I want to buy a Laptop & Need some advice

manonthemoon

Ok Techies,

i am going out to buy a laptop soon. I have always used a PC, whicjh i want to replace

Being a web designer, i would like to know what would YOU recommend.

Hope spend 1200-2000 euros

What are the best laptops, why, most suitable for web design, does it matter? the heaviest program i use is Photoshop and i would like it go pretty smoothly as i am losing alot of time when PhotoShop moves slowly on my present PC

As they are quite expensive i would like to have some background knowledge, before being blasted with 'salesman jargon'

Any advice would be much obliged

Thanks

MOTM

spongebob

From your point of view you need a good screen and I would expect a choice of 14-15in XGA 1024x758 (min) TFT screen with 16Mb of VRAM even if its shared memory. These are in your price range. Check you get DDR sdram and not sdram , that DDR memory runs twice as fast.

I would also advise you STRONGLY to get a model with the above spec and a 3 year warranty.

If the 3 year warranty is not standard , such as some Toshibas, some IBM's or certain Dells, and/or if the warrantly costs a fortune to extend higher than the included 1 year warranty, then the device is designed to fail shortly after the one year in terms of component quality.

Well wear.

M

Xterminator

Originally posted by Muck
From your point of view you need a good screen and I would expect a choice of 14-15in XGA 1024x758 (min) TFT screen with 16Mb of VRAM even if its shared memory. These are in your price range. Check you get DDR sdram and not sdram , that DDR memory runs twice as fast.
...
If the 3 year warranty is not standard , such as some Toshibas, some IBM's or certain Dells, and/or if the warrantly costs a fortune to extend higher than the included 1 year warranty, then the device is designed to fail shortly after the one year in terms of component quality.

M

I agree with the 1st paragraph.
But not with the second.

In my experience most 'brand' laptops buy there components from a small pool of suppliers (eg LCD screens).
Often the branded laptops are badged with that brand but built by a contractor, using specifcations supplied by the manufacturer.

Now having a 3 yr warrany as opposed to a 1 yr warranty has obvious benifits, but you can be sure that the 3 yr warranty is factored into the price! As a result, you can get a higher spec machine with a cheaper warranty when shopping around. This would make a difference to you as you will actually be using processor intensive applications which take longer on slower machines. (I.E. Time is money).

I dont think brand is the over-riding factor some people make it out to be. Customer service is far more important to me, as if the brown stuff hits the fan, you need to know you can get it sorted and quick.
Having worked with Sony,Toshiba,Compaq, and IBM laptops as a support person, I would have a preference for IBM first with Sony second Toshiba thirdly, and Compaq lastly.

I think toshiba make a decent machine , but customer service has made me, (and my current employer) look elsewhere. Replacement parts for faulty machine have taken ages, etc.

Just my 2 cents

X

manonthemoon

Thanks people


Should i go straight to IBM/ SONY or what is the story with the likes compustore or similar retail outlets.

Would i be resticting my choice as these places seam to have made all my decisions for me.

Thanks (still confused)

Motm

spongebob

OK

I always liked IBM, their service is in tallaght somewhere. If Tosh service have gone downhill its news but I accept it if you say so, they were great 3 years ago.

Compaq and Dell are quite similar.

Both have 2 ranges

Compaq have Presario (sh1te, dies in 15 months, normally bigtime) and Armada, much better with 3 yr warranties, typically aimed at corporates.

Dell have Inspiron (sh1te , battery or keyboard usually won't last more than 15 months) and the Latitude with a 3 yr warrantly aimed at corps too.

Dunno about Compaq service.

Dell warrantly support for their laptops is in Birmingham with a 4 day turnaround in fairness to them.

Report Fault Mon, Ship Tue, Receive fixed Thurs,

M

Gerry

Considering even the latest laptop hard drives are quite slow, you should be aiming to get 512mb of memory in that laptop, if you are working with reasonably large photoshop images. I'd go for the 15" XGA screen also. Since you will be pushing the cpu quite hard, you should ensure that if its a p4 machine, it uses the p4-m cpu, as this draws less power. Some cheaper laptops use the desktop cpu shoved into the laptop, with disastrous effects on the battery life.

Before buying, run some cpu intensive stuff on it long enough for the fan to come on, see how loud it is. If you can't try before you buy, make sure you search the net for that model, see what people think of the noise level.

As for reliability, I hear everyone swearing that a such a laptop model dies after x amount of months, but I don't see any major different, perhaps theres 1 or 2 models to avoid, but to say "avoid compaq, they die in 15 months" sounds a bit stupid. How many different presario's are there ffs? Judging from where I work, toshiba seem to have a better reputation than dell, however that could have just been a particularly bad model of dell that they were using before that. As long as you get a decent warranty on whatever make of laptop it is you should be fine.

Xterminator

Originally posted by manonthemoon
Thanks people


Should i go straight to IBM/ SONY or what is the story with the likes compustore or similar retail outlets.

Would i be resticting my choice as these places seam to have made all my decisions for me.

Thanks (still confused)

Motm

To get the latest, buy direct.

If you buy from a reseller, it CAN (not always) be cheaper, but usually its because there trying to shift a model thats end of life. they tend to buy X no's of a certain model, and have to shift 'em, whereas the manufacturer will usually build to order.

X

sceptre

Just one piece of advice: get something light, even if it's slower.

Here's what I mean (making up the figures as I go along):

You've a choice, for example, between a reasonably heavy laptop with a 1.2gig processor OR a light laptop with an 800Mhz processor. You'll notice the difference today. In two years, the heavy laptop will seem like a brick and the extra power won't seem that fantastic, compared to the alternative 800Mhz processor in a light machine.

When I got my present laptop about two-three years ago, it had a nice 450Mhz processor and was pretty much the fastest thing I could lay my hands upon. Really wish I'd gone for a slower but lighter 366 at the same price.

make sure you have at least 16megs of video memory though. You'll appreciate it almost immediately and certainly in a few years. 8megs just doesn't cut it. And most of the Sony Vaio range seem to have only 8 megs (excepting the rather odd machine that comes with 11megs and a few others with higher memory)