Korean Job Discussion Forums

[roadwork]

I need a laptop for doing school stuff at home. I need Windows Office in English as well. The computer should be powerful enough to play the occasional online casual game (no serious Counterstrike or anything like that) and have good sound and picture quality for watching downloads and listening to music.
Or, if anyone has any suggestions on a new model or someone RELIABLE in Yongsan, let me know please. I'm pretty much computer ignorant.
Thanks, it will be much appreciated.
Cheers
roadwork

[arvinsign]

Depends on how much is your budget. Based on your requirements, have a look at the Dell XPS series.

[roadwork]

[Golem]

http://www.dell.co.kr/
Call the number in the upper right corner. A company this big will likely have a representative that can speak English (although you might have to wait up to 90seconds to get patched to a rep). You can buy almost any computer with XP but sometimes you have to pay $50 to downgrade to XP (paying for a downgrade sounds weird but you are basically getting two versions of windows as they will also give you vista).

For the price you are suggesting you should be able to a type of the line computer (DDR3 RAM, discrete graphics if you want although Intel's graphics give you better battery life).

That said, if you hate Vista so much try dual booting Vista with a flavor of linux. It is really easy to install these days.

If you need more help PM me.

[roadwork]

Hey Golem
Being that I'm a techno-retard, what do you mean by dual booting Vista? I guess the Vista isn't that much of a problem, it's just that I need Microsoft Office in English. I can do it in Korean, it just takes a lot longer. I need it so I can do some stuff for school from home. In all honesty, I'd rather spend around a million won.

Also, does anyone have any experience with the Sony VAIO series? I've been looking into that as well

[Golem]

Dual booting means you can boot (start your computer) into either Windows or Linux. This is the default option when you install Linux these days and its very easy to do. All you have to decide is how big you the Linux portion of the hard disk to be, and how big you want Windows to be.

Linux doesn't work well with most games, but is great if you want a free operating system that is very secure. Coming from Windows it will take some getting Windows. I don't think it is any more difficult than say switching from Windows, to OS X or vice versa. Everytime I get confused about something I just google the answer and its easy to figure out. That is no different than Windows were everytime I get an error message I have to google it to figure out whats going on.

If you are thinking of buying a new computer, you could buy a this inspiron 1545 It is an excellent computer at just over 1 mil won.
[url]
http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/laptop-inspiron-1545?c=kr&cs=krdhs1&l=ko&s=dhs&ref=homepg[/url]

The thing you have to keep in mind that buying a new computer is similar to buying a new car. You lost maybe 20-30% of the value as soon as you start using it. That is why I usually buy used computers these days as even though I edit photos a decent used computer will serve all my needs.
Some shops sell refurbished laptops and these are great because they come with warranties and are very cheap (they are basically computers that were broken of the assembly line and then fixed). They sell cheaply because many people are unreasonably scared of buying a computer that was once broken.

[Golem]

A lot of people like the Sony's and they seem to be decent laptops.
That said everything I have ever bought from Sony has broken towards the end of the first year I owned it (a Clie, and a fancy voice recorder). Sony customer service was just awful.