms all the time trying to move the mouse-pointer with something that just doesn't work for you. For me, the clitmouse works perfectly, while the touchpad is avoided at all costs. Other often hate the clitmouse and love the touchpad. Try before you buy, or buy both.
Last: ask Calle. He knows so much more about this than me. Or buy a magazine that's featuring a laptop test and go for the best buy.
I have 1.5G memory in mine, but I don't use MS-Windows, so mine is not so resource-hungry.
Partly it depends on what you want to use it for. If you find a laptop easy because you can use it anywhere in the house, but you can still connect it up to electricity, then battery life won't be so important to you. If you want to use it not connected to power, but out and about, then battery life will be more important to you.
A few things affect battery life: - CPU -- some CPUs are more power-hungry than others - memory -- having a generous amount of memory is good, because if you don't, and there isn't enough memory for the program you're running, then the computer has to swap out the memory onto the disk. This is undesirable in two respects: (a) swapping to disk requires disk-access, which consumes more power (b) it makes the program run slower. - the actual capacity of the battery. You can get big batteries which have more power or smaller batteries which have less power. For example, when I bought my laptop, it came with a large battery, which was supposed to have about 4 hours battery-life. When I replaced the battery, I got a small one, with 2 hours battery-life, because the way that I use my laptop on the bus, I really don't need 4 hours battery life, since the bus trip to work is only about an hour.
Another thing to consider is the trade-off between size and portability. A lot of laptops nowadays have desktop-sized screens, which make for a very large (heavy) laptop. On the other hand, you can get ones with small screens (12") which are very portable, but the screen and the keyboard are small. Mine is somewhere in-between, with a 14" wide-screen screen, which I find a good compromise between weight and usability.
As for the mousing interface, that's tricky, because no matter which one you have, it's going to drive you nuts because you will accidentally brush against the mouse-thing with a finger while you're typing, and it will move in some random direction. 8-(
It's not going to travel much, so the battery isn't a big issue (though it's too bad they haven't got the remote chargers on the market yet). It will live on the table in front of my easy chair, unless I'm sick, when I shall take it to bed. The primary reason I'm getting it is because it's too hard now to sit here and type, and I'm tired of not being able to talk to my friends and work on stories; the secondary reason, because this one is getting old and cranky--I think I told you about Dad's tendency to buy the minimum configuration with an eye to upgrading later. I have decided that this is an enormous mistake, and the new computer will be bought with everything it needs included. Essentially the laptop will replace this computer, and this computer will have an older OS installed to run some legacy games that bibliohippo and I would like to play.
Part of me would like a larger screen; the recent ads here are often 17". But I need it to be lightweight, so I suspect I will opt for about 14".
I do still have to decide whether I want to put my printer on a wireless network, or just E-mail files to this computer to print. And (as I said above to jthijsen, I have to decide whether to use it to manage my media, or handle those some other way.
Well, there's the tried and true "pros and cons" method: list the pros (plusses) and cons (minuses) of each option, and weigh them up like that. Maybe you could give them points and add them up?
Actually, I have (somewhere) a computer program that will do just that--though first, of course, I have to figure out what the pros and cons are. ;-)
Techboy seems to think that any standard configuration that will run Vista will do pretty much anything I need; but then, I suspect Techboy has always underestimated the degree of control I want over the system.
I suspect Techboy has always underestimated the degree of control I want over the system
Maybe you really should get a Mac. It's the best of both worlds, I think -- has good commercial software for it, but has the flexibility of Unix "under the hood".
At the moment, it would be nearly impossible for me to get a Mac serviced if it had problems. With the PC, I have four people within a ten-minute drive who can repair it for me for free. Thus, I opt for the PC. :) Though I do hope to have a Mac someday.
Thanks! Every ad I've seen has dual-core processors, and I'm looking for at least 2 GB of memory; I have decided to get XP installed, but want enough power to run Vista if that becomes necessary in a couple of years.
The graphics card is puzzling. I don't play a lot of first-person shooters, but I've noticed that even the point-and-click online games are starting to be more than my current computer can handle. Shoot, even the animated ads on LJ's sign-in page are crashing my browsers. But I'm not sure whether that is due to the graphics card or the amount of memory they take, or what. I don't think I need a high-end card, but I don't know which ones are which. I guess just go for moderately priced?
I don't expect to use the laptop's mouse much, I will get a wireless optical mouse. This computer is really to replace my desktop; it won't be moving around much. I'm thinking 160 or 320 GB harddrive, and a big external drive to hold music and games (one of our local stores recently had a terabyte drive on sale for $250). It would be really nice if I could store all the CDs on the computer and play them remotely through my stereo.
I guess I should really make a list of everything I want the computer to do, but when I do that I get confused about whether I really need one computer to handle everything, or a separate media center and keep the laptop small and manageable. LOL, I do hate to make decisions, especially with limited time and knowledge. :)
Calle has very sensibly suggested a Mac, which is unfortunately not doable at the moment.
I think a single configuration will be cheaper and easier than a separate media center. Now, I don't know if this'll work with laptops, but when I built my computer, I bought the CPU and memory that was the most expensive of the cheap stuff. Let me explain that: if you were to put the prices of all the (for instance) CPUs of one retailer in a graph, than it'll look a lot like the famous hockey stick graph. I bought the one that was on the point where the graph started to get steep. Three years ago, that was an AMD 2800+ which is on the low-end side today and will probably be handling everything just fine for another two to three years yet.
All you need to turn your computer into a media center is a good enough CPU, a good graphics card, a good sound card and enough memory. Most standard laptops have plenty of that these days. You'll only need more if you want to play huge games. The external harddrive will be plenty for your storage needs, and also a good idea for keeping backups. The harddrive is often the first part of a computer to break down.
As for the computer: I've recently read in a computer magazine that Intel's new dual- and quad-core chips use less electricity than their predecessors. That's pretty important in a laptop. Also, a huge harddrive never hurts. If you do a lot of work with graphics, make sure the graphics card has oodles of memory. And at least two gigs of RAM makes everything run smoother, especially if you're having to use Vista. If you're using XP, 1 GB is usually enough (it is for me).
About all the rest: go for the cheapest. Unless you're an avid gamer, you'll never notice the difference. If you are an avid on-line gamer: go for the most expensive stuff.
Also, try to get a laptop with both a clitmouse and a touchpad. That way you can work with whichever is easiest for you instead of having to tense your arms all the time trying to move the mouse-pointer with something that just doesn't work for you. For me, the clitmouse works perfectly, while the touchpad is avoided at all costs. Other often hate the clitmouse and love the touchpad. Try before you buy, or buy both.
Last: ask Calle. He knows so much more about this than me. Or buy a magazine that's featuring a laptop test and go for the best buy.
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I have 1.5G memory in mine, but I don't use MS-Windows, so mine is not so resource-hungry.
Partly it depends on what you want to use it for. If you find a laptop easy because you can use it anywhere in the house, but you can still connect it up to electricity, then battery life won't be so important to you. If you want to use it not connected to power, but out and about, then battery life will be more important to you.
A few things affect battery life:
- CPU -- some CPUs are more power-hungry than others
- memory -- having a generous amount of memory is good, because if you don't, and there isn't enough memory for the program you're running, then the computer has to swap out the memory onto the disk. This is undesirable in two respects: (a) swapping to disk requires disk-access, which consumes more power (b) it makes the program run slower.
- the actual capacity of the battery. You can get big batteries which have more power or smaller batteries which have less power. For example, when I bought my laptop, it came with a large battery, which was supposed to have about 4 hours battery-life. When I replaced the battery, I got a small one, with 2 hours battery-life, because the way that I use my laptop on the bus, I really don't need 4 hours battery life, since the bus trip to work is only about an hour.
Another thing to consider is the trade-off between size and portability. A lot of laptops nowadays have desktop-sized screens, which make for a very large (heavy) laptop. On the other hand, you can get ones with small screens (12") which are very portable, but the screen and the keyboard are small. Mine is somewhere in-between, with a 14" wide-screen screen, which I find a good compromise between weight and usability.
As for the mousing interface, that's tricky, because no matter which one you have, it's going to drive you nuts because you will accidentally brush against the mouse-thing with a finger while you're typing, and it will move in some random direction. 8-(
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Part of me would like a larger screen; the recent ads here are often 17". But I need it to be lightweight, so I suspect I will opt for about 14".
I do still have to decide whether I want to put my printer on a wireless network, or just E-mail files to this computer to print. And (as I said above to jthijsen, I have to decide whether to use it to manage my media, or handle those some other way.
Just now it might be an advantage to be J. ;-)
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Well, there's the tried and true "pros and cons" method: list the pros (plusses) and cons (minuses) of each option, and weigh them up like that. Maybe you could give them points and add them up?
Reply
Techboy seems to think that any standard configuration that will run Vista will do pretty much anything I need; but then, I suspect Techboy has always underestimated the degree of control I want over the system.
Oh, well, I'll work it out some way.
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Maybe you really should get a Mac. It's the best of both worlds, I think -- has good commercial software for it, but has the flexibility of Unix "under the hood".
Reply
Reply
The graphics card is puzzling. I don't play a lot of first-person shooters, but I've noticed that even the point-and-click online games are starting to be more than my current computer can handle. Shoot, even the animated ads on LJ's sign-in page are crashing my browsers. But I'm not sure whether that is due to the graphics card or the amount of memory they take, or what. I don't think I need a high-end card, but I don't know which ones are which. I guess just go for moderately priced?
I don't expect to use the laptop's mouse much, I will get a wireless optical mouse. This computer is really to replace my desktop; it won't be moving around much. I'm thinking 160 or 320 GB harddrive, and a big external drive to hold music and games (one of our local stores recently had a terabyte drive on sale for $250). It would be really nice if I could store all the CDs on the computer and play them remotely through my stereo.
I guess I should really make a list of everything I want the computer to do, but when I do that I get confused about whether I really need one computer to handle everything, or a separate media center and keep the laptop small and manageable. LOL, I do hate to make decisions, especially with limited time and knowledge. :)
Calle has very sensibly suggested a Mac, which is unfortunately not doable at the moment.
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A Mac would be good, but they always seem to be out of one's price-range.
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I think a single configuration will be cheaper and easier than a separate media center. Now, I don't know if this'll work with laptops, but when I built my computer, I bought the CPU and memory that was the most expensive of the cheap stuff. Let me explain that: if you were to put the prices of all the (for instance) CPUs of one retailer in a graph, than it'll look a lot like the famous hockey stick graph. I bought the one that was on the point where the graph started to get steep. Three years ago, that was an AMD 2800+ which is on the low-end side today and will probably be handling everything just fine for another two to three years yet.
All you need to turn your computer into a media center is a good enough CPU, a good graphics card, a good sound card and enough memory. Most standard laptops have plenty of that these days. You'll only need more if you want to play huge games. The external harddrive will be plenty for your storage needs, and also a good idea for keeping backups. The harddrive is often the first part of a computer to break down.
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And IKWYM about the drives; I've had to replace the one in this computer about once a year.
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