by garybuss 28 Replies latest jw friends
I have heard good things about Gateway laptops.
Panasonic advertises a "Toughbook" that is designed to hold up under heavy use, but one pays extra compared to other brands for this extra ruggedness.
Staples stores sell various models of the "Adveratec" notebook computer line. I have one that I bought from them last year. So far it has held up well, but then, I haven't dropped it yet. :)
--VM44
Alan, you wrote: "You should seriously consider getting an IMAC." I looked at the web page. They look nice. Why IMAC over PC?
Nathan, I'll check out the cat's fore but she ain't gonna let me near her aft.
LDB, you wrote: "consider buying an LCD with built in speakers. . . and: for a pointing device I use a trackball"Great ideas. Thanks!
VM44, you wrote: "I have heard good things about Gateway laptops." I have the gateway I bought in 1998 and it's still good. It's just slow, only a dim 14" screen, and running Win 98 that I hate. It's never broke in 8 years. The Dell broke 5 times in 3 years.
I bought my son a Gateway laptop maybe 4 years ago and it's never broke either.
I'm still leaning on having a local PC builder build me a desktop and use the swing arm mount. I can buy the mount for $100.
I have had trouble with Toshiba M35X laptops- If you check ebay you will find out they offer $99 repairs for broken powerjacks, so it's a common failure. After the second warranty repair , I sold it with 13 months of use. Right now I have a Dell XPS laptop, no problems. My strategy in the future will be this: I will buy a laptop and use it for one year, then sell it on ebay. That last Toshiba I sold on ebay brought within $70 of the price I paid for it new. I then buy a new laptop for another one year period. Rather rather than sink $300 into an extened warranty, I just sell and replace now every year. If I can continue to do this for a cost of about $100-150 year, then I feel it is worth it to to that, rather than use one up over a 3 year period until it fails out of warranty and then the entire investment has been lost. Does this make sense?
$700 laptop+$300 extd'd warranty= $1000- it fails after 4 years.- final cost $250/yr.
$700 laptop replaced every year for $150 depreciation. At the end of 4 years I will have spent $1150 total, and have a one year old laptop worth $550. You will never run out of warranty and always have an up to date laptop.
I highly recommend this kind of setup for never missing anything on JWD...
(sorry for the toilet humour )
Good idea Moshe, I tend to keep things and I tend to get complacent with things when they're working. I'll miss the laptop when I get back to traveling.
Right now I use a 40gig external hard drive and I take that from desktop to desktop. That hard drive is actually my computer. I just plug it into any usb port and I have all my files. The only down side is I don't have my pet programs like Omni Form and PSP.
I have a Toshiba M55-S135 I purchased just about a year ago. It has treated me very well. I've added a mini-mouse on a self-winding cord, and I'm set. Couch, Bed, or Office. I like the attached mouse... If it wasn't, I'd loose it.
Gary, your PC with LCD monitor should do you well.
Hey gary, here is my setup, the articulating arm is great.
I picked it up about 6 months ago when I was considering buying a 30 LCD monitor. I realized that for the cost of the monitor, I could pick up a smaller 19" lcd monitor and a dual articulating arm with a separate video card for less than half the price of the 30" monitor. I love this setup because it actually makes it easier to do video editing, posting on JWD, cut and pasting from the internet directly in to MSword and so on. Later on when funds are better, I will upgrade to a imac because I really like apples OS and many of their programs but I also need access to window stuff so with VM Ware, you could run both OS at the same time or boot up into either OS. You might want to consider this as well.
http://www.ergoindemand.com/articulating-lcd-multi-mount.htm
Gary, an IMAC over a PC because it's a good deal more bulletproof.
Less than a year ago, Julie bought a new Dell laptop PC for her work (she works from home now), which runs Windows XP Professional. She's had nothing but trouble with the software, constantly getting the "blue screen of death" and such. She's also had hardware problems, needing to have the hard drive replaced immediately. Her son has built his own PCs for years, constantly having trouble with them, but got disgusted and finally bought an IMAC half a year ago. Not a single glitch. So Julie bought one a month ago and hasn't had a single problem. Yet the stupid Dell PC, even though she uses it only a couple of times a day, for certain things that the IMAC has no software for, still crashes with the blue screen. Pretty much everyone who buys an IMAC loves it. It will even run most Windows programs. On the flip side, I've never had a MAC but have always built my own PC from components -- the most reliable components I can find. I never have hardware trouble, but constantly have something stupid happen with the Windows software. But I don't do nearly as much diverse stuff as Julie does -- just run Internet browsers, Word, text editors and so forth. If it weren't for the fact that I like to tinker with the hardware, I'd have gotten a MAC a long time ago.
AlanF
Interesting thread,
I'm becomming a geek - i understood everything said
I bought this cheap laptop a few months ago and it works like a dream ($900AU). Norton keeps the virii away and broadband makes surfing a breeze. I love the widescreen and the white keys - they're much easier to see. I love having my music loaded and photo uploading is super fast (thank gawd for plug & play). Until I can aford a massive wall screen I doubt I'll buy anything but laptops from now on .. a man's a happy boy.
Goodluck Gary, that big double screen thing looks awesome
Brenda, Thanks for the post. Yes, I've enjoyed the portability of the laptops I've had but I'm discouraged and gun shy after this experience with this Dell.
Carpenter, Great looking set up! I'm still thinking something I can use easily from my recliner. I have access to a desk top across the room.
Alan, Thanks for the info about the MACs. I've always used PC's and I've never even sat at a MAC. I didn't have any software problems with XP.
Bruce, Thanks for the update. It's an interesting world we're living in.
