Thread:

What type of laptop?

Originally Posted by Motor Boater

My work computer is a Toshiba Satellite that was pretty cheap from Best Buy. Its got Vista and I thinks its a POS. Vista is terrible, this machine eats batterys (1 a year). It gets the job done but my next computer will be a mac for sure. Another thing to consider is size, I always thought bigger was better. Now that I take my lap top everywhere for work I want the smallest one possible. Easier on planes, on your lap, in a restraunt etc. Smaller screens are cheaper too. For a college kid to have something that rides around in a back pack I would go small. If he wants a gigantic monitor down the road buy him a docking station and a moniter for the house.

X2, from experience, Toshiba Satellite, not one problem. And the next one will be a Toshiba.

MacBook. No question. I love mine and will most likely be buying another one for the house instead of another PC.

I own a few laptops , toshibas mostly, top of the line quad/huge ram, hell one of them even has a biometric scanner. And then I have my new macbook pro. You can have all the pc's they are clunkers. I will never go back to a pc. Mac is the shit.

something i think thats important to mention, is see if hes interested in a Mac. He might have no desire to learn a whole new OS when hes entering into one of the most challenging and complicated endeavors of his life.

If hes pretty tech savy, let him pick out what he wants.

Windows 7 is beyond amazing for a windows product, but you wont see that on anything until Dec. While you can run the release candidate, its still not supported long term, and would be stupid to send out on a kids laptop if hes not Mr. Tech.

If i was in the market for a windows notebook, i'd be looking at IBM/Lenovo. I love their stuff. HP's business products are great, but i'm not a fan of their personal products. Dell, i've had great luck with thier desktops, but not so great with their laptops, though all problems were platform specific, and most likely have been corrected by now.


Some things i'd look for. Built in 3g (if you can afford to have another spare cell phone bill), N spec wireless adapter, AT LEAST 3gb of ram, solid state drives are nice for speed and power consumption, Try not to get a 17" screen if he plans on lugging it around to class.

Originally Posted by lebel409

I work at a University and you said you want one for your son to take to school...So contact the school, check their website, etc and see what they require/suggest.

I work in Music and our college is mostly MAC, our department is mac, our professors are Mac. A few switch hit, but most like it and all the dept software is compatible.

In Engineering...you'd get laughed out of the building with a mac. All the programs are PC only.

I like Mac as I'm mostly a Luddite, but find out how he'll be using it in school...

If the CAD program I use at the office here had a Mac version I'd ditch this thing. Hopefully Windows 7 will be better!

Whats his major? If its graphical/artsy, get a MAC. Anything else, go PC. Generally speaking, its not PC's that suck, its the people who create spam/viruses that suck. Treat the computer like a tool and take care of it and it wont let you down.

There is a reason 95% of the planet runs PC's.

If you want him proficient in the way offices around the world work, buy him a windows based pc/laptop with MS Office.

If you want him to get into the film or media industry get a mac.

Its just the way it is. Everyone has their favorite for personal reasons. I like the control I have over a PC. I can load any Operating system on a single hardware configuration. I can install a high power operating system or base *nix system and then virtualize 4 different flavors of Windows if I want.

Its preference. 98% of the worlds businesses run on PCs with Windows. Buying him a MAC to get ready for the real world isn't very, um, realistic.

.02
Forensic