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JazzOne wrote:

crystalhawkeye wrote:

geoffree wrote:

crystalhawkeye wrote: Don't want to sound like those Mac vs. PC commercials, but I'll probably end up getting the former.

Can't stand those commercials. I'm going with a macbook for LS, but these commercials almost make me have second thoughts.

Hahaha, yeah no kidding. Those did make me think I'd be buying the more pretentious brand, but hey, they are a lot better.

Ya, I kind of miss the days before everyone realized they were better.

PROTIP: Those were the days when they WEREN'T better.

Different story now. Typing this on a MacBook Pro and loving it. But lets not try and change history.

Bosque wrote:PROTIP: Those were the days when they WEREN'T better.

Different story now. Typing this on a MacBook Pro and loving it. But lets not try and change history.

I'm talking about 5 or so years ago. The MacBook G4 was the best laptop on the market from the time it came out until Apple replaced it with the Intel platform. Also, the dual processor G4s were used extensively in professional music studios because Windows wasn't up to the task. Macs were clearly better computers (for professional usage) in the early part of this decade.

I'm getting a Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablet.

Waterman47 wrote:If you can stretch you budget to $1700 dollars or so, I'd recommend a one-two punch of a netbook for taking to school on a daily basis and a unibody macbook for use at home and during finals. The former is light and portable enough that it will significantly lighten the load on your back, and the latter is powerful enough to take care of all your computing needs.

If you don't mind carrying more weight, just get a Macbook.

If you like the netbook-laptop idea but don't like Macs, get a solid HP instead.

I should also mention that my $1700 budget estimate is for two top-of-the-line machines. You can get a good netbook for as little as 300 dollars, and you can obviously get a competent laptop for $700, so you could probably keep the whole cost under $1000 if you needed to.

i dont want to ask a really stupid question or sound like a complete dinosaur, but what is the story with these netbooks? obviously i see that they are very small, but what are their actual capabilities? are they annoying to type on since they are so small?

thanks for the help, as i was in UG when desktop PCs were the norm

thesouthside wrote:I'm getting a Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablet.

I was thinking about those tablet PCs. Anyone have one and have an opinion about it? Really worth the $$?
I was also thinking about keeping my current working but clunker of a laptop as a "desktop" and getting one of those $500 netbooks for class etc.

So when is everyone grabbing a laptop?

Mine is showing up about 2 weeks before classes start. I actually bought mine through the University IT department. That way I have same day repair and a longer warranty. The only problem is that I may be stuck using Vista.

My current laptop is 5 years old and runs slower than molasses in winter time (in fact right now WIndows refuses to load any audio or wireless drivers...). Once my new laptop arrives I am going to wipe clean the HD on the old laptop and load it up w/ the newest flavor of Ubuntu. Too bad I can't use Linux in Law school.

I ordered a ThinkPad T400 that should be delivered this coming Monday. Bye bye MacBook.... (I still love the Mac, but I just don't see my white MacBook holding up through the abuse of law school, as it barely held up sitting on my desk open all the time.)

I love my Dell XPS M1330 I purchased about a year ago. Powerful enough to do everything I need with a 13.3" screen. The 128MB graphics card is enough unless you are big into gaming. They have a new 13" laptop with more powerful graphics card if you need more...

EDIT: It ran me about $1600 a year ago with a 4 year at home warranty service, accidental protection plan, and I upgraded virtually all the features on it. Search for Dell coupons online and wait for the right one.. or call them up and try to negotiate with them.

Yes their tech support is from India, but they have Dell Support Chat now which bypasses the annoying accents and most of the things people complain about. And if you have at home service, someone comes to your door within 1-2days of a problem to fix your computer. Personally, I love Dell.

The main advantage of a Macbook imo is that I can just close it and open it in the next class without the operating system spazzing out.

The main disadvantage is that OneNote isn't native to OSX.

dextermorgan wrote:The main advantage of a Macbook imo is that I can just close it and open it in the next class without the operating system spazzing out.

The main disadvantage is that OneNote isn't native to OSX.

Yes... although, I've been running Windows 7 on my MacBook, and closing and opening it works just as quickly as Mac OS X (I was shocked the first time). It literally sleeps and wakes instantly, which was unheard in Windows before version 7.

And, OneNote was definitely a factor in my decision to get a PC laptop vs keep the Mac (or get a new metal one since mine is a piece).

dextermorgan wrote:The main advantage of a Macbook imo is that I can just close it and open it in the next class without the operating system spazzing out.

The main disadvantage is that OneNote isn't native to OSX.

You hit it right on the head. I really couldn't care less what's inside the computer. I care about the operating system. Mac OS is simply more stable than Windows. I operate a music studio, so stability is crucial. I can run a recording session, play a game of poker, and surf TLS all at the same time without the OS crashing.

crystalhawkeye wrote:

geoffree wrote:

crystalhawkeye wrote: Don't want to sound like those Mac vs. PC commercials, but I'll probably end up getting the former.

Can't stand those commercials. I'm going with a macbook for LS, but these commercials almost make me have second thoughts.

Hahaha, yeah no kidding. Those did make me think I'd be buying the more pretentious brand, but hey, they are a lot better.

Have you seen the new Windows commercials? Microsoft doesn't even make computers.

dextermorgan wrote:

crystalhawkeye wrote:

geoffree wrote:

crystalhawkeye wrote: Don't want to sound like those Mac vs. PC commercials, but I'll probably end up getting the former.

Can't stand those commercials. I'm going with a macbook for LS, but these commercials almost make me have second thoughts.

Hahaha, yeah no kidding. Those did make me think I'd be buying the more pretentious brand, but hey, they are a lot better.

Have you seen the new Windows commercials? Microsoft doesn't even make computers.

Yeah, Macs are PCs too. Just running a different OS.

I do have to say, I felt much cooler using a Mac when I got my first one in 2004. They were much more scarce back then, and I thought it was cool to have something no one knew how to use. Mac users back then seemed to be the more proficient computer users. Now more and more people are buying Macs because they're "pretty" and "cute." (I have an annoying ditzy friend in mind, who also happened to buy a BlackBerry Curve because she could get it in pink.)

.

lobbing this up there for all the computer people out there, but i dont get what is so bad about vista?

i bot the cheapest (<$600) computer i could find just to do my LS apps on, and it has vista, and has probably been one of the better computers i've worked on in my life...i have every intention on keeping it for LS

Vista in itself is not a bad operating system (in fact, probably much better than XP). The problem lies in the fact that Vista uses a new core from XP, and with that comes many compatibility issues. Drivers and software were not compatible with Vista for a very long time, and to make matters worse, Microsoft put "Vista Capable" on computers that were in fact NOT capable of running it.

It's similar to Mac OS X replacing OS 9. Only, Apple included essentially an OS 9 emulator in OS X, to take care of the problems (and driver issues are non-existent on Mac, for obvious reasons). With a capable computer, Vista does not suck. It's not amazing, either.

Windows 7 will take care of that, and will be a much smoother transition, as the core is the same as Vista. Some say 7 already runs better than Vista in its first beta.

jrock12 wrote:lobbing this up there for all the computer people out there, but i dont get what is so bad about vista?

i bot the cheapest (<$600) computer i could find just to do my LS apps on, and it has vista, and has probably been one of the better computers i've worked on in my life...i have every intention on keeping it for LS

Everyopne has been indoctrinated with the mac "ease of use" argument. Mac's are great, but overpriced for the components that go into them. Windows PC's arent as terrible as people make them out to be. In fact they aren't bad at all. I consider myself to be on the lower end of "power users," and as much as I love OSX I end up booting into windows on my mac more than osx. there are just some things windows does better than osx (games, handling large files, hi def movies).

hombredulce wrote:

jrock12 wrote:lobbing this up there for all the computer people out there, but i dont get what is so bad about vista?

i bot the cheapest (<$600) computer i could find just to do my LS apps on, and it has vista, and has probably been one of the better computers i've worked on in my life...i have every intention on keeping it for LS

Everyopne has been indoctrinated with the mac "ease of use" argument. Mac's are great, but overpriced for the components that go into them. Windows PC's arent as terrible as people make them out to be. In fact they aren't bad at all. I consider myself to be on the lower end of "power users," and as much as I love OSX I end up booting into windows on my mac more than osx. there are just some things windows will always do better than osx (games, handling large files, hi def movies).

I'm with you on the games argument, but how is Windows better at handling large files or hi def movies? Those kinds of problems are typically RAM issues, and Macs can handle a ton of RAM.

JazzOne wrote:

hombredulce wrote:

jrock12 wrote:lobbing this up there for all the computer people out there, but i dont get what is so bad about vista?

i bot the cheapest (<$600) computer i could find just to do my LS apps on, and it has vista, and has probably been one of the better computers i've worked on in my life...i have every intention on keeping it for LS

Everyopne has been indoctrinated with the mac "ease of use" argument. Mac's are great, but overpriced for the components that go into them. Windows PC's arent as terrible as people make them out to be. In fact they aren't bad at all. I consider myself to be on the lower end of "power users," and as much as I love OSX I end up booting into windows on my mac more than osx. there are just some things windows will always do better than osx (games, handling large files, hi def movies).

I'm with you on the games argument, but how is Windows better at handling large files or hi def movies? Those kinds of problems are typically RAM issues, and Macs can handle a ton of RAM.

Def not a ram issue when in osx a file is unstable, but booted into windows (on the very same computer) there are no issues with that file. Large MKV files have major issues in OSX (in my experiences). It is also difficult to find audio/video drivers at times. Windows is definitley better in that regard. OSX is more intuitive by far though.

jrock12 wrote:

Waterman47 wrote:If you can stretch you budget to $1700 dollars or so, I'd recommend a one-two punch of a netbook for taking to school on a daily basis and a unibody macbook for use at home and during finals. The former is light and portable enough that it will significantly lighten the load on your back, and the latter is powerful enough to take care of all your computing needs.

If you don't mind carrying more weight, just get a Macbook.

If you like the netbook-laptop idea but don't like Macs, get a solid HP instead.

I should also mention that my $1700 budget estimate is for two top-of-the-line machines. You can get a good netbook for as little as 300 dollars, and you can obviously get a competent laptop for $700, so you could probably keep the whole cost under $1000 if you needed to.

i dont want to ask a really stupid question or sound like a complete dinosaur, but what is the story with these netbooks? obviously i see that they are very small, but what are their actual capabilities? are they annoying to type on since they are so small?

thanks for the help, as i was in UG when desktop PCs were the norm

well since i'm finally getting some responses on this thread, figured i'd bump my earlier post..does anyone want to fill me in on these netbooks? or tablets? i've seen people in analyst/sharholder meetings with slate tablets? anyone have experience with these?

hombredulce wrote:

JazzOne wrote:

hombredulce wrote:

jrock12 wrote:lobbing this up there for all the computer people out there, but i dont get what is so bad about vista?

i bot the cheapest (<$600) computer i could find just to do my LS apps on, and it has vista, and has probably been one of the better computers i've worked on in my life...i have every intention on keeping it for LS

Everyopne has been indoctrinated with the mac "ease of use" argument. Mac's are great, but overpriced for the components that go into them. Windows PC's arent as terrible as people make them out to be. In fact they aren't bad at all. I consider myself to be on the lower end of "power users," and as much as I love OSX I end up booting into windows on my mac more than osx. there are just some things windows will always do better than osx (games, handling large files, hi def movies).

I'm with you on the games argument, but how is Windows better at handling large files or hi def movies? Those kinds of problems are typically RAM issues, and Macs can handle a ton of RAM.

Def not a ram issue when in osx a file is unstable, but booted into windows (on the very same computer) there are no issues with that file. Large MKV files have major issues in OSX (in my experiences). It is also difficult to find audio/video drivers at times. Windows is definitley better in that regard. OSX is more intuitive by far though.

Unstable? I deal with enormous files in my recording studio, and I never have a hiccup in OS.

jrock12 wrote:

jrock12 wrote:

Waterman47 wrote:If you can stretch you budget to $1700 dollars or so, I'd recommend a one-two punch of a netbook for taking to school on a daily basis and a unibody macbook for use at home and during finals. The former is light and portable enough that it will significantly lighten the load on your back, and the latter is powerful enough to take care of all your computing needs.

If you don't mind carrying more weight, just get a Macbook.

If you like the netbook-laptop idea but don't like Macs, get a solid HP instead.

I should also mention that my $1700 budget estimate is for two top-of-the-line machines. You can get a good netbook for as little as 300 dollars, and you can obviously get a competent laptop for $700, so you could probably keep the whole cost under $1000 if you needed to.

i dont want to ask a really stupid question or sound like a complete dinosaur, but what is the story with these netbooks? obviously i see that they are very small, but what are their actual capabilities? are they annoying to type on since they are so small?

thanks for the help, as i was in UG when desktop PCs were the norm

well since i'm finally getting some responses on this thread, figured i'd bump my earlier post..does anyone want to fill me in on these netbooks? or tablets? i've seen people in analyst/sharholder meetings with slate tablets? anyone have experience with these?

Are you a better writer or typist? For me, a tablet would be useless, because I prefer typing any day. Also, I cannot type for a long time on a netbook keyboard, as it's too small/cramped for my fingers. If what you're getting will be your primary computer, get a "normal" laptop with a 13" or 14" screen. Just make sure it doesn't weigh 8 pounds (most are 4-6 pounds).

JazzOne wrote:
Unstable? I deal with enormous files in my recording studio, and I never have a hiccup in OS.

That is why I made sure to say "in my experiences," and then went on to give a specific file type that I have a problem with Open up a 12 gig mkv on osx and see how long it runs before your comp freezes lol.

hombredulce wrote:

JazzOne wrote:
Unstable? I deal with enormous files in my recording studio, and I never have a hiccup in OS.

That is why I made sure to say "in my experiences," and then went on to give a specific file type that I have a problem with Open up a 12 gig mkv on osx and see how long it runs before your comp freezes lol.

I'm not trying to be a smart ass. I'm just not familiar with MKV, and my files are certainly smaller than 12 GB.