f13.net

With my new overseas gig I think I need to buy a new laptop as my Inspiron 8100 is getting long in the tooth and is like carrying around a small boulder.

This is for business so doesn't need lots of bells and whistles for any sort of gaming although I would like to be able to burn stuff to DVDs and for it to be decently speedy.  Screen doesn't need to be huge. Would like WiFi built in but I assume that is pretty standard these days.

Primary issues are therefore: quality, reliability, weight and price. I'd like to keep it around a grand or less if possible.

I am totally clueless when it comes to laptops as I just have the one from my old job that I didn't have any input in buying so need wise counsel from you all as to brands and price sweet spot.

Thanks.

My boss is really pleased with his Dell Inspiron 600m.  He says it's a nice combination of weight, power, and battery life.

We got an Inspiron 6000 for another lady and while it is perhaps a "better" machine, it isn't as portable so it has turned into a desktop that moves if absolutely necessary.

I cannot give you much more than those impressions though as I do not regularly use laptops myself.  Good luck with your search.

My dad's been using the Dell Inspiron series for a few years now, for international trips and field work, and he's quite happy with them.

The Dell X1 is lovely.  Got 3 for the directors in here.

Having used a 600M a tiny bit, I would recommend it. No long term experience with it. But I heart my overpowered Dell uh 9300? Something big and heavy and gamey.

Macbook.

Not to shill, but the midlevel is pretty well suited for what you're looking for.

They're probably a bit pricey, though. The Core Duo is a nice cpu, though. Been zippy as hell in OSX and Winders for me.

He's going overseas to Croatia. I don't know about Apple support in Croatia. Up a creek, no paddle there.

Abogradro, not sure how rough you're going to be travelling, but they do have some more 'robust' laptops if you're going to be doing a lot of walking about with it.

http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/vModelDetail?storeId=15001&catalogId=13401&itemId=95387&catGroupId=25095&modelNo=CF-Y4HWPFZBM-EC&surfModel=CF-Y4HWPFZBM-EC&cacheProgram=11002&cachePartner=7000000000000005702

That one looks nice.

http://www.toughbooksales.com/closer_look/29/index.htm

That one looks a bit over the top, but hey, you never know when you're going to slip on spilt coffee at the airport.

There is an Apple Croatia, so there is the same if not better support you get when buying an IBM-compatible notebook in another country and try to get it repaired abroad.

But even if the value per dollar with Apple notebooks seems more right than in previous generations, I still don't consider them cheap.

My work laptop is an IBM T43.  Light, built-in DVD/CD player, built in wireless, fast and nice screen.  No idea about price, but it's a great lap top for someone who travels from time to time.

Gotta throw the macbook recommendations under the bus.

Get better for less from Dell. Really, now and for the forseeable future, the vast majority of answers in any "I need a computer" thread should just be "Dude, you're getting a Dell." Best bang for the buck, coming from a guy who bought a Shuttle instead of a Dell because he's an idiot.

Unless you like OSX. And still want to run XP.

But with Winders notebooks, I'd go Thinkpad before I got a Dell, dude.

Abagadro,

The D620 would be the best bet right now.  Pitch for a close now on the D620 as you should be able to get a good price point.

Thinkpads are no longer made by IBM.  The quality just isn't there since Lenovo took over the brand. 

dell + 35-45% coupon is unbeatable as far as laptops go

I was thinking about that as I typed it. The best non-Apple laptop I've seen recently was a Thinkpad, real thin and powerful with God's Own wireless antenna (it found a small training hub in what amounts to a metal and steel bunker that nothing else I've seen has found short of boosters).

So whatever IBM makes now...or I guess you're stuck with a dell? I hated my Inspiron, heavy and clunky. It also biased me that I got the last generation of ungameable dells before mobile gpus got decent.

So, you don't like Dell because you got a big shitty one?

Uh. Right.

Ab, get a Dell. "Liking" OSX isn't reason enough to pay the Apple premium. Hell, "Loving" OSX isn't reason enough to pay the apple premium.

Seriously, to you Apple users out there, if they could just keep their costs down a tinnnnnnnnnnny bit for inferior hardware, I'd tell people to buy Apple all the time. But they can't. Because it's art or some shit. Fuck that noise.

MACBOOK!

Widescrean laptop wins. And you dont have the excuse that you need windows now ether. Yeah you pay more, but it is a wonderful piece of tech.

Jesus, they're worse than Jehova's Witnesses.

I recently got an Inspiron E1505 (http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/entnb_e1505?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs) as a birthday present to myself.  I'm happy with it.

I bought one of these for my wife to use at home.  Dell had an insane deal when I bought it ($400 off and 1gb memory free).  Having been the one to carry it on a recent vacation I would suggest that it's a bit large for frequent travelling, but would be good if you are looking to just have a computer if you're going to be away but in one place.  Battery life is very decent and it charges quickly.  Widescreen format too, nice for watching DVDs.  My only complaint is that there is some kind of scaling of gif images which makes alot of graphics on web pages blurry.  Haven't looked into a work around yet so this might be a user issue.

If you're talking about what I think you're talking about, that's a browser option.  In IE you can turn it off under Tools > Internet Options > Advanced > Multimedia > Automatic Image Resizing.

Inferior hardware?

 $1,999.00 
15.4-inch widescreen display
1440x900 resolution
2.0GHz Intel Core Duo(1)
512MB (single SODIMM) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
80GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive
4x SuperDrive
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 128MB GDDR3 memory
One FireWire 400 and two USB 2.0 ports

Dell Baseline E1705 upgraded to the same processor and one-step up on the graphics card:
$1,326
17" Widescreen Display
1440 x 900 pixels
2.0GHz Intel Core Duo
1GB of DDR2 (512 isn't even an option)
80GB 5400-rpm SATA
8x DVD Burner/Who Knows or Cares x CD Burner
256MB ATI MOBILITY™ RADEON® X1400 HyperMemory
Ports and shit

I mean, comeon. The price difference is astronomical. I didn't even have "try" to get these price differences. I just clicked on the highest base price Dell media system and the LOWEST priced apple system. Ok, maybe not TECHNICALLY INFERIOR QUALITY. But considering the price...

As I already said you pay too much for these things. The comparable Apple to your Dell (the basic 17" Macbook Pro) costs about double what the Dell costs.

But if you don't care about the price you can hold nothing else against Apple. Certainly not the inferior quality. You can easily make the point against Apple without resorting to such things. And I say that as somebody whose last two bought computers where Apples and I would buy them again and certainly might next year or the year after (a new Macbook Pro to replace my Powerbook). These things are too fucking expensive.

For the money, it is inferior quality. If I had put together a Dell machine that cost $2k, the Apple would seem like trash. That's the point. Not that the actual components are literally inferior, but the total package is versus the price.

If your total package includes the OS, its a superior package, but terribly overprized. With all the better hardware in your Dell you still can't run OSX on it. Would many people buy Apple computers to run only Windows on it? You bet they won't. If you don't care about OSX you NEVER EVER buy an Apple computer.

Most of the people who buy Macs now were buying them back in the OS 9 days too.  So clearly there's something that you get with a Mac other than OS X.

I'm going to guess it's drugs. (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7872246776955336366)

Its like there's this strange magic aura around the Apple Fashion that prevents its devotees from realizing that their machines are in no way shape or form different from other companies except the OS. That's software guys. Not hardware. It might have been different back in the day, when apple wouldn't even discolse the components it was putting in its machines and you had to be in the know to talk about apple hardware comparisons to pc hardware. That's just no longer the case.

You can tell yourself that the machine Apple makes, which is 1/2 as powerful as a similarly priced PC machine is somehow 'better', but its just not true.

You can make the claim that you prefer Os X, that its less buggy (cough), any number of things relating to the dubious virtues of Linu..er, I mean Os X, but it has jack squat to do with hardware performance.

Or maybe its just that you don't care. You want your Computer to do the job you want it to do. Thats software. The hardware just enables the software to do the job. You need faster hardware if the job takes too long. Really, I'm all about my game rig outperforming the next game rig, PC tuning is our generations equivalent to car tuning after all. My Macs? Just should do their fucking job without annoying me in the process. That they do.

But then I am no Mac zealot. I never had a Mac until OSX, the elitist attitude of some mac users always rubbed me the wrong way.

Wurd.

Holy shit.  I'd never, ever, ever have found that.  Thanks.

Really? OSX is worth $700?

Are you kidding? Because if it's a joke, I don't get it.

What about "terribly overprized" was unclear to you?

The part where you called it a superior package. It's not. Technically and usefully speaking it's not. It's not so much overprized as hoisted up by the vocal minority. Apple users are like the forum members in an MMORPG.

Edit: I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I'm just saying it's the reality of it. When Word documents, PDFs, and such stop being the standard and Apple can (cost) effectively design their computers, things might change. But not til then. For now it's by art fags for art fags.

Edit 2: Remember, I've owned 2 Powerbooks and multiple desktops. I love Macs, but useful they are not. They're like a self-inflicted punishment for my daily work (and for most peoples). If I bought a Mac now it would be so I'm not distracted by the rest of the computer while trying to get something done. It's hip to use a Mac. Always has been. But even while I was a diehard Mac user (read: All during the windows 3.1 til Windows 98 SE days), it was never very effective to be a Mac user.

That means you're getting an Apple, right?  :evil:

But wasn't that what I said?

You said it as a good thing. I said it as a joke. Apologies, I thought about making it more clear, but I'd already edited the post twice.

I can't think of a bigger waste of money than a Mac at this point in time. Maybe, one day, they'll become worthwhile. But now? Neg. The recommendation is borderline insane.

You want a work computer? Buy a Dell.
You want a play computer? Buy a Dell.
You want a gaming laptop? Buy a Dell.
You want a machine that increases the length of your epeen? Buy a Alienware Dell.

It's not even cost effective to build your own computer. Even at the end of doing that, if you look at the market at all, you'll buy a Dell monitor (or maybe that sweet sweet new Gateway one - [it's about 5 months old now methinks]). And then you'll notice the rest of Dell's equipment and realize you should've done that instead of building it yourself.

I don't like the market being like this. But that's the way it is. Though, this winter when I buy my new machine I'll probably look somewhere else. Size is more important to me than raw power and Dell ain't making any tiny machines. None that are useful anyway. My current 4 year old Shuttle runs everything out there admirably except for Doom 3 (but then, it ran Prey just fine). I really hope Dell comes out with a small formfactor gaming machine, even if it's a cube with a buldge to house the video cards and another set of fans.

I've known too many people, personally, who've had problems with the shitty parts Dell uses. Self-built all the way, baby.

Dell both impressed me and pissed me off for the choice of music in their new commercials. No one is supposed to know about the Elevators. Where the fuck did they get that from?

I can never listen to that song again --- and it's a great fucking song. This goes far beyond Zep or the Who being used in car commercials. Those songs sucked anyways.

[edit]

Oh yeah, there's now very little reason to not get a Mac laptop these days.

Shitty parts? What in the holy hell are you talking about? Seriously. Where do you get that shit from?

What's that song called? I've been dying to know for a long time but I could never figure it out. Using Baba O'Riley in like three different commercials really pissed me off, that was my favorite song.

Price isn't everything. Some people like to build their own machines. I'll always build my own pc for gaming at home. I'll build as many as I can at work, but at work cost is sometimes a factor, as is form factor, so I buy some Dells (the ultra small form factor rocks for low end machines). I'm not sure I'd be saving money buying an XPS over building my own pc, that's never been the case in the history of computing.

But honestly, for staff computers (I've said this before), Windows is a total hassle and OSX is not. Whether it be the security or ease-of-use, the simplicity or the imaging, not having to dick around with keys or authorizing. I was die-hard for windows before I worked here (and Mac was at OS9, which totally sucked imo), but after running these machines for a few years, there's really no reason to run windows unless I want more work, in setup, maintenance and troubleshooting.

I'll allow that Dell makes great monitors, I am looking at a 2007fpw hooked to this intel mini that also runs windows goddamned fast (if I ever had a need to boot into windows, which I don't).
What does that even mean? We use Office on both windows and macs here seamlessly, and OSX is WAY better with PDFs, you can create them right in the OS (though you'd have to have Acrobat to do more advanced stuff, but there's mac versions of all that, too).

The ONLY thing windows does better is games. Period. And that's only because of the directx API. If I never had to putz around with a registry again or clean up some sloppy installation or dll, I wouldn't lose sleep. Windows sucks. I could give a shit about being trendy, I like computers that make sense, and that's a computer running OSX. I'm no mac zealot, just blindly spewing rhetoric from the pulpit, there are reasons to buy macs, there are reasons to DIY, there are reasons to buy a Dell. Seems to me the ignorance is coming from the antimac folks.

uhh the speed/hardware for the money? If you can't deal with windows, run linux.

You're Gonna Miss Me - 13th Floor Elevators (http://home.earthlink.net/~kthompsen/Youre_Gonna_Miss_Me.mp3)

Local psychedelic/proto punk band from the 60's. Granted, Dell's from the South Texas area too, and that was probably the band's closest thing to a hit. Still surprises me that some marketer decided to use it though.

Goddamn you people...  :nda:

I'm confused. What? Are you the marketer in question? If so, cool choice. Also: You're a bastard.

that link gonna be up for a few hours so I can download when i get home?

Edit: thanks a lot by the way

Yeah, I'll keep it there.

* Sorry for the derail, folks *

Not a marketer, but Uncle Steve is my boss.

And, I've been called worse things than a bastard in the last five minutes or so...  :evil:

I wonder if Apple is ever going to license their OS for PC machines. From the sounds of it, OS X is a better solution for professional environments than Windows, and aside from that, their hardware is already a middle-of-the-road PC.

Sky, you summed up my thoughts on Mac vs PC better than I could myself.

As to Dells, they are not great computers by any streach. You can quote specs all you want, but I am going by what I have seen first hand. I built my own PC with good hardware, and my best friend bought a Dell, we have very close to the same specs, but when it comes to intensive games, my computer blows his away.

An ultra small form factor Dell runs about $300-400 more than an intel mini, has a Pentium D vs Core Duo, and is around 300% larger. Just sayin'.

No-name, proprietary parts.

Dell does not have a machine comparable to the Mac Mini. That's not an ultra small form factor Dell. Despite marketing speak. I wouldn't even call my Shuttle Ultra small form factor.

O RLY? Like which? Which part is proprietary? I've yet to see a proprietary part in a Dell in the last few years.

Dells sometimes have "proprietary" components that are really just someone else's hardware with a Dell logo stuck on the front.  For example, their printers are usually Lexmarks with a different label, the idea being that since no store sells Dell printer cartridgers, you have to order them from dell.com at a premium. 

Of course, once you figure out what Lexmark printer your Dell printer really is, you just buy the Lexmark cartridge (or the generic equivalent) and you're good to go.

Except for the CPU and HDD and video card...all of it? This may not hold true with the new XPS/Alienware rigs though.

There's a difference between proprietary and custom made. The only proprietary thing I can think of is that funky power supply connector coming from some of their power supplies and going to a custom connector on some of their motherboards. They used to also have the annoying habit of using RDRAM (Rambus RAM) when nobody else was using it which made swapping RAM around multiple machines problematic.

Even the proprietary power supply hasn't been produced in over 6 years. None of Dell's stuff is proprietary and hasn't been for a while now. The motherboard? Intel chipset, probably even made by intel, not dell. The nic card? Intel, most likely. The sound? a common on-board sound chipset found on any number of motherboards. The CMOS/BIOS? Probably Award or Phoenix, again, nothing to do with Dell.

Dell assembles machines. The only thing that's properly Dells is the casing and fan/cooling systems that go with them, which, admittedly, are very good. But emminently replaceable.

The BIOSes used to be custom in the sense that they would strip out almost all the functionality that you would normally get in a BIOS which of course made perfect sense for them since it dramatically reduces the number of support variables they have to contend with. I don't know if they still do that sort of thing.

Its a little dumbed-down, but fine for work environments. Sure, its not for the l33t overclocker gamer, but what avid computer tinkerer buys a Dell anyway?

Wrong. All of it. Wrong.

-nm, Engels already said it.

- The BIOSs for at least 2 or 3 years have been completely changeable and all things have been enabled.

Well, then their practices have changed.


I'm still not buying a Dell. Ever.

I have been using a Dell for a few years now. The one thing that really, really pisses me off about it is that they used some special version of the Creative soundcard I ordered that is unrecognised by the Creative drivers. So when I go to update the drivers, it tells me I don't have a Creative card. Also I don't know where you're getting this cheaper-to-buy-Dell stuff, I've priced out custom parts for a desktop on newegg and I could get a significantly more powerful machine for the same price as a much less powerful Dell desktop.

It's funny, lots of people say they can get a machine as equally as powerful as Dell for the same price - even when there are incredible coupons going around - and they never can.

Especially after they realize the vast majority of those couponed deals have a 19" to 21" 16x10 monitor thrown in.

Keep saying it. Keep saying it's cheaper to build your own machine. Keep saying Apples are as cost-effective as a Dell or any other machine. Keep saying Dells are pieces of shit. Go on, keep going. Too bad no matter how much you say it, it's not going to change the fact that you're entirely wrong.

Sure, I'd like to build a sleak sexy looking piece of tech from handpicked parts, but who am I fucking kidding. The XPS 700, specced out correctly, is better than anything I'm going to build MYSELF and it's most definately cheaper. I've built all but one of my past computers (that was a Gateway back when Gateways were the shit. I was also 12 or something). But it just doesn't make sense to do that anymore unless you have interest in being an elitist assmunch or would rather be building a machine than plugging one in and playing games. But as I mentioned earlier, I'd like a small form factor so I'm probably going to be paying a premium. But that's totally by choice, I'd be paying more of a premium on the open market. Though I am tempted to get one of these (http://sys.us.shuttle.com/X100Gallery/index.html) in a midrange variant for f13.netty stuff. I've wanted a second machine for a long time so I had one machine as a dedicated gaming piece.

Unfortunately, it'd still be cheaper to buy a Dell than it would be to fill that new Shuttle Wii case up with bottom of the line shit from Newegg.

Edit: That Shuttle machine the way I want it would be $1485. That's without any monitor. The Dell costs $1470 with a 19" flat panel (this is the overpriced tiny formfactor steel cased XPS 200). Also, it has a real graphics card instead of that mobility shit (granted the XPS case is fucking tiny and I did say a premium). But where do you draw the line at premium? The 19" monitor is $200 normally at the Dell website and the Dell might actually have proper Airflow. Meanwhile the Shuttle is basically the Wii formfactor, has a beefass harddrive all things considered and does have at least a good mobility. But either way, in terms of cost, the Dell is less for more. The iMac starts at $1,299.00. It's only a 17" monitor. Also, the computer itself is weak sauce compared to the previous specced out ones. G5s start at $1,999. And what the fuck is up with the high end G5 having a 512MB RAM baseline setup? Upgrading to 1 Gig through them costs $100 to $200.

Edit 2: Ok, we can go back to talking about Laptops now.

A Shuttle's not even close (edit: ok, I'm thinking an older shuttle, mebbe, after checking out your link). That's just SFF. USFF is more like the one on the right:
(http://img.dell.com/images/global/products/optix/gx_4_chassis_180x110.jpg) (http://premierconfig.dell.com/config/config.aspx?c=&ci=W1559&customer_id=RC956848&~tgt=cfg&l=en&s=slg&cs=RC956848)

They are pretty nice low end machines, I bolt them underneath and behind desks. Mostly notebook parts. But yeah, nothing is comparable to the mini right now, that's just the closest mainstream pc I know of. The mini really does kick ass, with intel looking to revamp integrated and notebook graphics things could get interesting, but USFF machines aren't really about gaming. (edit: just checked out your Shuttle link, that's a sweet damned case)
Or you could be, you know, an oldschool pc enthusiast who actually enjoys building machines and playing games on them.

On mac hardware: I only like the mini, xserve and the notebooks. I don't dig integrated monitors or way overpriced towers.

I don't think those towers will remain overpriced. A lot of that is due to those models still being PowerPC. I'm holding out on getting any kind of new machine until I see what Apple does here. Hopefully they'll offer power and value equivalent to their mini's and laptops once they fully transition to Intel.

Schild, thanks for that Shuttle link. I'll be considering those over the Dell USFF for the near future, they're just a bit bigger than the Apples and I can get one with better guts than the Dell for almost $100 cheaper. And Core Duo over Pentium D, to boot. Good stuff.

Stray - I don't see Apple ever making their flagships cheap. It would be nice, but that's just not the business model, the mini surprised the hell out of me and I hope that form factor sticks around for a long time.

Only if you get a Dell with the uber discount coupon and only just barely. Krakrok just got a Dell for $788 and a comparable comp through Newegg I calculated out to ~$820 (didn't add keyboard/mouse to the below):

173.00   CPU
64.99   MB
70.00   RAM
56.00   HD
71.00   Video Card X700SE
35.00   DVD
179.10   Monitor
113.00   Media Center
35.00   Case

797.09   

Without the coupon the Dell is more expensive.

Edit: that monitor is actually the Dell monitor with the pricing from Dell's site. I didn't try to find an non-Dell equivalent on Newegg. Also the video card above is better than the X600SE Krakrok got since Newegg doesn't sell any X600SEs.

Yeah, it's nice that Dell can throw in a monitor. If that makes you think the deal is better, great...but it's kind of not relavent when comparing self-built to Dell if you already have a good monitor to use.

If you're building from absolute scratch, MAYBE you might be able to get away with buying a Dell. But if you can reuse parts...

Just take a look at Alienware's way of handling video card pricing! Their uberl33t machine comes with a 7900 GT

256MB NVIDIA ® GeForce™ 7900 GT PCI-Express x16 - DVI Dual Link Supported   

Now, you can upgrade to this one for $500:

1024MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7950 GX2 - DVI Dual Link Supported - NEW! [+$500 or $15/mo.]   
   
The retail cost at new egg for the 7950 is $560. The retail cost for the 7900 GT is ~ $260. The aformentioned upgrade to the 7950 should be around 300 instead of 500. That's just for starters.

But they need to be extra careful to install the $500 video card, so the extra $200 is basically insurance... And you are clearly unaware that alienware only gets the fastest cards from each bunch!

I'll give you you the benefit of the doubt about Alienware getting the better clocked GPUs off the assembly line, but installing a video card is't exactly rocket science. We're not talking about the market of those who aren't interested in tinkering; we're talkinga bout the market of those who routinely build their own machines.

(http://www.f13.net/schild/sarchasm.jpg)

And it claims another victim. Did we not agree on green here?

Oops! Well, you can't blame me. We have schild going on about his micro pc fetish, people harboring magical beliefs about Apple..why not someone who's been talked into thinking Alienware is god?

I've bought Dells for years.

However my next computer won't be a Dell.  The reason: they still don't sell AMD processors.  AMD has really impressed me over the past few years and Intel continues to impress me only in terms of its nasty business practices.

Generally whenever I have been buying a computer I have found that I could buy a Dell or make it myself for maybe a little bit more, but with a little bit more control over what all goes into the box.  I've always chosen to just buy the Dell.  However I think that getting an AMD cpu is a compelling enough reason to build it yourself and so that's what I'll do next time I upgrade.

its funny that you say this right when intel deals a crushing blow to AMD in the battle over chip market control... what does intel do that is so bad?

You're stuck in a time warp... ...OS X is light years apart from "Classic" Mac OS... ...you don't need special programs to read/write PDFs (it's built into the system) unless your tasks revolve around desktop publishing and then the Adobe suite comes in a Mac OS X flavor too.

And for web development work, Macs are most prevalent -- the startup company that I worked for until recently we all were on Macs with the exception of a lone developer (who preferred a dual boot deal) and some of the sales staff. I reckon it wouldn't be so for a MS/.NET shop, but then I don't take those kind of gigs anyway. And just go to any F/OSS conference - be it Ruby/Perl/Python/Java, and you'll quickly note that Macs equal or outnumber PCs.

As stated, games are the big deficiency with Mac OS X, but even there, the big games (i.e., Civ IV, WoW) are cross-platform or ported over... ...and personally I've filled the void with console fare and soon Dominions 3 will be out which will slurp up my gaming time...

I'm gonna stick up for Classic Mac OS even. It was much more pleasant and trouble free than Windows except at the very end. The memory management problem really started becoming apparent to average users then.

Besides that, the whole "file format" thing is a bunch of bullshit. I don't know how it started or where it came from, but that wasn't even a problem on old Macs. Not for Word, and definitely not for PDF.

It's not that far apart.

As background I used to be a hardcore Mac fanatic starting from the original 128K Mac on up through about 1998 or so but it got too expensive to support a two hardware platform habit so I stopped getting Macs and haven't owned an OS X Mac but I have played with it a bit in stores and such.

So this morning I was working on an OS X Mac at Kinkos using Illustrator (their PCs were supposed to have Illustrator installed but didn't) and tried to use the Knife/Cut tool to split a path and the application crashed out, losing like 10 minutes of work, and the first thing I thought to myself was "well some things haven't changed".

I just got my Macbook from work and it's not a bad little comp. My only two gripes right now are the battery life seems a bit shorter than the iBook I was using and this little thing gets HOT! If you do choose to get one, make sure there's plenty of elevation between laptop and desk or you get a USB cooler. There are no vents on the bottom and the 'feet' are almost non-existent. On the plus side, it feels very solid and is a nice size, not so small that I can't read the screen text and not so big that I feel like I'm carrying a monitor. My main comp is an Inspiron e1505 and it's great and all, but it's bordering on being uncomfortable to lug around.

And yes, the Macbook even with the gimped Intel graphics chip does a good job of playing WoW. I haven't tried to hit anything like Iron Forge yet, but if my old HP with the ATI 340m could handle it, this should too.

A computer playing WoW is not even remotely impressive. I've seen conversions of Nintendo games that are more graphics heavy. Well, maybe not Nintendo, but definately Minesweeper.

Good luck with the heat problem.

Edit: I'm not trying to knock WoW btw. It's stylized. I get it. It's like Loco Roco for the PSP - which probably uses 1/100th of the PSPs total power. The style they chose happened to require nothing more than graphics cards from 1995. Install Civ 4 and see what happens, if you don't melt a hole through your desk.

Business-wise: http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DownloadableAssets/AMD-Intel_Full_Complaint.pdf

AMD was intended to be Intel's source of competition.  Intel was never intended to have a monopoly on the PC market.  Basically Intel is alleged to have done a lot of bad stuff to make sure that this wasn't really the case and to have since then leveraged its monopoly status to prevent AMD from gaining a foothold in the market.  One of the biggest instances of this being that Dell has never sold AMD chips (actually, now it does -- it sells overpriced AMD chips, by themselves, but won't build machines with them -- which is essentially the same as not selling them) and it's largely believed that this was because Intel has incentivized them not to do any such thing.  While we're a long way from a court decision, AMD won a similar case in Japan a year ago and I think there is pretty good evidence that a lot of their claims are true.

Currently Intel has gotten a bit ahead of the game technologically although AMD is likely to catch up next year.  But on the flipside, AMD is still offering some great chips at great prices.  These days it is your graphics card and memory subsystem that are bottlenecked and thus most of your performance is coming from these anyway.  What I've seen of the Core 2 Duo hasn't changed my mind on any of this.

If Dell starts selling AMD systems at prices as reasonable as their Intel systems then I'll gladly buy from them again.  And I think it would make sense that they do as try to compete with cheaper AMD systems.

There's rumors that AMD is going to buy ATI, which should really do intersting things to the way those two chips function in unison. If despite that you end up with some form of software-hardware collusion between software makers and Nvidia/Intel, then hey, its time to go to court!

AMD can afford ATI? After this console generation? Shouldn't ATI be buying AMD?

Also, I never got the 'DELL DOESN'T SELL AMD CHIPS' complaint. That strikes me as pussified bullshit. Dell doesn't HAVE TO SELL ANYTHING. Whether or not Intel paid them to only carry Intel is moot to me. I consider it good business. There's a billion places to buy computers these days. Want AMD? Don't shop at Dell. That's like complaining that you Want Bang & Olufsen product at a Bose Store since Bose DOES CARRY products that aren't made by Bose. Meh.

Less than 15% of Dell's business is PCs for individuals.   Enterprise and servers are where it's at.  AMD servers were gaining share last year since Intel dropped the ball.  Bad news for Dell since they didn't have an AMD server product.

Dell must view their business to individuals as key though.  They're pricing way more aggressively than anyone else and it's their lowest margin business already.

Edit: So, Ab what did you decide on?

Yes and it's hurting their margins (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060722/ap_on_bi_ge/dell_outlook_17) big time.

For me, Dells are a great idea for business. Standardized builds, the fact that they use intel, which is thoroughly tested by MS, their relatively easy away of finding all necessary software for their hardware through their 'service tag' number. All very good and professional. Add to that that at least their earlier machines are built like a rock, you just can't go wrong with a Dell within a business environment. Minimal risk, long term investment.

Unless AMD gets a business distributor like Dell to push their server products, the market share for business servers and business PC desktops is going to remain marginal. Even then it will take years for this fictional distributor to earn the reputation Dell has. AMD has a crazy uphill battle because in general, the people holding the purse strings in business environments do not experiment. They want what's 100% reliable and Dell stands for that. There is no other place for businesses to go, sadly. I'd even venture to speculate that the only way AMD is going to break into the business environment is if Dell starts to screw up and damage its own reputation. Then the money counters won't immediately default to Dell.

But home PCs are an entirely different animal in terms of customer expectation. There's much more room for risk in terms of investment, and AMD has been riding that wave to its personal pc success stories.  Sure, there's a sea of customizable options in terms of motherboards and chips out there for the home consumer, but by and large, they all 'more or less' work, and AMD's prices ensure that they can cling to the market share here. Moderate risk, and low short term investment is how home-PCs are bought.  You aren't going to be too fussy, and sure, you could get the Intel cpu, and have a cpu for decades, but Fry's has a sale on AMD cpus and besides, chances are, you know you're going to have to upgrade within 3-4 years anyway.

Anyways, this is obviouis stuff. Guess I felt like typing it all out.

And I don't have to BUY anything (edit: and legally speaking, accepting money to not to sell a product is illegal, so your statement isn't strictly true).

Collusion is bad for markets though.  Period.  I like healthy markets.  So I'm supporting the underdog here (who in recent years has been doing a good job of catching up and has some great products to offer).


As I said, I don't.  What's the problem?  You gave all your reasons why you support Dell.  I gave mine for not doing so.  Who's doing the whining now?

Amen.  I think that's why the "Switch" ads bug me so much... I've had plenty of experiences with computers going "beepbeepbeepbeepbeep" and eating my documents and them being, like, gone, but they've all been with Macs.