Re: OT: Computer purchase question
- From: Gernot Hassenpflug <gernot@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2005 01:29:14 +0900
>>>>> "Badger" == Badger South <Badger@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
Badger> My daughter is going to college in Sept and they are not
Badger> requiring a specific computer...
I realize it's late in the thread, but I was away, and the replies
here have been both interesting and enlightening, reflecting not only
preferences, but availability in different parts of the world.
All in all, I go with Frazer, Toshiba or Panasonic have good durable
products that are light-weight and worhty of using for years.
For laptops, most of the things that your daughter like or hate will
come out later, not before she uses it :-) And then you find ways
around them. Internal dard disk drive too small? Get an external
firewire hard drive. Don't like touchpad? Get a mini-mouse. CD/RW or
DVD also not essentially incorporated into the laptop body, and
certainly not a floppy. Probably only essential is at least PCMCIA
slot and one or more USB 2.0 or firewire (IEEE1394) connectors. All
the rest can be adapt(or)ed for.
RAM will need to be upgraded - makers generally sell with 128MB when
you need minimum of 256MB to comfortably run beasts like WinXP (Linux
is fine on 128MB).
Don't feel the need for the latest stuff - there is no end of
externals you can add later, and leave at home. Not to mention how
quickly stuff becomes outdate - if you need it, buy it at that
time. Hardly anything need be on the actual laptop, barring the
interfaces I mentioned, and the human interfaces (pointer device,
keyboard, screen). Size of these is important ergonomically, get your
daughter to physically use the laptop in the shop to see if her hands
are comfortable on it - the rise of RSI is a foregone conclusion with
the increase in PC usage, and you don't need that pain early in life!
Screen, 12.1" may be adequate, and certainly the PC will be lighter
(other standard sizes are 13.3", 14.1", 15", there are a lot more
wide-screen types around now too). I can't see your daughter lugging
around 3.5kgs or more of laptop and accessories happily every day, not
to mention the loss of other luggage weight when travelling on planes.
Yes, makers are important: IBM laptops are nice, but the hard drives
suck badly (as do their replacements!). Dell is weighty, but speaking
for myself, after more than one year (and certain amounts of ridicule
for trying to get linux to work perfectly on it) of use has given me
absolutely no trouble whatsoever. I cannot say the same for my
colleagues with their IBMs or Sonys. Panasonic and Toshiba seem to be
great stuff though, but generally not cheap even at entry level.
O/S-wise: if your daughter has peers that can train her, I would say
Linux. The freedom is great, but the price has to be paid in time and
effort as well. The easy way? Windows, or MacOS. But you know, there's
a trade-off: if you are not prepared to invest time and effort, be
prepared to lose everything. That must be understood from the
start. Computers _are_ fragile, in hard and soft terms. Makers will
replace hard disks (and destroy the original) but will not recover
your data for you. You need to take responsibility at some point: with
Windows that usually involves backups, making sure your maker supplies
you with an install disk (IBM does not, for instance), knowing not to
store your data on the laptop per se (just temporarily), and being
prepared to reinstall when things go wrong, which they will. It is
merely a matter of time. Unless you or her friends are experts, she
will have to know what she can and may have to do by herself, to make
the experience as painless and lossless as possible.
Laptops need special consideration compared to desktops. Generally
they are slower (only one memory channel, compared to 2 in desktop
motherboards, I believe), use CPU scaling to slow down and remain in
working temperatures, often share main and graphics memory (cheap
graphics chipsets), and screens are no better than say 6 years ago
(XGA mostly). Toshiba and others released wonderful UXGA (1600x1200
pixels) on their 15" models some time ago, but the technology was not
ready. Laptops get hot, too hot, fans become very noisy, and hard
disks are not built to take this heat for long - if you leave your
laptop on long hours like a desktop machine (or try to use it as a
server) the hard disk will give up the ghost within a year, I have
heard many stories. A laptop is not a replacement for the desktop.
<soapbox mode on>Furthermore, the pace of change is speeding up day by
day. Looking back (like the usenet geeks can <g>) is a reliable
indicator only if you see the increasing speed in
trends. Security/privacy, entertainment/consumption,web/life
integration. Anyone buying a computer and not preparing themselves for
entering into a new world that will become ever more important is like
sending a goat to the wolves. It's not just about "buying a computer",
any more than "this one sniff of cocaine is not going to affect
me". It will very likely affect your daughter's life more than almost
any other single object around today. <soapbox mode off>
Random thoughts: I am not an expert, and above is more or less the sum
of my incomplete knowledge. I hated my heavy great Dell Insipron 1100
when my lab told me this was what I could use, while latecomers got
shiny black IBM X31s. After fighting with WinXP (on 128MB memory), its
service packs, occasional worm or virus attacks, and crashes now and
then, I took the step of going to linux (GNU/Debian Woody, then Sarge
and currently "unstable") in November 2004. It was by no means easy,
quite possibly the hardest thing I had done with computers (apart from
installing he same linux (Sarge now) on my homebuilt machine after
that!), and even now there are some finicky problems I cannot solve
(but know the route so it is merely a matter of time). The fact is,
after 1.5 years of using it, I am happy with the Dell machine! It
never ever crashes, it never loses my data, all the parts work, the
firewalling and ant-virus so far has worked, it is a dream. Windows is
still on part of the drive, but goes unused (except fro the TrueType
fonts, haha). And a few weeks ago, I made extra partitions on my
girlfriend's 6-year old Toshiba running WinME on a 650MHz Celeron with
64MB memory onboard. I have to say I was amazed anyone would continue
to run a version of Windows on 64 MB for 6 years (I went and bought
her another 256MB of RAM as a present), but I was just as amazed at
the stunning quality of the old Toshiba. It is durable, the screen is
great even by today's standards, the CD has a writer, all the parts
still work, and she has never had to reinstall WinME (good thing too,
because she does not have an install CD!). I installed Knoppix on the
hard disk so that we could use SkyPE, because old versions of Windows
(98, Me) hog the CPU so the audio either is ruined or the driver DLL
crashes and a reboot is needed. So, what I am getting at, you get used
to what you buy, and don't worry too much on the OS side, necessity
will make her stick with the original OS or change to something else.
Hoping this rambling has sort of given you a different
perspective. Good luck!
--
G Hassenpflug * Takemusu Aikido Juku Dojo Osaka
.
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