StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Well, my old Apple Powerbook g4 finally bit the dust, due to its power adapter port. A friend is quite probably right in that some solder has come loose from that part of the motherboard, but this will take way too much to fix.

So, new computer. I'd prefer a laptop, and one that will last me a good number of years. For such a laptop, I want a 15" or better screen, at least 2gb of RAM, a CD/DVD burner drive, a 250gb hard drive, 512mb+ video memory, and a laptop model free of weird worries about equipment failures at random.

For a desktop, the same specs basically. I'm leaning away this option though still considering it, as it would be more expandable, though much less portable.

Thoughts, suggestions, and warnings are appreciated in advance.

Well, I've ordered myself a 14" T61 last month, should be arriving this week, I'll tell you how good or bad it is..

Order takes forever

rhoenix wrote:So, new computer. I'd prefer a laptop, and one that will last me a good number of years. For such a laptop, I want a 15" or better screen, at least 2gb of RAM, a CD/DVD burner drive, a 250gb hard drive, 512mb+ video memory, and a laptop model free of weird worries about equipment failures at random.

The combination of what you want doesn't really exist. There are very few laptops with 512MB of VRAM and those tend to be expensive, heavy and poorly-built gaming laptops.

You could get a 15" Lenovo T61 with 128MB of VRAM and everything else easily, or a 15" T61p with 256MB VRAM if you wanted. Those would last you quite a long time.

To be honest, I was thinking of Freespace 2 primarily when listing the VRAM.

However, I would like to formally retract this request. A friend, in a fit of random genius, took a multimeter to my laptop's old AC adapter - and discovered that it wasn't putting out any power.

A new one was ordered and received, and now works beautifully. The Powerbook G4 lives again!

My thanks to phongn and Pu-239 for your responses. Had my laptop truly bitten the dust, I quite likely would've settled on a Lenovo model, if only because they're simply legendary, and for good reasons.

phongn wrote: The combination of what you want doesn't really exist. There are very few laptops with 512MB of VRAM and those tend to be expensive, heavy and poorly-built gaming laptops.

Orly? The Macbook pro seems to have precisely this, though I'll admit the $2.5k price-tag isn't exactly cheap.

General Zod wrote:Orly? The Macbook pro seems to have precisely this, though I'll admit the $2.5k price-tag isn't exactly cheap.

Huh, I thought the MBP topped out at 256MB VRAM. I stand corrected.

phongn wrote:

General Zod wrote:Orly? The Macbook pro seems to have precisely this, though I'll admit the $2.5k price-tag isn't exactly cheap.

Huh, I thought the MBP topped out at 256MB VRAM. I stand corrected.

This is an actual graphics card from what I can tell though, as opposed to anything integrated.

phongn wrote:The combination of what you want doesn't really exist. There are very few laptops with 512MB of VRAM and those tend to be expensive, heavy and poorly-built gaming laptops.

You could get a 15" Lenovo T61 with 128MB of VRAM and everything else easily, or a 15" T61p with 256MB VRAM if you wanted. Those would last you quite a long time.

I was about to agree with you, but I noticed HP's mid-range line of laptops (dv5t) offer the 9600m GT@512mb for a very reasonable price (easily under $1500). While the quality on their consumer level stuff is a little iffy, I must admit they offer some pretty decent hardware for the price.

General Zod wrote:Orly? The Macbook pro seems to have precisely this, though I'll admit the $2.5k price-tag isn't exactly cheap.

I really want one

Is it possible to order Apple kit without OSX? I want one because they look fantastic, and are nicely built, but I utterly detest OSX. Is it even possible to get Windows & Ubuntu dual booting on a Mac without having OSX as well?

Pezzoni wrote: Is it possible to order Apple kit without OSX? I want one because they look fantastic, and are nicely built, but I utterly detest OSX. Is it even possible to get Windows & Ubuntu dual booting on a Mac without having OSX as well?

Its been possible to run Windows and Linux on a Mac ever since their Intel processors came out. Bootcamp lets you dual-boot the OSes and Parallels lets you run different OSes at the same time inside the native Mac environment. So yes, it's perfectly possible. But you still have to put up with OSX to some degree.

(Although I played with a Macbook Pro in a store awhile back and I didn't really care for the keyboard much. If they had the same keyboards as a regular Macbook I'd be all over it).

I think a MBP update is in the works, and may have the new keyboard. Also, VMWare Fusion > Parallels