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I'm in the market for either a new/used notebook. The problem is that I don't know enough of the current brands, models and makes in the stores to form a valid opinion and drop some major dough. I'll tell you my needs...I need a notebook for home/work that will put up with some wear and tear of travel. I'm not in need of the computer for long periods of time but I do need some processing power to be able to run multimedia software, and yes, I will be connecting to a network. My price point is somewhere between $1000 and $1500 (CAN). What would you recommend? Thanks for your help!

I'm a firm believer in Thinkpads. They are very durable and while expensive when new, serve you well. You should be able to get a lower end Thinkpad for that price, I'm not sure if it will be beefy enough for you.
My laptop is 4 years old and while the LCD is dead, it suits me fine for internet, office, etc.

Next of Kin wrote:I'm in the market for either a new/used notebook. The problem is that I don't know enough of the current brands, models and makes in the stores to form a valid opinion and drop some major dough. I'll tell you my needs...I need a notebook for home/work that will put up with some wear and tear of travel. I'm not in need of the computer for long periods of time but I do need some processing power to be able to run multimedia software, and yes, I will be connecting to a network. My price point is somewhere between $1000 and $1500 (CAN). What would you recommend? Thanks for your help!

iBook. $999 ($949 w/edu discount) brand new, built in 802.11g wireless, very sturdy/durable, good processor, up to 5 hours of battery, networks fine with windows and linux and macs, GREAT for multimedia, Radeon 9200 32 MB (not a bad graphics card for $999, few $999 Dell laptops and even some desktops have a graphics card at all), 30 GB hard drive, DVD/CD-RW, and OS X... sweet.

GarageBand, iMovie, and iDVD are great multimedia creation programs and come with it, plus you can get Final Cut, Photoshop, or whatever you need. Just add some RAM to the built in 256 (shiver), and you're set. You might want to consider buying Microsoft Office (if you're a student you can probably get a huge discount on this, like 60% off) for Mac if you do get it, though I believe Appleworks is included.


Oh crap, a split second before hitting submit I remembered "CAN" means canadian It's $1299 CN, not sure the education discount price.

Should be able to do everything you need. Plus it can play JKA

Getting a ThinkPad for his price is the next best thing to impossible. Early this year IBM Canada was clearing inventory and let everyone and their mother use the Employee Purchase Program codes, but not anymore. Did I mention that IBM Canada has a significant surcharge on their goods?

The latest batch of Averatec models have gotten some nice reviews from various computer magazines. So long as you're not looking to do anything uber graphics intensive (like expecting to be able to play Quake 3), you can pick up a decent one with around a 2GhZ Processor or so, 512 megs of ram and an 80 gig HD for just under $1500 in most stores. Some of the models come with an 802.11 wireless radio too, so it's a fairly decent deal overall imo.

I recommend spiral bound with preforated pages. Spiral bound notebooks never fall apart, but the preforated pages will let you tear them out without looking like shit. Also, keep in mind that ink will bleed on low quality paper, so spring for the good stuff if you're not using a bog-standard Bic ballpoint or a pencil. I prefer college ruled to standard, myself, but that's not cricial. Avoid composition books unless specifically called for, because you can't tear the pages out. The Mead Neatbook looks nice with no spiral binding, but will fall apart with heavy use.

RedImperator wrote:I recommend spiral bound with preforated pages. Spiral bound notebooks never fall apart, but the preforated pages will let you tear them out without looking like shit. Also, keep in mind that ink will bleed on low quality paper, so spring for the good stuff if you're not using a bog-standard Bic ballpoint or a pencil. I prefer college ruled to standard, myself, but that's not cricial. Avoid composition books unless specifically called for, because you can't tear the pages out. The Mead Neatbook looks nice with no spiral binding, but will fall apart with heavy use.

I'm fond of the Mead Grad series, myself, but Five Star will do as well. My sister once found a narrow-rule notebook, but those are rather rare. It was especially useful since I typically use a 0.3mm pencil and try to cram as much information into a single sheet of paper as possible.

Next of Kin wrote:wear and tear of travel. between $1000 and $1500 (CAN). What would you recommend?

If you are traveling a lot, go for IBM's ThinkPad X or T, X is ultra mobile, T is going to give you more processing power.

However, they will put you over your limit, so I'd like to suggest you find a store that sells IBM notebooks used, you can get a good solid machine at a fair price, just make sure it works before you buy it.

I know a bunch of people with the tiny Apple laptops, all of whom like them very much; but I don't know if they hold up quite as well as the IBM's. I know plenty of old IBM laptops which, even after years of "abuse", still run fine.

phongn wrote:

RedImperator wrote:I recommend spiral bound with preforated pages. Spiral bound notebooks never fall apart, but the preforated pages will let you tear them out without looking like shit. Also, keep in mind that ink will bleed on low quality paper, so spring for the good stuff if you're not using a bog-standard Bic ballpoint or a pencil. I prefer college ruled to standard, myself, but that's not cricial. Avoid composition books unless specifically called for, because you can't tear the pages out. The Mead Neatbook looks nice with no spiral binding, but will fall apart with heavy use.

I'm fond of the Mead Grad series, myself, but Five Star will do as well. My sister once found a narrow-rule notebook, but those are rather rare. It was especially useful since I typically use a 0.3mm pencil and try to cram as much information into a single sheet of paper as possible.

I've been scouring the heavens and the Earth for a left handed, college ruled, spiral bound notebook with preforated pages. No luck so far.

RedImperator wrote:I've been scouring the heavens and the Earth for a left handed, college ruled, spiral bound notebook with preforated pages. No luck so far.

Mead has one (check their website, search for "left") but it cost you a relative arm and a leg. It is in their Five Star line. You can buy it online, too.

InnocentBystander wrote:However, they will put you over your limit, so I'd like to suggest you find a store that sells IBM notebooks used, you can get a good solid machine at a fair price, just make sure it works before you buy it.

IIRC, DoZ purchased a refurbished T23 and likes it greatly. The refurbished ones are quite expensive for what you get, though

I know a bunch of people with the tiny Apple laptops, all of whom like them very much; but I don't know if they hold up quite as well as the IBM's. I know plenty of old IBM laptops which, even after years of "abuse", still run fine.

Apple laptops aren't as good as IBM as far as build quality goes. They once were, long ago, but not anymore.

One thing many people forget when buying a laptop is the keyboard, some laptops especially those from smaller manufacturers have horrible keyboards which make typing a pain. So if you’re going mailorder and can’t try the keyboard out yourself go for someone like IBM who have an good reputation for keyboards.

You should get a P-P-P-PowerBook

Plekhanov wrote:One thing many people forget when buying a laptop is the keyboard, some laptops especially those from smaller manufacturers have horrible keyboards which make typing a pain. So if you’re going mailorder and can’t try the keyboard out yourself go for someone like IBM who have an good reputation for keyboards.

Yes. IBM laptop keyboards have greater key travel to more closely match the feel of a normal desktop keyboard. However, they have no Windows key and that turns off some people.

phongn wrote:

RedImperator wrote:I've been scouring the heavens and the Earth for a left handed, college ruled, spiral bound notebook with preforated pages. No luck so far.

Mead has one (check their website, search for "left") but it cost you a relative arm and a leg. It is in their Five Star line. You can buy it online, too.

InnocentBystander wrote:However, they will put you over your limit, so I'd like to suggest you find a store that sells IBM notebooks used, you can get a good solid machine at a fair price, just make sure it works before you buy it.

IIRC, DoZ purchased a refurbished T23 and likes it greatly. The refurbished ones are quite expensive for what you get, though

I know a bunch of people with the tiny Apple laptops, all of whom like them very much; but I don't know if they hold up quite as well as the IBM's. I know plenty of old IBM laptops which, even after years of "abuse", still run fine.

Apple laptops aren't as good as IBM as far as build quality goes. They once were, long ago, but not anymore.

The iBooks are pretty durable, excepting the easily replacable plastic keyboard.

The iBook is durable, but not ThinkPad durable.

Thanks for the recommendations! The spiral bound notebook, although very affordable in price, is not on my wish list!

phongn wrote:

Plekhanov wrote:One thing many people forget when buying a laptop is the keyboard, some laptops especially those from smaller manufacturers have horrible keyboards which make typing a pain. So if you’re going mailorder and can’t try the keyboard out yourself go for someone like IBM who have an good reputation for keyboards.

Yes. IBM laptop keyboards have greater key travel to more closely match the feel of a normal desktop keyboard. However, they have no Windows key and that turns off some people.

why would it be a turnoff? the windows keys is one of those useless keys on the keyboard that should've been done away with years ago. does anyone actually use the windows key on a frequent enough basis to justify it being there?

Darth_Zod wrote:

phongn wrote:

Plekhanov wrote:One thing many people forget when buying a laptop is the keyboard, some laptops especially those from smaller manufacturers have horrible keyboards which make typing a pain. So if you’re going mailorder and can’t try the keyboard out yourself go for someone like IBM who have an good reputation for keyboards.

Yes. IBM laptop keyboards have greater key travel to more closely match the feel of a normal desktop keyboard. However, they have no Windows key and that turns off some people.

why would it be a turnoff? the windows keys is one of those useless keys on the keyboard that should've been done away with years ago. does anyone actually use the windows key on a frequent enough basis to justify it being there?

Yes. I use it as the shortcut key to some useful stuff.

Darth_Zod wrote:

phongn wrote:

Plekhanov wrote:One thing many people forget when buying a laptop is the keyboard, some laptops especially those from smaller manufacturers have horrible keyboards which make typing a pain. So if you’re going mailorder and can’t try the keyboard out yourself go for someone like IBM who have an good reputation for keyboards.

Yes. IBM laptop keyboards have greater key travel to more closely match the feel of a normal desktop keyboard. However, they have no Windows key and that turns off some people.

why would it be a turnoff? the windows keys is one of those useless keys on the keyboard that should've been done away with years ago. does anyone actually use the windows key on a frequent enough basis to justify it being there?

Yes acutally, but then again, I am very lazy.

phongn wrote:Yes. IBM laptop keyboards have greater key travel to more closely match the feel of a normal desktop keyboard. However, they have no Windows key and that turns off some people.

Not me, I never usually use the Windows key as I don't use Windows

Darth_Zod wrote:why would it be a turnoff? the windows keys is one of those useless keys on the keyboard that should've been done away with years ago. does anyone actually use the windows key on a frequent enough basis to justify it being there?

I use it all the time.

Crayz9000 wrote:

phongn wrote:Yes. IBM laptop keyboards have greater key travel to more closely match the feel of a normal desktop keyboard. However, they have no Windows key and that turns off some people.

Not me, I never usually use the Windows key as I don't use Windows

It's still useful as a meta key for typing in weird characters, and for controlling some window managers w/o interfering with ctrl and alt.

Darth_Zod wrote:

phongn wrote:

Plekhanov wrote:One thing many people forget when buying a laptop is the keyboard, some laptops especially those from smaller manufacturers have horrible keyboards which make typing a pain. So if you’re going mailorder and can’t try the keyboard out yourself go for someone like IBM who have an good reputation for keyboards.

Yes. IBM laptop keyboards have greater key travel to more closely match the feel of a normal desktop keyboard. However, they have no Windows key and that turns off some people.

why would it be a turnoff? the windows keys is one of those useless keys on the keyboard that should've been done away with years ago. does anyone actually use the windows key on a frequent enough basis to justify it being there?

I refer to it as the autocrash key.

Don't get me wrong, its a fine key, but its positioned in a horrible position- right between Ctrl and Alt. A lot of my games use those keys, and it's horrible when you suddenly smack the windows key in the middle of a game and it drops you to desktop. Some games even crash or lock up (Elite Force comes to mind).

Praxis wrote:

Darth_Zod wrote:

phongn wrote: Yes. IBM laptop keyboards have greater key travel to more closely match the feel of a normal desktop keyboard. However, they have no Windows key and that turns off some people.

why would it be a turnoff? the windows keys is one of those useless keys on the keyboard that should've been done away with years ago. does anyone actually use the windows key on a frequent enough basis to justify it being there?

I refer to it as the autocrash key.

Don't get me wrong, its a fine key, but its positioned in a horrible position- right between Ctrl and Alt. A lot of my games use those keys, and it's horrible when you suddenly smack the windows key in the middle of a game and it drops you to desktop. Some games even crash or lock up (Elite Force comes to mind).

I hated that soooo much. I do use it though. Even though i use linux now, i've configured kde to use a windows like input scheme because i'm too lazy to learn new key combos. So it now opens the k menu.

Yeah, the placement of it isn't so hot, but Macs have had the Command key in the same general location for years. You can always remap it if you have to.