Korean Job Discussion Forums

[venus]

I shopped around yongsan today and I'm pretty sure of what I'm looking for.

Please bear with me as I'm not very techincal

A laptop with -

15.4 Inch screen.
around 80 gig hard drive
proccesor at around 1gig - think these had AMD which have had decent reviews
around 1gig sdram memory
decent graphics card / software - around a gforce go 6150 minimum
decent sound

I saw the HP Compaq V6000 pressario and it came in at around an average of 850,000 Won

Around the same price range was the HP Pavillion dv6000 (or dv600, not sure) which had pretty much the same specs but also had a minicam attached.

One had windows vista basic and one had windows vista home plus. Is there much difference...?

I also looked at the apple mac laptops with pretty much the same specs and they were coming in at around 1,100,000 Won and I can't see why - are they much better for some reason..? Why...?

Anyhow, I want to use it as a word proccessor, to surf the net, download movies and music, photo's etc and watch dvd's mostly. I don't care about games.

I know they are not the latest models, but that's no big deal to me as I think they suit my needs fine.

So are the above decent choices for the average consumer with my budget and needs...? Which would you go for....? Any alternatives...? Anything else I should be considering - compatability / making sure the op system is in english as well as all the driver install cd's.... anything else...?

Also - do you have something nearly new condition to sell that has the same kind of profile for a decent price... If so pm me....

Cheers in advance to anyone who takes the time to answer my questions as I want to buy new really but don't want to make any major mistakes in my purchasing.

[corroonb]

I have that exact laptop, V6000 and while its good, its far too hot and not really worth it. Does it have the AMD Turion 64 X2 ?

Get as cheap a laptop as you can get especially if you are not interested in HD material.

[demaratus]

I am a mac user and as a mac user I am biased. The macbooks are more expensive for a number of reasons: 1. Aesthetics. They look and feel better than anything in their league, They are durable and lightweight with a small footprint. 2. Componentry. While the video in the macbook is integrated, The processors are top notch, the keyboard is great, The display is great, The front row remote is really cool, the power adapter is mag safe, simply stated the hardware in the macbook is all high end stuff. 3. Software. Os x (Leopard is out in mid october) in my opinion is vastly superior to windows xp or vista. There is no junk software and what apple includes is all usefull. You can also run windows via boot camp if you really need to run windows natively.

Also nice is the resale value of macs is also much higher than most pc notebooks.

Downsides: 1: One button mouse. I don't mind it and you can use a two if you like. 2: Expense. Mac's are usually more expensive, but hey you get what you pay for. 3: Warranty. You only get 90 days of technical assistance unless you purchase applecare. This is below the average of one year.

[fizban]

Not to jump on the Mac bandwagon, but if you're not interested in gaming and primarily in just surfing the net, e-mail, and word processing, and are generally not a computer person, then an Apple Macbook sounds like a good fit.

Out of the box you'll be able to do all of that without installing a thing. And the other nice thing about Macs is that viruses and trojans are less likely to accumulate on your machine.

And with VMWare Fusion and Parallels, you can run Microsoft WinXP or Vista within the Mac OS. Or use Bootcamp and make it a true PC box.

The downside is that for the hardware, you can get BETTER with a PC, at the same price point. What you are paying for is the Operating System, OSX.

If you've got a lot invested heavily in Windows then the Apple world is different. And sometimes, in the end you just want the comfort of the familiar.

But some things you should consider is:
-Intel Core 2 Duo processor
-any speed; speed bumps provide only minor gains but the architecture is FAST
-2GB RAM (2GB is pretty much the optimal size/performance at the moment...though if you use Vista I'd go 4GB...sucker is a RAM *beep* when you want it to look sexy and perform like a champ)
-SATA hard drive; 5400 rpm = slow but standard / 7200 rpm = good performance, but more heat, and slightly more battery drain
-Battery Life, 3 hours or more is not unreasonable
-Weight...anything more then 5lbs is not an ultraportable/anything more then 10lbs is not a "portable"
-Integrated Graphics vs Discrete Graphics
-integrated: cheaper; not optimal for gaming/3D graphics/or GPU intensive programs (ie Photoshop, RAW converters, CAD, etc)
-discrete: more expensive, more battery intensive, unless you're running 256MB or more and a DX10 compliant chip...it's already outdated

Hope that helps some.

Ultimately though, go with what feels good to you. Specs are good. But if you're happy with a particular laptop because it feels good, looks good, etc; go with it. Because getting the "best bang for the buck" is worthless if you are dissatisfied.