New Laptop Advice

BiggestNizzy · Post by **BiggestNizzy** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 4:13 pm

Mac's and most other machines will always run better than their PC equivalents but PC's are old bit's of kit made out of parts from the RS catalogue and in fairness to microsoft they do have to support 50 billion different machines. I dont want to start a MAC v PC battle (although I supect I will) mac's are easy and efficent Pc's are not but bang per £ PC's are faster. I would still have AmigaOS 3 though

it was better and the whole OS was 512k and it ran at 14Mhz programmers are getting lazy (expecting an outrage from all the IT bods) programs where better when you had limited resourses now they just demand you upgrade

I really have to stop ranting I need to get the car back on the road to burn up my frustrations

The Nylatron arrived today 3 meters worth!

robin · Post by **robin** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:37 pm

PCs and today's macs are made from exactly the same parts - the only difference is the s/w and cosmetics.

Until Apple adopted the Intel architecture, the PowerPC was lagging behind in raw performance (though the Mac typically makes better use of the available horsepower).

Macs are faster than PCs doing similar things because the O/S is not quite as bloated

AmigaOS - give me back my old CP/M machine - 1MHz Z80 and about 64K of RAM

Cheers,
Robin

Sanjøy · Post by **Sanjøy** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 7:02 pm

Listen to the Jedi Master.

Okay here is the SE 30 minute IT challenge which is totally non destructive unless you do something uber dense then tbh you are prob going to still have P0s on your car.

Go to http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download download the "iso image"
Your CD burning package will recognise this and let your burn a "bootable CD"
Leave it in and reboot your desktop/laptop which will boot off it.

Do not click the install option just play with it. It will detect all your hardware, "just find the tinternet" if you have a "modern cat5 router", it will let you look at your c:\my docuements etc, try opening a word doc, oh look it just works whats that a free word proc ? Open a mp3, avi etc Try the internet, I think there are two browsers in there.

Disclaimer, if you are not sure of any of the above post here and ask before you do somethign bad.

BiggestNizzy · Post by **BiggestNizzy** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 7:14 pm

hehehe had a feeling this would happen

Michael · Post by **Michael** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:41 pm

what the catch with ubuntu sanjoy? how do they make their money?

steve_weegie · Post by **steve_weegie** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:47 pm

like the vast majority of linux vendors they make their money from the support side - the software is always free to use.

That's not to say that if you dont pay them cash you dont get support though; there are hunners of helpfull people that are more than happy to lead folk away from microsoft platforms

If you're a company looking to use linux as part of your IT infrastructure, you'll quite happily pay for the support in case you need it.

Out of all the linux distributions, Ubuntu is the friendliest and like sanjoy I'd highly reccomend the CD based trial. Just boot up from the CD and hey presto your running linux! Reboot without the cd and you're back to smelly windows

Cheers,

Steve (penguin faction)

neil · Post by **neil** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 11:26 pm

Thanks for all the advice - slightly less confused now....
The laptops for my sister whos probably just going to use it for the internet, email, msn etc so I guess it doesn't need to be too high tech. Mac is out of the equation tho.
From what you've all said I think I'll be going for XP seeing as upgrading to 2GB would add 25% to the cost of the laptop.
Is it just the Intel processor thats got the dual core? Or do any of the AMD ones have it? The only Intel dual core Dell are selling at the budget price have got shared graphics memory so that puts me with and AMD Sempron or Athlon 64 X2... Either I'm getting old or it all used to be a lot simpler...

bertieduff · Post by **bertieduff** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 11:29 pm

Er...you're getting old AND it used to be a lot simpler....

steve_weegie · Post by **steve_weegie** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 11:36 pm

just looking at dells website now - for the cash (£399 inc vat & shipping

) its hard to beat the inspiron 1501 with the athlon 64 x2 processor (yes the x2 means its dual core too!).

bargain if you ask me!

edit to say: if i had £400 to spend on a laptop id go for the dell inspiron 1501 with windows xp.....

tut · Post by **tut** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 7:55 am

Snap Robin............

Sinclair Spectrum, QL, then the big daddy, an Amstrad PCW.

tut

steve_weegie · Post by **steve_weegie** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 3:23 pm

i really wanted a spectrum as I couldnt play elite on my zx81... Had to go round and borrow a mates BBC B

Sanjøy · Post by **Sanjøy** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 3:31 pm

steve_weegie wrote:i really wanted a spectrum as I couldnt play elite on my zx81... Had to go round and borrow a mates BBC B

Man dont start me on elite !

s333fee · Post by **s333fee** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 3:42 pm

I know almost nothing about pc's but we always buy dell, try the outlet section for deals. they always work and find support is good for downloads etc if it goes wrong, had to redo a pc recently, got all the software from dell website on a download, runs great now.

Having just said the above asda are doing laptops for 275 just now ?!

steve_weegie · Post by **steve_weegie** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 3:47 pm

Sanjoy wrote:
Man dont start me on elite !

http://www.spectrum.lovely.net/Elite.html

You dont even have to wait for the tape to load anymore

steve_weegie · Post by **steve_weegie** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 3:50 pm

s333fee wrote:
Having just said the above asda are doing laptops for 275 just now ?!

I wonder what kind of quality that one is! TBH, if i was looking for a laptop for myself I'd go ebay & get a second hand IBM t40 thing... Still around £300 but they're bombproof and sooooo nice to use...