Another Laptop Thread

[stitch626]

Yes, I'm in the US.

And I didn't know that they don't sell the white ones anymore. Someone should inform Best Buy.

[Teaos]

That would be back stock. They dont make them anymore.

[IanKennedy]

Yes, I'm in the US.

And I didn't know that they don't sell the white ones anymore. Someone should inform Best Buy.

They don't sell white and they don't sell black anymore. There whole like is aluminum now.

[Nickswitz]

They still have one black model i believe. I'll have to check.

Nope, just the black inside screen area, sorry.

[LaughingCheese]

So Teaos, have you gotten your laptop yet?

[Teaos]

Not yet, I'm taking a prolonged holiday in about 6 weeks so I'm waiting till after that to see how much money I have left.

That will decide if I get a MacbookPro 2.55 or a 2.4. Both have 4GB Ramm and 240 7200rpm HD's. With Nvida 9800 independent graphics card. I obviously want the 2.55 but it is 600 more.

[Teaos]

On a related note I was playing around of the apple site. A fully speced out MacPro is 44k, but it does have some pretty sweet stats, the only thing I'd change is I'd swap out the 4TB HD for a smaller solid state drive, honestly I dont know why they dont offer them, I know they used to and still do for laptops, I would far prefer a small solid state than a larger standard.

* Two 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
* 32GB (8x4GB)
* Mac Pro RAID Card
* 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
* 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
* 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
* 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
* 4x NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB
* Two 18x SuperDrives
* Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel)
* Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel)
* Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse
* Apple Wireless Keyboard (English) and User's Guide
* AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi Card with 802.11n
* Quad-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card
* Family Pack
* Xsan 2
* Apple Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter
* Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter
* Apple Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter
* 1-year Family Pack subscription
* AppleCare Protection Plan for Mac Pro (w/or w/o Display) - Auto-enroll
* HP Photosmart C7280 All-in-One Printer, Scanner, Copier

And a fully spec'd out MacbookPro for 13k:

* 2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
* 8GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2X4GB
* 256GB Solid State Drive
* SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
* MacBook Pro 17-inch Hi-Resolution Antiglare Widescreen Display
* Apple LED Cinema Display (24" flat panel)
* Keyboard & User's Guide
* Family Pack
* Apple Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter
* Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter
* Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter
* Apple MagSafe Airline Power Adapter
* Apple Remote
* 1-year Family Pack subscription
* HP Photosmart C7280 All-in-One Printer, Scanner, Copier
* AppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook Pro (w/or w/o Display) - Auto-enroll

The one I want is about 4.6k and is a bit more sensible

[Grundig]

I bought a regular macbook, right when they came out, about 2 years ago or so. It's been fantastic. There's been some wear on the body, but since you're not getting a plastic one, I wouldn't worry about it. My specs are 1GB ram, 80 gigabyte hard drive (DEFINITELY TOO SMALL!!!!!!), 13 inch screen (might be small, but I actually prefer the smaller size for a laptop; it makes it MUCH easier to tote around), 2 GHZ intel core2 duo processor

One thing that's been pretty buggy is the battery. First of all, the battery gets Seriously hot, especially when charging; too hot to have on your lap without sperm-protection... Lots of people have complained about them crapping out too; I had to get mine replaced while under warranty. I walked into the Apple store with the battery and the warranty, told the guy at the "Genius Bar" that my battery had stopped charging (the comp. still worked when plugged in), and he just said, "No problem, I'll trade you." I gave him my broken battery, he gave me a brand new one; never asked for a warranty, or my name... which tells me that they wanted to fix the problem as quickly and quietly as possible. I don't know what the current situation is with newer models. I hope it's been resolved; I think this was the biggest issue.

As far as gaming goes, mine runs Railroad Tycoon 2 really well, and that's a 3d game. However, it doesn't run Spore (Ian's right, the video card is the weakness here - maybe they've addressed that in the new models). It'd run Warcraft 3; probably WoW too, but I don't know for sure. The best way to figure that out is to look up the game's requirements, and see if the video card's model # is supported - some actually say specifically that the card in my laptop is NOT supported.

In general, this is their second line of products using the new Intel processors. I am familiar with hardware, but I'm not an expert, and in my opinion, you can trust that they've been able to work out many of these bugs by now. However, I would check consumer reviews FOR SURE. Even at over 2 years old, the computer is the most reliable one I've ever had, and it's still really fast. It comes with great software, too. Just watchout for lapburn.

[Teaos]

My specs are 1GB ram, 80 gigabyte hard drive (DEFINITELY TOO SMALL!!!!!!), 13 inch screen

How did you survive lol. 80GB is to small, and I cant stand 13 inch, I need a 15 inh since I watch a lot of videos on it.

One thing that's been pretty buggy is the battery. First of all, the battery gets Seriously hot, especially when charging; too hot to have on your lap without sperm-protection... Lots of people have complained about them crapping out too; I had to get mine replaced while under warranty. I walked into the Apple store with the battery and the warranty, told the guy at the "Genius Bar" that my battery had stopped charging (the comp. still worked when plugged in), and he just said, "No problem, I'll trade you." I gave him my broken battery, he gave me a brand new one; never asked for a warranty, or my name... which tells me that they wanted to fix the problem as quickly and quietly as possible. I don't know what the current situation is with newer models. I hope it's been resolved; I think this was the biggest issue.

Yeah from what I hear it has been totally fixed. The apple site is practically bragging about how awesome there new batterys are. 8 hours of life with energy intencive use. I'm not to worried.

As far as gaming goes, mine runs Railroad Tycoon 2 really well, and that's a 3d game. However, it doesn't run Spore (Ian's right, the video card is the weakness here - maybe they've addressed that in the new models). It'd run Warcraft 3; probably WoW too, but I don't know for sure. The best way to figure that out is to look up the game's requirements, and see if the video card's model # is supported - some actually say specifically that the card in my laptop is NOT supported.

From what I've seen the video card is pretty good. NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 512MB is the ones that come with my model... or the one I want anyway. Its pretty good but not amazing. More than capable of running anything but the most graphically advanced games, and you could even play those if you just tone down the resolution.

...Damn, this last month I've been reading so much about laptops and computers in general my knowledge of them has increased 10 fold.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

ANY laptop screen looks tiny now that I view the interwebs on my 19" widescreen monitor. One nice thing I like about desktops is the essentially unlimited possible monitor size.

OTOH, I have heard someone mention the idea of turning a laptop into the processor of a quasi-desktop by putting it in a box, hooking up a nice big monitor and a keyboard and mouse (I never did like those touch pads) and using it as you would a desktop - except you have the ability to pull it out of the box and carry it around as a traditional laptop. This is one way of neatly getting around the laptop/desktop debate (since it's gotten a lot harder to afford having one of each!)

[Reliant121]

we broke one of ours, dad managed to er...remove the screen a little...so we hitched it up to a 28" in the dining room

[kostmayer]

ANY laptop screen looks tiny now that I view the interwebs on my 19" widescreen monitor. One nice thing I like about desktops is the essentially unlimited possible monitor size.

OTOH, I have heard someone mention the idea of turning a laptop into the processor of a quasi-desktop by putting it in a box, hooking up a nice big monitor and a keyboard and mouse (I never did like those touch pads) and using it as you would a desktop - except you have the ability to pull it out of the box and carry it around as a traditional laptop. This is one way of neatly getting around the laptop/desktop debate (since it's gotten a lot harder to afford having one of each!)

Pretty much what I do with mine, only without the actual box. I've a 22 inch monitor, surruound sound speakers, keyboard and mouse, and a big external hard drive on my desk at home. I take my laptop to work, then when I get home I connect everything up to it. Another advantage is that the Laptop is quiet enough to leave on all night downloading or backing up files or whatnot.