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My mom said that she's getting me a laptop for a combined birthday/christmas present. And not knowing squat about computers has allowed me to have a more or less free hand (basically no hyper expensive laptops) So what laptop should i get?

Oh well what you....

Oh wait... NOT hyper expensive?

Hmmm.. this is kinda out of my leauge, I'll have to turn you over to my college Computer Shopping Magainze, Comp?

*Insert Picture of Magainze
Hmmm seems he's struck speechless as normal, however if you flip him out and turn to the latest laptop sections generaly I've noticed his advise has never steared me wrong

darthdavid wrote:(basically no hyper expensive laptops)

Oh, well then the answer is obvious. You definitely need an Area-51m. Yep.

IBM X or T series are nice but they are pricey. They'll last, plus IBM's tech support is top notch. They also have an eBay store for older stuff - good deals. http://www.stores.ebay.com/ibmauthorizedauctions/

Toshiba makes good laptops, but their quality isn't quite like IBM's thinkpads. Still good, though.

Fujitsu is also pretty decent - their P5000 laptop can get something like ten hours of life with twin batteries. It's a smaller laptop, tho.

Compaq's Evo line is also good.

For a different OS, Apple makes good laptops - the iBook is usually a good value.

Stay away from HP/Compaq's consumer lines (read, all of HP and the Presario line) and Dell. They're not very well made.

Get a laptop with the Centrino platform (or at least the Pentium-M chip). You'll get a cooler laptop with more battery life.

Also, avoid Sony machines.

Beowulf wrote:Also, avoid Sony machines.

Yes, that'd be good advice as well.

This is gonna rock. For years all we've has is a crappy old think pad. Nice stable machine i'll grant but the fugger takes all day to do anything. 100 megahertz pre pentium chip. Windows 95. You can do basic word processing, make a paint image or play starcraft. Anything much more power intensive than those and it takes far to long to load and likely dosen't have enough memory to run anyway. Now though, Drool. I dunno. I geuss i wasn't being specific. Which one of those do you think 'll handle mid end games the best?

Ask yourself this question.

Do I want to play games on it?

If the answer is no, then buy an iBook or a PowerBook (mmm.. PowerBook) Or at least do when the Aluminium 15" Powerbook is released (new processor core over the Titanuium one)

If the answer is yes, buy a desktop.

If you simply must have a lightbulb* based notebook, then the current leader in customer satifaction is Toshiba. Whose laptops are also built like brick shithouses. (they do break down, but the build quality is superb). They are aimed at people who want a desktop replacement.

*so called for their power dissipation, which is about twice as high as a top end G4 PowerPC. The 750GX, the new core G3 for iBooks has a heat dissipation of only 8W. Typical AMD/Pentium figures are the 60-80W range. Prescott runs at 100W

If your mom can part with the money get a voodooPC laptop.
http://www.voodoopc.com/systems/notebook.aspx
The m700 model that will be out soon has a built in subwoofer!

Vendetta wrote:If the answer is no, then buy an iBook or a PowerBook (mmm.. PowerBook) Or at least do when the Aluminium 15" Powerbook is released (new processor core over the Titanuium one)

He may not have much software for PPC. Those costs are not trivial.

If you simply must have a lightbulb* based notebook, then the current leader in customer satifaction is Toshiba. Whose laptops are also built like brick shithouses. (they do break down, but the build quality is superb). They are aimed at people who want a desktop replacement.

Not all of Toshiba's laptops are huge desktop replacements (though granted, many are).

So called for their power dissipation, which is about twice as high as a top end G4 PowerPC. The 750GX, the new core G3 for iBooks has a heat dissipation of only 8W. Typical AMD/Pentium figures are the 60-80W range. Prescott runs at 100W

Banias (Pentium-M) has heat dissipation under 25W and when you get into G3-level speeds the heat dissipation is similar. IPC should be in the small ballpark as the G4.

if you have the money, and a protable generator, the A51-M laptop is the best, though its 40 minutes life can discourge some

May i venture a question? Why get a laptop if you can't even use it for the whole length of a short hop in an airplane?

darthdavid wrote:May i venture a question? Why get a laptop if you can't even use it for the whole length of a short hop in an airplane?

The Area-51m was designed to be used as a portable gaming machine that you could plug in at a friend's or grandmother's house, not for you to diddle with on an airplane.

Well regardless, It costs a wee bit too much and virtually defeats the purpose of a laptop (hint it's not playing quake 3 for 40 minutes then stopping to switch batteries). I think i'm gonna get an 12.1 ", I Book running an 800MHz PowerPC G3, 512K L2 cache @800MHz, 256 mb sdram, 40 gigabyte ultra ata hard drive and no upgrades (other than the above listed memory) comming to 1,074 dollars. Changes occuring as prices change up to late september when we're ordering. Seeing as i still have the bulk of the time till order occurs, Any blatantly obvious suggestions that will give me better performance at a similar price that i should hear?

You usually can get better deals if you go to third-party stores, like MacMall. For example, you can get an iBook with an 800Mhz G3, 30GB and 384MB SDRAM for $1,028.52.

Thanks i'll bookmark it and then when it comes to buy i find specs i like and see which one is cheaper.

Thinking now i've come to an impasse. Mac tops seem to have the best value and style i've seen so far. However, I wanna be able to play some real games, but i'm also sick of winblowz. *thinking* Disregard. I'll get mac games whenever possible but otherwise i can just use the regular family pc i'm already using.

The iBook is not a gaming machine. It's not exactly slow, but it isn't a speed demon either.

If you hold off for awhile, new deals may pop up on the iBook or you might get better bundles or OS X 10.3 may be installed rather than 10.2.

Well seing as i'm not getting it till late september, early october, this will not be a problem.