The Laptop Thread.

frostbite

Likes Dirt
I have a 15" MBP its pretty darn good. I use it for regular internettin', downloading and watching stuff, recording using garageband and some basic video editing. Oh and I play the occasional game on it (when if ever is modern warfare 2 coming out for mac??).

Its pretty much overkill for what I use it for, but it sure is purdy.

I would recommend to anyone, but there is a couple things to watch out for..
- Get a fast hdd. Get 7200 rpm or solid state if you can afford it. I couldnt justify SSD and I bought it in a shop rather than online so I got 5400rpm drive because thats what they had. Im considering replacing it as garageband will occasionally tell me it cant write fast enough when im recording. Thats really annoying.
- The UI is great, but it does have a few annoying features. For example, maximising a window doesnt really maximise it. You still need to drag it to fill the screen entirely.
- Backspace/delete annoys me.
- I get occasional pinwheels just using it for browsing or whatever. There was an update a while back some random freezing or something, and its gotten a lot better since I installed that (I dont remember the details of it though). This is pretty annoying but its never bad enough to make me want to do something about it.

The good things are really good tho..
- The touchpad is amazing. I bought a wireless mouse to play games with.. but otherwise I just use the touchpad.
- The screen is frikin awesome. Best screen ever.. but does get finger prints really easily..
- I checked my uptime the other day and it was at 50 something days. The only reason I restarted it is cause the automatic updates were starting to pile up and needed to restart to complete install. It was still pretty much rock solid.
- Battery life on the crappier video card (it has two! one for gaming one for good battery life) is about 5 hours. It predicts up to like 6 hours or something but I never really see that from it.
- Its got all these little things which make it awesome, like the charger for example.
- It takes the SD cards from my little video camera and reads them natively whereas my old windows xp machine needed the appropriate software installed (software sucked too).
- Being able to record my electric guitar out of the box just by plugging it is awesome.

In a year or two i'll chuck an SSD in this (really want the price to come down and the capacity to go up!!) and probably be happy for a while yet.

If I were going to buy it again though, I'd seriously consider getting a 24" iMac instead.. much cheaper, seems better suited to most of what I do. Most of the time it spends at home on the couch or my dinner table so I dont really really need a laptop. But its sure nice to have.
 

i like dirt

Likes Bikes and Dirt
I'm pretty clueless on laptops and computer in general so hoping for a bit of help here.. My parents said they'll shout me a laptop for university studies next year and are keen to spend about $800
 

Futile

Likes Bikes and Dirt
I forgot to tell you guys,

I came home last wednesday from a mate's place, got in the car, Dad says.
"Wait until we get home, i've got a surprise for you, it's in the boot of the car"

I fidgeted all the way home thinking it was something for my bike, but when I opened the boot, guess what was staring at me!

A full home desktop set up!

Needless to say I was pretty stoked.

Wanna know what he said when I asked him why?

"I needed some retail therapy". I just stood there with my jaw on the flaw.
 

Big_Chief

Likes Bikes and Dirt
is it covered by warranty? a couple of months sounds way too early for that issue to be coming up..
the poor battery life has been the same way ever since i got it, and i havent had a laptop before so i dont know whether 1-2hrs is normal battery life or whether there is a problem with the battery. by the way it has an intel core 2 duo processor, if that helps.
 
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Morgan123

Likes Dirt
the poor battery life has been the same way ever since i got it, and i havent had a laptop before so i dont know whether 1-2hrs is normal battery life or whether there is a problem with the battery. by the way it has an intel core 2 duo processor, if that helps.
2 hours is generally pretty normal for the average laptop battery and that can drop pretty quickly, especially if you leave it continuously charging at full power. Not sure whether you can get batteries that will last 4-5 hours but i imagine you could, though it could be fairly costly.
 

tupper

Likes Bikes and Dirt
2 hours is generally pretty normal for the average laptop battery and that can drop pretty quickly, especially if you leave it continuously charging at full power. Not sure whether you can get batteries that will last 4-5 hours but i imagine you could, though it could be fairly costly.
2 hours for a laptop battery is absolute rubbish

yet another +1 for mac there..
 

mr_casual

Likes Dirt
32-bit OS will improve battery life windows 7 64 has its advantages, and the big programs run like a dream, but ever since i upgraded to 64 battery life has halved...
i would also never buy something with a plastic body, and you want some expansion bays for the future
 

Arete

Likes Dirt
Spanky might be able to help me...

I'm a bit of a computer luddite. I can drive one fine but as far as I'm concerned it's a tool that serves a purpose. I'm not really into the nitty gritty.

My 4 year old Acer laptop is effectively dead. It runs - just but it takes f.o.r.e.v.e.r to do anything despite being reformatted, registry and virus cleaned, etc etc.

So basically I need a new one. 99% of usage is work related.

I need to: analyse genetic data using a variety of software ranging from slick professional stuff through to dodgy terminal driven things I make myself.

As such, it needs a bit of crunch and I need to be able to bust out my "programming for dummies" and set up phase and MCMC runs on genetic datasets. I've thus far been using Python and Unix for this.

The other thing I do is niche modelling. this means it needs to run ARCgis suite and be able to crunch raster files along with other spatial layer type data - big files, yet again a need for RAM crunching power.

Again programs range from slick professional through to hacked up things I make.

My girlfriend is a macnerd and told me a "Mac was the perfect computer for all my needs rah rah rah I love apple". Went into the Mac store with my list of demands and the guy had NFI apart from suggesting I could make a windows partition and do everything I do on my PC on the Mac.

I've had a drive on my gf's partitioned machine and hated it - seemed like trying to drive a car using a set of handlebars mounted in the boot.

As such, I'm leaning towards PC's because I'm used to them and you get more power per dollar spent. Any suggestions? I'd like to keep the budget under $2k if I can.
 

Spanky_Ham

Porcinus Slappius
My 4 year old Acer laptop is effectively dead. It runs - just but it takes f.o.r.e.v.e.r to do anything despite being reformatted, registry and virus cleaned, etc etc.
hmmm, slowing down you say? If you've got access too one... slide a new HDD in and you might find it's back to full speed.... really only HDD or clockspeed (and that's a BIOS settings) will slow a computer down (after format, reg clean etc).... and for the price of a new laptop HDD....if it doesn't fix it, whip the new drive into an external case for all your backup needs... It might be the head on your HDD is having trouble tracking properly therefore boot times (when the HDD gets hammered) will increase exponentially.... but it will eventually load...

Running Windows as a vitual machine is an option, but for what you've described you want to do, it would be a poor option.....

Or just get a small netbook for tramping round and a proper desktop for crunching
 

Arete

Likes Dirt
Apart from being slow as shit ... did it run all you wanted?
Laptops are cheap as hell these days .... Compaq and Acer
Kinda... 4 years ago it did everything I wanted and more... however acceptable data sets in my field are exponentially increasing in size... same as everyone elses I'm guessing


but I notice that the computers ont he link you sent me have 4 gb of RAm for like 500-600 bucks. Damn. My machine has 512MB.

Might try the HDD option for a short term fix, but given the new comp is coming out of grant money I might spring for one anyway as we got a heap of helicopter fieldwork we were expecting to have to pay for last week free ;)

As for the desktop option - it would be nice but I'm relocating to the US next year and would like a machine I can easily cart around and use for analysis.
 

JSPhoto

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Kinda... 4 years ago it did everything I wanted and more... however acceptable data sets in my field are exponentially increasing in size... same as everyone elses I'm guessing


but I notice that the computers ont he link you sent me have 4 gb of RAm for like 500-600 bucks. Damn. My machine has 512MB.

Might try the HDD option for a short term fix, but given the new comp is coming out of grant money I might spring for one anyway as we got a heap of helicopter fieldwork we were expecting to have to pay for last week free ;)

As for the desktop option - it would be nice but I'm relocating to the US next year and would like a machine I can easily cart around and use for analysis.
512Mb you say, what ram is it? I just ripped 1Gb (2x512) out of my laptop and replaced it with 4Gb, if you'd like we can try and get them to you :)
 

Broken Bones89

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Bit if a gravedigger but I didn't feel my question needed a new thread.

The shoulder strap on my laptop bag has broken, it's a good bag and I don't want to replace it, does anyone have a spare one they're not using that I could possibly buy?
 
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