Laptop Computers

[surgtech1956]

I currently have a Dell laptop(Insrion E1505) in need of replacing. I'm thinking about a Mac, but do to the price would probably buy the smallest 13.1" or go with another Windows 7 - Dell, etc... I've been happy with my Dell(7 years old), but thinking about the upcoming 'Black Friday' sales. Who has a Mac and are you happy with it? Any advice, input is appreciated.

[lunacycles]

I effing love my Macbook Pro. But I've always been a Mac girl. I think the Air would be a good option if you don't need the disc drive, lighter and slimmer than anything else but a little less expensive.

[Owlie]

If I had the money and wasn't going to be moving around a lot for the next few years, I'd get an Apple laptop and a PC desktop.

The problem (say all my friends with Macs) is that they're less prone to doing strange things than PCs, but when they do, they're much harder to take care of by yourself. They do love them, though.

If you don't have your heart set on a mac and the laptop isn't going to be your primary computer, I have friends with Acer netbooks who are very happy with them.

[KnottedYet]

Mac.

Remember when the whole PC thing began in the 1980's? (sure you do, you're even younger than me) Those were Macs.

I had a Windows computer briefly. Virus city.

Back to Apple. Feeling the love. Even my 6 year old bottom-of-the-line iBook is still doing just fine. Sure, it's so old that it can't download streaming movies from Netflix, but my iPod can do that for me. Apples are tough critters. I have no intention of ever subjecting myself to a Windows machine again.

[Roadtrip]

I think it depends on what all you do on your laptop too.. as a software developer I have to have a Windows based machine, but if I were using the computer for email, dic pics, and browsing the internet only, I may very well get a Mac as everything I have read is the user experience is nicer. I'd also pony up for Apple Care to extend the warranty as an extra level of peace of mind. Are you near an Apple Store? There is one locally and that would be a benefit to me as if a problem came up I could just make an appointment and take the computer in for any service that may be needed.

We've owned several Dells (Inspiron 1545 and an E1505) and we've always been happy with then, tho DH uses the older 1505 and is about due for an upgrade and it's almost four years old. Video sometimes gets flaky tho runs smooth on mine, plus he has it maxed out on memory at 2gb, while mine has 4gb and upgraded to it's max and about a year and a half old.

We bought a desktop during Christmas last year and got a really good deal, which is why we ended up buying. They normally do have some killer deals during the Holidays.

Shannon

[pll]

Whatever you end up with, it's a mixed bag. If you go for a Mac Air, have a solid state drive. I currently have a Mac Air (all prior laptops had Windows) without a solid state hard drive and these are my impressions:

• Design: Very sleek, beautiful.
• Utilities: Cute and nice to have iMovie, GaragaBand, etc
• Performance: Terrible. So slow, it gives me that little spinning circle so many times I want to swing it out of the window, and I'm not doing anything unusual to stress it. Performance is so bad that my $300 netbook with Linux works better sometimes.

I'd rather have a Win 7 laptop now, but I will keep this one for at least 3 years.

[jessmarimba]

I love my macbook. I've replaced the battery and the power charger, and I've had it since 2006.

I've been at my company for a little over 3 years and I've been through 5 dell and toshiba laptops. Granted, I think we buy the cheapest available laptops at work, but this is working only on a network with all kinds of security settings. I've had the current one for about a year and it recently decided that it will no longer recognize it's power charger...huh??

But I was biased to begin with, so definitely don't take this as an objective response

[Owlie]

My laptop is a Dell (Latitude D820). It's okay, but not ideal. The model has known power supply problems and the battery life is terrible (three hours became 25 minutes after less than a year). I had to replace the charger as well as it decided it no longer wanted anything to do with the original. I'm the only person I know who had the computer and hasn't fried some part of it yet. Granted, I'm not playing video games on it and only want it to run Office, two other programs and access the internet.

My friend replaced his with another Dell (I don't remember the model) and is very happy with it.

[pll]

Of course, you could also give your old laptop another life by installing Ubuntu on it (no viruses there, either). OpenOffice is great. That'd be an option even if you buy a new one.

[Cataboo]

I got a dell 8200 in 2001 that still works fine, however it weighs 8 lbs and I don't feel like carrying it around.

I've switched to just using a netbook as a laptop running windows 7 starter. $300, 11 hours of battery life, and it does everything I need it to do on a laptop

But I always keep a desktop for photos and the rest of that.

[surgtech1956]

Thanks for the input and advice everyone. I'm keeping my eye on the Apple and Dell websites and check the Sunday Best Buy ads.

[Crankin]

I have an older (2007) MacBook and it does everything. I run Windows for Mac, which is all I need, besides the Internet. I've watched movies on it, too.Of course, I am a technology weenie, so I prefer to keep it very easy.
I guess I am not that concerned about weight; I rarely take my computer anywhere. It's my only computer. So far, all of my counseling internships have had PCs and I have to relearn certain things every September. I really don't know what the right click on a mouse does! Since we are not allowed to put any confidential files on our own computers, it's not an issue.
Almost every student I see at my university has a Mac. I just don't use it in class, as I find it difficult to type and pay attention; taking notes the old fashioned way is much easier for me.
For what it's worth, my DH, who is a director for a software company became a Mac person about a year ago. He can do everything he needs and some of it is complicated. He told his company to ditch the crappy PC lap top they gave him (which had to be "fixed" a number of times) and get him a desk top, for the days he didn't feel like bringing his lap top (like when he rides).

[Koronin]

Well this isn't going to help you much. I personally have no use for Apple or Dell in any way shape or form. We currently have a Toshiba netbook, a Segar laptop and a Toshiba laptop. Our desktop died back in May and my husband is deciding on rather to buy and easily upgradable desktop (Acer, Asus, HP, and a couple others) or to just build a new one as our old one is too old to be upgraded. Anything that requires proprietary components is not even considered. To me Dells are too expensive for what you get. You can get better computers for the same cost or less than what you are paying for a Dell. My computer came from Best Buy. My husband ordered his on line as the top end laptops you can't get at your typical electronics stores. When we replace his laptop it will most likely be another Segar.

[OakLeaf]

I've been a Mac user forever.

The thing about it is, the last time I looked (which admittedly has been a while ago), if you compared apples to apples - processor speed, number of processors, bus speed, hard drive speed, graphics card, sound card, ports, etc. - the price was about the same. As a hardware company, Apple just doesn't sell the kind of junk that you can buy to run Windows.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend a netbook as your only computer. To me, it would be a real PITA having to use an external optical drive. No Ethernet port (a USB adapter is available, but again, another piece of external hardware you have to deal with) and only one USB port.

I do have Parallels, but the only thing I use it for is SportTracks.


My DH uses both. MacBookPro for his photography, and Windows boxes (which is where he came from) for most other things. He has had a couple of issues trying to configure external drives with the Mac.

He hasn't had an issue with viruses at all. We were just discussing that - how he continues to run his virus detection even though it hasn't picked anything up in years. You just have to set your security settings. Factory defaults on a Mac are reasonably secure, whereas factory defaults on a Windows box are wide open. Don't do anything dumb with email. And if you want to avoid spyware, that's the same on both sides - use Firefox with NoScript and allow the minimum of scripts and cookies that you can get away with for any given site, including setting session cookies only if the site will let you. These days, though, a few sites are requiring LOTS of scripts to even run. Then you have to make a choice as to how badly you want to look at that content. And afterward, clear your cache, delete any cookies you don't recognize, delete your Flash cookies using an app like Flush, re-enable script blocking, and quit and re-start your browser. PITA.

[Cataboo]

My netbook has 3 USB ports & an ethernet port built in. I do have an external dvd drive, but mostly I just share my desktop dvd drive over the network for it.

However, I need a desktop and always keep one.