Job Discussion Forums

Alitas · Joined: 19 May 2003 Posts: 187 Location: Maine

I am upgrading. Any suggestions? I have an imac at school (can't say I love that) and a dell laptop as well.

Tell me what you have, love, hate, lust after?

been_there · Joined: 28 Oct 2003 Posts: 284 Location: 127.0.0.1

Lust

WYSIWYG · Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 7:29 pm Post subject:

I bought a Sony Vaio. Nice machine, with plenty of features. It does get a bit warm though. Battery life isn't very long, but I seldom need it to be.

ls650 · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 3484 Location: British Columbia

Unfortunately, many of us teach in places where something like a laptop can 'disappear'.

I recommend that you assume that the laptop _will_ be stolen at some point, and that you buy the best laptop that you can easily afford to replace.

And if it isn't stolen, well, so much the better.

Alitas · Joined: 19 May 2003 Posts: 187 Location: Maine

I doubt it will be stolen where I am going but then again... I would like it to be small and light enough to carry close to my person.

I am thinking of the Vaio...what size did you have WYSWIG?

jezebel · Joined: 18 May 2005 Posts: 53

If you had the option, is it better to buy a laptop before leaving home to bring with you, or buy one there? Obviously this depends on your home country and where you're headed, but let's say you're coming from North America (where things are cheaper than Europe) and going to Korea or Japan... (or are there countries where a laptop would be even cheaper?)

Is it better to bring it with you? Can you find better technology in other countries?

ls650 · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 3484 Location: British Columbia

From what I've seen, hardware prices are better in the USA than most of the world.

Girl Scout · Joined: 13 Jan 2005 Posts: 525 Location: Inbetween worlds

I like my Dell. The battery life is 8 hours. It has so many ports I can plug in external drives till my hearts content. I would suggest getting the extra memory on the hard drive of whatever model you buy. The one thing I wish I had added was an even bigger RAM. I run multiple programs at one time and use mine as a DVD player. Sometimes it tries to buffer and slow way down.

Gordon · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 5309 Location: Japan

I have a Toshiba satellite and the battery life is 2 hours, can't even watch a movie on it. Very tempermental machine and would never buy it again. How often do you replace your laptop. This is 2 years old now and it is certainly slowing down, perhaps too many programs are running on it, but I don't know which programs are important and which i could ditch.

Moore · Joined: 25 Aug 2004 Posts: 730 Location: Madrid

You need to consider the fact that by definition you�ll be travelling around with it: you said you didn�t like the i-mac, but the i-book is built like a tank; also you might consider an IBM think-pad- a bit expensive, but solid as a rock. And as another poster pointed out, laptops do go missing, so buy a cable lock and take out insurance too.

nolefan · Joined: 14 Jan 2004 Posts: 1458 Location: on the run

i second the ibook recommendation. They're very rugged, durable and have a decent battery life (4 hours on average). You will spend less time dealing with all the spyware, worms, viruses and there are Apple offices in almost any country in the world. I got my old one in the U.S.A and had no problems getting a few things tweaked at the apple store in Beijing.

Again, this recommendation really depends on what it is that YOU want to do with the laptop! just word processing, music DVD and internet? Get the ibook and relax.

Alitas · Joined: 19 May 2003 Posts: 187 Location: Maine

Yeah, I have two imacs at school. It just takes getting used to the imac culture. I spend over 5 hours a day on the computer, and I always reach for the dell, since it is familiar.

But will consider the imac. Built like a tank sounds good.

I will be using it for DVD viewing, movie making, picture tweaking and hours of internet.

WYSIWYG · Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 10:46 am Post subject:

WYSIWYG · Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 10:52 am Post subject:

MyNewWork · Joined: 06 Feb 2005 Posts: 6

You want to get Apple's iBook. It's small (12"), lightweight, and almost indestructible -- was designed for elementary school kids, so (I'm not kidding) you could drop kick one across a room and it'd come out of it just fine.

Ignore whatever you hear about Mac not being compatible with Windows world -- I have, and use, both. I much prefer my Mac. I regularly create Word and Excel files on my Mac, can open and read them on PC just fine. Plus, I don't have endless Windows support problems, as with my ThinkPad.

I travel a lot, have never had a laptop stolen -- just carry it in your backpack.