[CONSUMER ADVICE] Laptop Buying

aaah i seeeee. that's good enough for me. and is that price okay?

pretty much. you get a 'better' version of vista on the acer as well but it probably wouldn't make much difference.

of course if the budget allows you could always lol get a mac (etc)

what spec is good for playing live music from? im thinking a 2gb ram, maybe this one http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Asus_F3Jp_Laptop_F3JP-AS113C/version.asp but is there anything i need to know about processor and stuff? am i right in thinking i can just wipe over the vista crap and stick xp on there instead, or do some laptops not work like this?

i made the mistake of whacking vista on my pc and after realising my mistake tried to put xp back but it appears to have done something that's fucked the xp install program. so possibly not.

for music i'd say get a macbook (no, seriously) and logic express 8, use the education discount store, they never check

it's weird about the vista xp thing, is there some kind of solution to it? annoyingly i can't get a mac as my music-playing program doesn't work on macs.

what is best processor-wise when it comes to playing music - reliability is key, obv

well the in-thing at the moment is intel's core 2 duo and the low end apple laptops have superior versions of it to any pc laptop at similar prices, but probably the difference isn't noticeable. just don't get a celeron :(

i don't know if there's a solution to the OS problem because i'm not sure what the problem actually is, it's just like the pc is sulking or something

Best processor for playing music....

All processors are reliable unless they are faulty, all modern processors are more than capable of playing music.

Your OS problem, I have no idea give us some more information, when you are installing XP are you formatting the hard disk?

im using a porgram which can eat up processor speed by adding effects, an external behringer mixer, external soundcard etc. is there a certain type of processor which is better than others for this type of thing or all they all pretty much the same?

surely you can install xp over vista, couldn't you do this with xp and me and 98 ?

vista changes some bootup process which makes installing xp after vista a headache.

Your program may use certain processor features to speed things up, its doubtful, some audio software such as Guitar Rig requires things like Altivec on older Macs.

People use Athlon 64s to run multiple effects on multitrack audio like Cubase so even previous generation processors are enough for audio and effects.

A Core 2 Duo should be more than enough.

the most annoying thing is that to buy a modern laptop with xp rather than vista costs an extra £40! not sure if this includes a cd copy of vista to use in future or not but still.. grr

Get Vista it's fine unless you're a gamer, or have lots of weird unsupported hardware.

im going to avoid vista as my music software doesnt work so well on that, plus im planning on sticking a few games on there too.

at the moment its a toss up between: http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Asus_F3Jp_Laptop_F3JP-AS113C/version.asp
* Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T5300 - 1.73GHz - 533MHz FSB - 2MB L2 Cache
* RAM: 2048MB DDR2
* Hard Drive: 160GB
* Screen: 15.4" Widescreen TFT WXGA+
* Optical Drive: DVD±RW
* Graphics: ATI Radeon X1700 supporting 512MB HyperMemory
* Wireless LAN: 802.11a/b/g - Call for advice on Wireless Networking
* Warranty: 2 Year Warranty
* Bluetooth Enabled
* Built-In 1.3 MegaPixel Camera
* FREE Mouse and Carry Case included
(with XP for £610)

and one of the dell vostros:
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/4x_vostro_1500?c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&l=en&s=bsd
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7250 (2.00 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB)
LCD 15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display
INTEGRATED WEBCAM Matte Jet Black without Camera
MEMORY 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x1024)
HARD DRIVE 160GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive
GRAPHICS CARD 256MB nVidia® GeForce® 8600M GT
OPTICAL DRIVE Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
PRIMARY BATTERY Primary 9-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (85 WHr)
with XP for £600.

which one is best? im mostly wanting it for playing out music live, it'd be nice to play games on too, but first and foremost it's for playing music on.

The latter for music. The former for gaming. And even then, my experience with ATi tells me the latter for gaming anyway.

ah thanks, why is the latter better for music? is it worth an extra £40 to boost the processor to Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7300 Processor (2.0GHz,800MHz,4MB L2 cache) ?

if you're actually manipulating music and not just playing back MP3s, the higher processor speed means you will be able to do more stuff without slowdown. I guess it depends what you mean by "play" music. Isn't that one £10 cheaper, not £40 more expensive?

yeah id be putting fx on the tracks and such, so a better processor would probly be best. (i wasnt sure which i should be looking for - ram or processor).

i mean the dell vostro one can have a better processor for £40, from a T7250 to a T7300 (with 4mb L2 cache rather than 2mb L2 cache, though im not sure what that means) is this improvement worth £40? theres also an upgrade to a T7500 Processor 2.2GHz but that's £90 and a bit out of my budget, unless its necessary.

question! in the UK, can you get a laptop that's 10-13" across in the new under-£400 bottom end of the market? i really want something that is both SMALL and CHEAP but i don't know if such a thing exists yet, plz advise

Asus too small?

http://www.morecomputers.com/extra.asp?pn=EEE%20PC%204G-BK

That seems incredibly lo-spec. Hm.

I see a lot of 'refurbished' second-hand laptops being advertised - what does 'refurbished' mean, in real terms? Is there a reason to be particularly wary of them?

( F'rinstance I just found this online:

Dell D400, Intel Centrino 1.4G, 512Mb, 40G, DVD, Wireless, 12.1monitor, Win XP

for £225, 'refurbished'. If I wasn't waiting til the end of the month that'd seem a pretty good deal.)

i dunno about uk but if over here dell pushes their 'certified refurb' program and you get to keep whatever the original warranty was. i bought two desktops for the office cheep with almost 3 years onsite svc. i would give used laptops a bit more scrutiny though.

i've noticed dell laptop monitors fuck up too much for my comfort, at least the low end ones

those are pretty shabby specs even for used anyway these days

Check out:

Dell Vostro
HP Micronote 2133
Asus Eee
Acer Wind

I rather like the HP micronote.

Sorry, MSI wind.

It hadn't occurred to me to check the 'small business' computers rather than the 'home' ones. gosh.

I remember looking at the Asus Eee back when I was disappointed that one laptop per child laptops were only showing up in north america, I didn't realise that kind of semi-laptop had so much competition yet. I'm in two minds whether one of these things — or a cheap business laptop — will do me, or whether I want a DVD/CD player and to be able to run a bit more than just word processing/internet.

Dell Vostro then

http://blog.laptopmag.com/getting-windy-full-specs-of-the-msi-wind

msi wind looking good right now...but is 10" too big?

pc world are doing a nice samsung that's tempting me even though the last thing i need is another computer

it's time

i've actually never owned a computer lol

do you want a mac or an el cheapo

ive never really used macs much, but i'm not against them. i think its time to make up my mind on this issue. i am getting an iphone on thurs, maybe a mac makes sense now.

macs never make sense

macbooks for $999 - can't beat for price/performance imo

i think you can pay it off w/ $24 a month or somethin?

i've got scrill right now, it ain't a thing

yeah get macbook. i have had to fix stuff on mine but now when i go back on a pc like at work i get angry

i always have to do work on PCs

oh shit and all my sims are for PC!!!!!!!

well the new new macbooks are nice but they're $1300 -- 2nd gen macbook for $999 is tight

had my macbook almost a year now, totally addicted to it. granted it replaced a shitty, low-memory dell, so anything would have seemed like a big improvement. still. it's nice.

Definitely MacBook. You can run Windows on it when you need to Sims it.

nice!

If you like rebooting to XP when you feel like playing the Sims and then rebooting to Mac OS to check yr email/ILX etc

you can get the sims for mac without all the windows crap :D

I guess roxymuzak has already bought the sims on PC

i can sell them, it aint a thing

actually i just realized it really aint a thing, cause i only play sims at work, where i have a pc. so whatever. mac it is!

You could save a few bucks on a refurb and use the money to max out the RAM, always my preferred move.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac?mco=MTMzNTY

Apple store refurb = dope. You can get Applecare too, which is advisable with a notebook.

not a mac but cheapo