OT Laptops
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I'm looking at laptops for student use. Ideally something that is going to last a 4 yr degree. No technical use.

anyone got any recommendations?

I've reviewed the Toshiba Satellite L850 and Sony Vaio E series so far and both tick most boxes although processors are a bit dated (wont they all in a year!)

cheers

Rob

without being flamed or anything for saying this....

if you can personally i would get a mac. the os seems much more stable in terms of using it over x number of years.... windows machines always seem to slow or break after 2 years i find

Make sure u have the relevent tv licence

13.95 1/4 mile on a 2.95 fd. Carnt be that hard to beat!

My vaio is 5 1/2 years old. case is a bit battered, I've gone through a few power supplies and had to replace the bit where the power supply connects, but otherwise spot on. No need or plans to replace it for the foreseeable future.

Macs are completley overpriced and un needed.

I have a HP laptop a pavilion DV6 and its done me fine. I re-format it every year just so its fresh for when I go back to uni.

Take it from a student:

Buy a mac if you want to show off or can afford it but its un needed
Buy something with a decent enough processor and ram (4gb + ) and youll be fine.

End of the day all you need to do is run word.

my way:
find out what you need. do you need to run software/hardware that will need a specific OS? if not, i won't care right now about the OS.
you probably will open and close it very often, so you need good hinges. cheaper ones tend to crack.
do you need a lot of battery time? i like it to be able to hot swap my DVD player with an aditional battery and i can be a full day around without worrying. and i think you should be able to fit a new main battery without (many) tools. they tell you it will last long enough, but can be dead within 2 years. and some charge a premium to change it.

after that you can think about an OS, may it be Win, Mac or Linux.

BTW i still run an old IBM T20, just replaced some batterys, for every day use. during that time i broke 3 Acer, cracked hinges. as it is not used for playing games it don't need the latest CPU or be stuffed with RAM.
and i have never had any problems with Win, without ever re-format anything

For the price of a decent laptop I would buy a descktop and a tablet. Desktop for study work, wanking, etc. Tablet for sitting in front of the tv, surfing, wanking, etc.

Edited by Ben H on 19th Sep, 2012.

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A man without a project is like a like a woman without a shopping list.

Dazed and Confused....

Don't bother with a mac unless you're developing Apple software, that's all they're useful for. It's a con anyway but don't get me started on that.

I would recommend a netbook over a laptop however, far more lightweight and excellent battery life, so they are ideal for carrying around all day for making notes in lectures without having to charge them every 5 minutes.

There are plenty of good deals for netbooks on at the moment as well, and they are quite a bit cheaper than laptops.

I will dig around for a bit to see what I can find but most popular computer e-tailers and retailers stock them.

interesting comments..........

Edited by Tom Fenton on 19th Sep, 2012.

Ah but you can't get word art and the internet on a notepad

actually i am with ben on this one

http://www.ebuyer.com/389051-zoostorm-desk...aign=b2c_monday

plus a decent monitor for 60 pounds and your sorted.... for classes just make notes and doodle....

Speaking as someone who does know as my job involves maintaining vast estates of IT gear including lapotps..

Reliability/quality in order:

Lenovo
Fujitsu (bit partisan I must admit)
HP/Compaq
Toshiba
Sony
Dell
Almost everything else
Acer / Unbranded Chinese shite
Advent

Don't buy a MAC for gods sake, its a fashion accessory.

In terms of what to actually buy, for student office/work/porn/non graphics intensive I'd go for anything from a decent manufacturer in the £350-500 range. Anything else is pretty much just bells and whistles for the sake of it.

Processor speed means nothing much
2-4 gb ram is plenty
250gb hdd is fine
Graphics card - -any
Screen, bigger is more £ and more to carry when you cart it around a lot

Hope that helps

I disagree about the Lenovos. We have thousands of the fuckers at work. They are built down to a cost, not up to a spec. The quality varies from batch to batch. The desktops have a range of different components in them, but all have the same part number. Half the DVD drives only read double layer DVDs if you burn them at 1 speed. The hard disks fail very regularly too.

I just got a Lenovo IdeaPad S205 for less than £300 that will be fine for office type work and playing videos for years.

btw, laptops and pc's do not "slow down" the operating system does over time as it collects trash. All you need to do is copy off work to a USB key, recover the system (Lenovo have a 1 click system for it) copy the work back, and it is as fast as the day you got it.

They do slow down. Hard disks wear over time, they don't spin as fast and the reads slow down.

Same with all manufacturers, no one has one set of components under the same part number. All components are made at multiple 3rd parties. Lenovo use the same HDDs as lots of others.

Statistically speaking they fail less than the rest, it all very close for the top 5 though.

Not measurably. It's a myth.

It's noticeable on my wanky work Dell laptop. You hear them grinding as the moving components have worn.

That's called "faulty" (but not if it's on maintenance with us!)

ha ha. You know full well we went for CC as they where cheapest, not best value for money

been working in it for 20 years and recently moving to apple (2 years ago) apple gear is better quality.

If you own the equipment and OS you have to have more control over the stabliilty.

IMO corp grade gear is generally better as the parts are available via a road map.

IMO performance and reliability chnages with the model, just like it does with cars...

Oh and on the there too expensive argument its not just the buy price you should think about a mac will be worth more when you want to sell it. Lease companies dont get that wrong.

I run a supercharger and I don't care the TB is on the wrong side.
VEMS + 12 PSI + Liquid Intercooler = Small Bore FUN!