Job Discussion Forums

[ls650]

I had an old Toshiba Tecra CDT that I bought for about $250 US. It was a crusty old P-200 with 160 MB of RAM, 56K modem, and CD drive. It worked perfectly well for word processing, email, internet browsing, and using my digital camera. I thought it was great.
Too bad some thieves broke into my apartment a couple of weeks ago and relieved me of it....

[nolefan]

I love my ibooks.... I have owned 4 so far and I won't accept any other laptop ( except maybe a powerbook).

I bought the first one in 1998 and it was neon green ($1300). I sold it for 1000 in 2000 and got a newer one.... My most recent one is the one I am using right now ( G4 ibook with Wi-Fi, 768 MB RAM....the works) I use it to run my online webdesign and hosting business, create DVDs, edit home movies..... just about anything I fancy) If you're in the US, you can get your hands on one for a little less than $1000.

I am aware that there are many folks wo are still wary of macs but I figured I'll still throw in my 2 jaos.


My wife owns a Gateway that's less than 1 year old and ready to be retired for various reasons. I won't go into a tirade about mac vs. PC... Let's just say that I make a lot of cash from fixing computers running windows.

[Dr.J]

I have an IBM T41 (I think, T40 maybe) works just fine, very light and does all the stuff I want.

Obviously it depends on what you want to do, but above all else make sure it's reliable, because you can always use it for stuff like word processing even when it gets old.

[migo]

Well I'm on a Powerbook G3 292 right now, and I'm not planning on buying a Mac again any time soon, but I definitely have my eye on some Tablet PCs, Averatec C3500 being at the top of the list because of the price and features. I would stay away from any of the Snow iBooks as a lot of them have defective logic boards. It's too early to tell if the G4 iBooks don't have some serious problem as well, and honestly the only iBook I'd touch is a clamshell one. A 466SE would probably do the trick for most things. Any of the G3 powerkbooks are too old by now to really be reliable, although a Pismo might have some life left in it. I'm not too keen on the PB G4s either as after they were really losing the MHz race they decided to change the architecture to allow for higher clock speeds without actually increasing the performance significantly, so a current gen 1.33GHz PB G4 isn't going to be that much faster than an old gen 867MHz PB G4. I might start looking at Apple laptops again if they release a G5 version, as they've finally caught up and are back in the running performancewise - even though they cheated on the benchmarks to make it look like the Dual 2.0 GHz G5s were faster than a 3.0GHz P4.

In terms of functionality, I don't think there's anything that beats a Tablet PC. I've used a few of them but haven't owned them. The Acer C300 and Gateway M275 are good if you need large screens and a CD drive built in. The Acer has a swappable drive but the Gateway seems to have better quality and durability (but they're both made by the same Taiwanese mfg so I'm not sure why that is). They're both with 14.1" screens. The Toshiba M200 and Motion M1300 (and now M1400 presumably, although it hasn't been on the market long) get the best overall reviews and customer satisfaction, but they're on the pricey side. They also don't come with built in CD drives. The Toshiba is a convertible, the Motion is a pure slate. They're both with 12.1" screens. The best one for price as I said is the Averatec C3500 but it's only been out for a week, it's convertible, has 12.1" screen and built in CD drive. It hasn't been out long enough to really tell whether it's reliable or not, but people who have used other Averatecs have been happy with them.

[guest of Japan]

I've been using an IBM Thinkpad for the lst four years. I've never had a problem with it that I didn't cause.

For my next computer I'll probably go with a MAC. They seem so easy to use, and attract far less viruses.

[nolefan]

The G4 ibooks are good. No logic board problem, especially on the second generation. Apple is doing a good job with fixing the logic board problem on the ibook. My previous ibook was affected and they fixed it within 2 days. I was pretty lucky because they also fixed my speakers and replaced LCD which had one dead pixel......

I really loved my clamshell by it was sloooow with OS X. given that I need the mac for my online business, I had to upgrade.

Guest of Japan: do the switch, you won't regret it. I use my ibook for everything and it's compatible with my palm (zire 71), my cell phone (sony Ericsson Z608), and of course my ipod. You get all the software you need and you can also buy most commercial applications you're used to on the PC.

I love taking videos of my students during their presentations, editing everything on the laptop with imovie (free) and burning a VCD for them to watch in class and critique their own performance.

[guest of Japan]

Thanks for the advice Nolefan.

[migo]

[been_there]

[TEAM_PAPUA]

ACER Travelmate:

P4 2.6
512 Mb RAM
64 Mb Graphics
DVD/CDRW
40 Gb HD


Does everything & more!

T_P

[migo]

[ls650]

The whole Mac vs. PC argument strikes me as being a *beep*-size contest. Do you guys also argue Ford vs. Chevy, or did you at least leave _that_ argument in the high school playground...?

When making your purchase decision, be practical. Look at what you will be doing with the machine and buy the one that best suits your individual purposes. And yes, for some people one machine is better than the other.

[migo]