Best Law School Laptop for the Money Forum

[barkingbug]

...without considering perks like OSX

Not a perk.

With the possible exception of Lenovos for certain business applications, and Asus (among others) laptops for gaming, Macs are hands down the best choice for a laptop if you can afford the price point.

What else are you using a laptop for? It's either business or gaming. "School" falls under business: You're running Office. And don't feed me that "lifestyle computer" crap. Stop creaming yourself over crap like iMovie. l2 Adobe Premiere Pro.

I have an overclocked, quad-core, triple-head godbox of a Windows 7 machine for a desktop, and a 13" MBP for school/travel.

Personally, I have an overclocked, dual-core, decent GPU demigodbox of a Windows 7 machine for a desktop, and a 14" Thinkpad for school/travel. So for school I get Microsoft Office, OneNote, and a superior OS. I resent being told I'm "irrationally hating" on Macs. I dislike Macs because they're inferior products. If you have to have a $1,500 machine with a hard-to-type-on chiclet keyboard, get one of those new Dell Adamos. I won't deny that construction quality and support add value (a lot of value.) And that Apple are near the top of the heap. But they're still not #1. I can get comparable support (next business day on-site for three years) from Lenovo or Dell. I think my Thinkpad has better build quality than a MBP, although I know that plenty of PC manufacturers skimp.

And as far as the "non-techie people who ask for advice all the time," the first time one of the internal components breaks on that iMac you recommended, they can't crack the case open and warranty just that part. They'll be shipping the whole thing back to Apple. It's the 2010s: there shouldn't be any more non-techie people under a certain age. Do your part and start educating these people instead of coddling them.

Rather than posting a simple "umad," I'll see if I can reply to some of your assertions.

OSX is most certainly a perk. If you had ever spent an extended amount of time with a mac I'm fairly sure you'd agree with me. The combination of GUI refinements (which Win 7 has done a fair job of imitating to its benefit, with the exception of spaces, time machine, and a few others), and the power of a unix core (a real command line, user level security--poorly copied with UAC), as well as the superior "lifestyle" software, make it a good choice for anyone with the 20 minutes to learn how to use it. Without a specific need for windows like proprietary enterprise software, or serious gaming needs (both of which are manageable on a mac anyway), a MBP is the best option in its price range.

You mock the supposed "lifestyle" demographic, and yet that's what the vast majority of computer users actually are. We're talking about people who have a computer for facebook, managing their photos, and maybe playing a popcap game or two. For those people, something like iLife is vastly superior to options available in windows. I'm a big fan of Adobe Premiere, but to say that my mother, or my father's business associates, or my grandma, would be better served by software that costs half as much as the laptop in question is laughable. Or were you suggesting my grandma just torrent it? I've got maybe twenty people like this converted to Apples, and whenever I do, the amount of time I spend doling out free support falls through the floor.

I'm also going to laugh about the "support individual components" concept. Are you telling me that you routinely, and remotely support people through the process of troubleshooting, removing, RMAing, replacing, and installing (drivers, operating systems) individual computer parts? I get requests for help from a huge range of people, and even among people my age, there are only a few who would be capable of something like that. The convenience of a mac lies in the combination of build quality, and the freedom to make an appt at the local Genius Bar for painless support.

Blah blah blah.

Toss in the best touchpad out there, an excellent keyboard, light weight, 10hr battery life, and a sweetass display quality. In my 4 days of use, I've learned to appreciate the benefits of all 5. The touchpad alone figures well into the premium Mac users pay. It really helps boost productivity especially on webpages that require zooming in/out and scrolling flawlessly. Plus it's really nice being able to do stuff effortlessly without a mouse.

How is the MBP touchpad any better than Lenovo's? Lenovo has the same functionality, plus the track button. Lenovo's with the same hardware are at minimum $400 less than a Mac (with student discounts offered by both). If you love Mac software, get it. Sounds good... but just realize the cost.

[Chupavida]

.

[depressingfailure]

I did not read the majority of this thread, but I have a quick innocent question:

Just bought a MBP (blindly bought into the hype) and I'm clueless, can someone point me to a good website with Mac tutorials? (via PM if you wish)

I will have no idea what I'm doing when it arrives at my step in a few days. Much thanks.

[kalvano]

I'll probably end up replacing my 2006 Macbook Pro with another Macbook Pro (13 most likely), but did anyone see this announcement from HP of the new Envy 14 / 17 line?

Feature for feature, I think it seems to offer a lot. Tons of battery capacity, core i5 or i7 processor, and a nice form factor. The chart that Desert Fox posted above, though, does drive home the point that HP reliability is a little suspect.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/05/hp-e ... aves-good/

Envy used to be the badass Voodoo line that HP corrupted and ruined.

[kalvano]

Any love for Sony Vaios? Any reason to avoid them?

The two Sony computers I had were the absolute worst computers I've ever purchased.

[kalvano]

They don't have the same functionality. The big glass trackpad on the mac is tied to UI elements with multi-touch. Expose, desktop view, etc. It's pretty slick, and comes as close to replicating a nice desktop mouse as possible.

That's a function of Mac OS, not the touch pad.

I find the Trackpoint feature of the Lenovo's to be fantastic, making it better to me than the Mac.

[kalvano]

I did not read the majority of this thread, but I have a quick innocent question:

Just bought a MBP (blindly bought into the hype) and I'm clueless, can someone point me to a good website with Mac tutorials? (via PM if you wish)

I will have no idea what I'm doing when it arrives at my step in a few days. Much thanks.

http://eg-www.apple.com/support/mac101/work/

[hubtubrub]

opinions

Asus

or

levno?

I'm more concerned with the asus breaking...

[09042014]

opinions

Asus

or

levno?

I'm more concerned with the asus breaking...

--LinkRemoved--

[hubtubrub]

opinions

Asus

or

levno?

I'm more concerned with the asus breaking...

--LinkRemoved--

thanks

[Rand M.]

Any love for Sony Vaios? Any reason to avoid them?

The two Sony computers I had were the absolute worst computers I've ever purchased.

I had exactly two as well, and I can attest to the fact that those were crappy computers. The build quality is really just terrible. Pieces will fall off; buttons and ports will stop working. For as much as they cost they really should be better. Note- these were recent computers--the last 2-3 years. A sony desktop I had about 7 years ago was a nightmarish computer. Again, they just cost entirely too much to have some of the build problems that they do.

[Jay-Electronica]

Quick question: I bought a 13" Macbook in 2007. I'm thinking about getting one of the new 13" pros, but if I dont have to spend the money I'd rather not.

My question is this, would it be better for me to upgrade my current hardrive (160gb) to 320 and my ram instead of purchasing a new computer. Current ram is 2gb, not sure if I can upgrade it any further. What would be the better move to make?

[kalvano]

Quick question: I bought a 13" Macbook in 2007. I'm thinking about getting one of the new 13" pros, but if I dont have to spend the money I'd rather not.

My question is this, would it be better for me to upgrade my current hardrive (160gb) to 320 and my ram instead of purchasing a new computer. Current ram is 2gb, not sure if I can upgrade it any further. What would be the better move to make?

External HDD.

Double RAM.

Done.

[Matthies]

Personally, as someone who has owned/supported most of the laptop brands being discussed here, and who has built my desktop computers from scratch since the Pentium II, it's actually a no-brainer. I have an overclocked, quad-core, triple-head godbox of a Windows 7 machine for a desktop, and a 13" MBP for school/travel. Best of both worlds. People who irrationally hate on either are usually inexperienced at best or retarded at worst.

Actually I have a MB Pro 13 and a I-7 975 Extreme 16gigs 1600mhz ram, dual HD 5870s in crossfire, dual 256 SSDs liquid cooled running dual gigabit lans. So my computer and penis, are bigger.

[Jay-Electronica]

Quick question: I bought a 13" Macbook in 2007. I'm thinking about getting one of the new 13" pros, but if I dont have to spend the money I'd rather not.

My question is this, would it be better for me to upgrade my current hardrive (160gb) to 320 and my ram instead of purchasing a new computer. Current ram is 2gb, not sure if I can upgrade it any further. What would be the better move to make?

External HDD.

Double RAM.

Done.

Yea, im gonna be picking up a terabyte here soon.

Also, can I put all of my music onto my external HDD without it taking up space on my cpu's hdd but still play it from my cpu? My problem, I find, is that I end up having a lot of my songs with with doubles, triples and even quads. I have no clue how to get that stuff off my cpu without just deleting my entire library and starting over.

[Matthies]

Quick question: I bought a 13" Macbook in 2007. I'm thinking about getting one of the new 13" pros, but if I dont have to spend the money I'd rather not.

My question is this, would it be better for me to upgrade my current hardrive (160gb) to 320 and my ram instead of purchasing a new computer. Current ram is 2gb, not sure if I can upgrade it any further. What would be the better move to make?

External HDD.

Double RAM.

Done.

Yea, im gonna be picking up a terabyte here soon.

Also, can I put all of my music onto my external HDD without it taking up space on my cpu's hdd but still play it from my cpu? My problem, I find, is that I end up having a lot of my songs with with doubles, triples and even quads. I have no clue how to get that stuff off my cpu without just deleting my entire library and starting over.

Yes, but only when your EHDD is attched, or you could do something like the Pogo plug and network your music drive then you can acess it anywhere you have the net. What are you using for music software? Intunes, do a oogle search there is shareware out there than can help manage your music collection

[depressingfailure]

http://eg-www.apple.com/support/mac101/work/

Excellent. Thank you sir.

[dborch]

Great thread.

I work at a consulting firm that gets a significant discount from HP. Does anyone recommend anything from HP? I'm looking for something basic - MS Office and Internet use mostly, and I'm going to try to limit it to law school use only.

[Jay-Electronica]

Quick question: I bought a 13" Macbook in 2007. I'm thinking about getting one of the new 13" pros, but if I dont have to spend the money I'd rather not.

My question is this, would it be better for me to upgrade my current hardrive (160gb) to 320 and my ram instead of purchasing a new computer. Current ram is 2gb, not sure if I can upgrade it any further. What would be the better move to make?

External HDD.

Double RAM.

Done.

Yea, im gonna be picking up a terabyte here soon.

Also, can I put all of my music onto my external HDD without it taking up space on my cpu's hdd but still play it from my cpu? My problem, I find, is that I end up having a lot of my songs with with doubles, triples and even quads. I have no clue how to get that stuff off my cpu without just deleting my entire library and starting over.

Yes, but only when your EHDD is attched, or you could do something like the Pogo plug and network your music drive then you can acess it anywhere you have the net. What are you using for music software? Intunes, do a oogle search there is shareware out there than can help manage your music collection

Yea, im using ITUNES. I should have probably switched to something else long ago. I was thinking about backing up all of my music to an EHDD and deleting everything .mp3 out of my computer then putting it all back in. Dont know how that would work though.

So for everything else, pics, docs etc. It would be best to save everything to the EHDD instead of on the cpu? Anyone know where I can get a TB EHDD for cheap?

[hithere]

Get a Dell

[Chupavida]

.

[Matthies]

Yea, im using ITUNES. I should have probably switched to something else long ago. I was thinking about backing up all of my music to an EHDD and deleting everything .mp3 out of my computer then putting it all back in. Dont know how that would work though.

So for everything else, pics, docs etc. It would be best to save everything to the EHDD instead of on the cpu? Anyone know where I can get a TB EHDD for cheap?

My main laptop has a 128gig SSD so I only store the program shells I need on there, everything else I put on a network or external drive. This depends, do you need access to pictures, movies, music on the go? Then you will need a smaller self powered EHDD. If not you can make your own EHDD. Do you have an esata port on your computer or just USB/firewire?

One route is to buy a an internal HDD and either a drive enclosure or a drive dock.
Examples:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822152185 plus http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817182155 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817182196

Next would be basically the same thing but already put together for you.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822154393

I've also used 2.5 EHDD Seagate Gos with a dock, small enough to take in your backpack and you can get several of them (I have some for movies, music, shuttle, archive, ect.)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

Plus I use an NAS. But I'm running 5 computers, a Windows Home Sever and over 12TB of storage, plus another 3TB of network storage I can aces anywhere from the net.

(Note I just used New Egg as an example, most times Amazon can beat their prices)

As for Itunes there is software out there that will help you get rid of the duplicates, or you can do it by hand in Itunes under File --- Show Duplicates then delate. Not that bad if you have 20 gigs of msuci, but with 500 gigs that way would take forver

[Matthies]

dual 256 SSDs

Is that for extra-speedy access to the porn collection?

One for the OS, one for games, 12TB HDDs for the porn

[dextermorgan]

http://eg-www.apple.com/support/mac101/work/

Excellent. Thank you sir.

Also: http://forums.macrumors.com/

[Jay-Electronica]

Yea, im using ITUNES. I should have probably switched to something else long ago. I was thinking about backing up all of my music to an EHDD and deleting everything .mp3 out of my computer then putting it all back in. Dont know how that would work though.

So for everything else, pics, docs etc. It would be best to save everything to the EHDD instead of on the cpu? Anyone know where I can get a TB EHDD for cheap?

My main laptop has a 128gig SSD so I only store the program shells I need on there, everything else I put on a network or external drive. This depends, do you need access to pictures, movies, music on the go? Then you will need a smaller self powered EHDD. If not you can make your own EHDD. Do you have an esata port on your computer or just USB/firewire?

One route is to buy a an internal HDD and either a drive enclosure or a drive dock.
Examples:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822152185 plus http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817182155 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817182196

Next would be basically the same thing but already put together for you.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822154393

I've also used 2.5 EHDD Seagate Gos with a dock, small enough to take in your backpack and you can get several of them (I have some for movies, music, shuttle, archive, ect.)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

Plus I use an NAS. But I'm running 5 computers, a Windows Home Sever and over 12TB of storage, plus another 3TB of network storage I can aces anywhere from the net.

(Note I just used New Egg as an example, most times Amazon can beat their prices)

As for Itunes there is software out there that will help you get rid of the duplicates, or you can do it by hand in Itunes under File --- Show Duplicates then delate. Not that bad if you have 20 gigs of msuci, but with 500 gigs that way would take forver

Wow dude, you have a pretty sweet set up, I wouldnt even know where to start to set up something like that ha. Only firewire/usb. I have a smaller 160 EHDD but its not enough space. I have way too much music. I did the deleting of duplicates on ITUNES, however, they are still there if I run a search they just arent in itunes. I think I might just have to go pay the geek squad to take care of this for me because I have no clue what to do other than a complete wipe.

Thanks for all the links man, I'll def look into that. I need to upgrade my internal HDD and my OS to snow leopard.