Re: Best bang for my laptop buck ?
- From: mike <spamme0@xxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 09:12:47 GMT
- Bobb - wrote:
It's a conspiracy. The hardware vendors and the software vendors
"mike" <spamme0@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:XZqIg.2001$XD1.1557@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Bobb - wrote:
Well, I THOUGHT I was all set: I was gonna get an AMD box, but now the reviews seem to say Intel is better ! Does someone know of a SIMPLE online comparison of the CPU products from a potential user viewpoint ? http://exactchoice.cnet.com/Type.aspx works pretty well , but doesn't tell me why it chose those models and if one is better than other. I'm not sure that those companies didn't just pay to be selected.
Like everyone I'm looking for the best return for my money. I'm not up to all of the differences/ benefits of AMD X2, Intel Pentium M , Intel Core Duo CPUs these days and when I TRY to evaluate them (either online or by reading PC magazines), I'm inundated with comparisons of gaming speeds.Means nothing to me! For instance, I don't need to buy the latest/fastest CPU for my laptop - I'm gonna use it to run ... IE, Office and a few music, photo apps. I would like a 64 bit cpu - just to have the OPTION to use 64 bit OS'es. I think that I'd be better to upgrade to1gb or 2gb of memory rather than the "best cpu". I'm not a gamer so my CPU will probably be idle 98% of the time. But if I'm gonna get a pc that would better/ last me for a few extra years, it would be worth it to me to spend an extra $100, $200 now to get it. No need to get heavy into details, just overviews/ URLs are fine.
Thanks again.
There seems to be a disconnect between your stated application and the
specs of the computer.
Your applications say, "basic computing" while your list of specs
SCREAMS, "I want a new toy!!"
You can do what you want on a cheapo used laptop.
I bought a Dell Inspiron 7500 400MHz P2 laptop at a garage sale
just yesterday for $3. Would do what you _say_ you want just fine.
And the "bang for the buck" works out pretty sweet.
You're right - that IS a good deal. I DO have a Compaq Armada 3500 (366mhz) P2 and it's fine when plugged in, but PC's that old usually need batteries ( like mine does) My battery is only good for ~20 minutes.When I saw that batteries were $100 - $200 : THAT's when I started shopping for a new laptop.
Unless it's an emergency, I wouldn't buy ANYTHING new until the whole VISTA thing settles down. The market is interesting now, but just wait
to see what happens when the final Vista spec obsoletes a bunch more stuff
on the shelves overnight.
mike
I fully agree and was gonna ( /might still) wait, but if I can get a Vista compatible notebook for a good deal, I figure I'll do it. I'm beta testing Vista and before BUYING Vista would probably wait until SP1/SP2 is out. That pushes the purchase out even further - so that's why I'm browsing/watching for deals
keep ratcheting up the requirements so you're required to buy new hardware and software and new hardware and new software. I tried to load Vista. The thing wouldn't even think about installing on my 5gig drive. And it didn't like the rest of my puny hardware at all.
And M$ already
has the infrastructure in place to charge you by the keystroke. It's designed for third-world countries. The bad news is that the US of A is
rapidly becoming a third-world country...but I digress.
Most of us have WAY more horsepower than we need.
I have 11 laptops and pdas in my living room...if you only count the working ones...no, I'm not married...The old dell 400MHz one is plenty fast for
everyday stuff. I don't do games or finite element modeling. The only
reason I had to update from win98 to win2K is that the vendors refused to invest in making the USB work on 98. First thing I did was turn off all the new stuff and make it more like 95. Why would anyone want a drop-shadow on their mouse cursor? Or fading menus? How about just give us a system with an intuitive user interface and an affordable price? The cost of upgrading ONE machine to XP is more than I've invested in all 11 pieces of hardware. It AIN'T gonna happen.
I did buy a 1.6GHz, 1GIG ram, 60gig HD laptop with XP on it. It does stuff blazingly
fast, then spends the other 99% of its time waiting on me to tell it what to do next. I guess it's really more like 10% dealing with operating system bloat and 89% waiting on me. The real throughput is no better than my 400MHz machine. There is one real advantage though. If I want to dry my hair,
I can just set it up to compress a few MP3s and use the fan exhaust as
a hair dryer. I always wanted a battery-powered hair dryer.
I couldn't pass it up for $20, but I don't understand why anybody would
pay what these things cost new unless they had a real need for speed.
We don't need transparent window borders...
I feel your pain on batteries. Most of my laptops have weak batteries.
You can certainly make a case for long battery life. If you like to sit in Starbucks and sip $5 coffee, you can certailnly afford to fork over for a new battery.
If you make a lot of short airline flights...assuming you can still take your laptop on a plane, you might need long battery life.
For most of us, we don't spend that much time away from an outlet.
If 30 minutes isn't long enough, two hours probably isn't either.
To put it into perspective, do this experiment. Using round numbers to make the math easy...assume your battery is good for 300 cycles.
Assume it costs $150. That's 50 cents a charge.
Take a small purse with you. Every time you take out your laptop to run
it on batteries, put two quarters in that purse. You might think twice
whether you really want to fire it up. Then you'll start wondering why
you take the thing with you at all...and may not need ANY laptop.
Those of us who use $1 laptops think 50-cents a charge is a lot of money.
Of course, those who sit in Starbucks sipping $5 coffee while spending
10-cents a minute talking nonsese on the cell phone with someone they just left 5 minutes ago (in their 8mpg SUV) will think me excessively frugal. Guilty as charged...I teach classes ad Scrooge U.
My first choice would be: do nothing.
Second, find a deal on a used battery for the existing machine.
A quick aside...it's been my experience that a battery that lasts
half an hour will often run MUCH longer than that if you turn off the
alarms. You just have to keep track of how long before it will shut down on you. I've got more than one battery that will hit zero in 10 minutes, but run for another hour or more...and yes, I know about battery calibration. Laptop vendors could fix it in an instant,
but they make more profit on the batteries than the laptops.
Third, buy one of the $400 bottom-end laptops they put on sale
periodically at Frys and the like. But you gotta be quick. They sell out instantly and show up for $200 more the next week on EBAY and Craigslist. The actual dollar depreciation on the $400 laptop
will be less over the next year than the dollar depreciation on
your vista-ready machine bought now.
You really won't need Vista
for several years until you can no longer get hardware that runs
on the old OS.
Most of us don't buy computers to compute. We buy TOYS to brag about.
Computing 3-5 years behind the state of the market
will save you a BUNDLE of bucks. You can get just as much bragging done
about finding a $20 1.6GIG machine as you can about something shiny
and new that _might_ run Vista.
mike
.
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