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| Acmlm's Board - I2 Archive - Hardware/Software - Need laptop |
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alte Hexe Star Mario I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night Alive as you and me "But Joe you're ten years dead!" "I never died" said he "I never died!" said he Level: 99  Posts: 3120/5458 EXP: 9854489 For next: 145511 Since: 03-15-04 From: ... Since last post: 2 hours Last activity: 2 hours |
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| I need a replacement for my hunk of junk PC I'm working with right now (256 MB of RAM, one stick doesn't seem to register for some queer reason). So, I've decided that I'm either going to get one of those adorable little tiny Apple mini-Macs/mini-PC or a laptop. Thus, I ask of you my nerd overlords, I have 2500 saved up for a new computer. What should I do...What should I do? | |||
MathOnNapkins Math n' Hacks Level: 67  Posts: 1514/2189 EXP: 2495887 For next: 96985 Since: 03-18-04 From: Base Tourian Since last post: 1 hour Last activity: 32 min. |
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| Personally, I would never get a laptop unless I absolutely had to. The risk of losing something that expensive, or having it stolen in public is a major deterrent to me. And the cost of a good laptop is considerably more than the cost of a desktop of similar quality. A minimac would be fun if you want to experiment with another platform, but if you need something to substitute for your current PC I'd probably just stick with a PC. I don't really know what you use your comp for, but there are usually equivalents for applications on the Macintosh platform. If you are a romhacker (and I don't think you are?) that would be a bad move. If you want to play games, probably also a bad move. But hell, with that kind of money I could probably get a mac and a pc. (Would build the PC) Or, just build a really nice PC with a huge monitors, graphics card, sound card, etc. edit: well  if I had that kind of money I'd probably put it into a CD account and earn about 9 extra bucks a month.(edited by MathOnNapkins on 02-27-05 10:49 PM) |
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neotransotaku Baby Mario 戻れたら、 誰も気が付く Level: 87 Posts: 2482/4016 EXP: 6220548 For next: 172226 Since: 03-15-04 From: Outside of Time/Space Since last post: 11 hours Last activity: 1 hour |
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| A laptop is good if you need a computer in a non-home/dorm environment as you can do your work in places that are much quieter or work easier in a group if a computer is needed. As for choice of laptop, anything with mini-mac specs should suffice as a computer capable of word-processing and internet usage. Otherwise, i'd probably go with the mini-mac if you prefer to work at home/dorm. If you aren't a gamer and plan to just use the mini-mac to do just school work and use the internet, then it is more than enough. If you do get the mini-mac, you MUST get the 256MB RAM upgrade to give your mini-mac 512MB of RAM. 256MB of RAM isn't enough to run that computer. |
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alte Hexe Star Mario I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night Alive as you and me "But Joe you're ten years dead!" "I never died" said he "I never died!" said he Level: 99 Posts: 3124/5458 EXP: 9854489 For next: 145511 Since: 03-15-04 From: ... Since last post: 2 hours Last activity: 2 hours |
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| I do intend on doing some serious gaming, but I'm also in the need of some hard-core mobility...I'm stuck on this. Because I need it to be space conservative due to the dorm setting I'm going into, but I might need it for other things. | |||
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neotransotaku Baby Mario 戻れたら、 誰も気が付く Level: 87 Posts: 2484/4016 EXP: 6220548 For next: 172226 Since: 03-15-04 From: Outside of Time/Space Since last post: 11 hours Last activity: 1 hour |
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| well, the alienware might have something for you if you want serious gaming. However, I think their cheapest computer is just about how much you can afford. If Alienware's stuff is too expensive, you could try Dell's line of gaming laptops. | |||
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alte Hexe Star Mario I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night Alive as you and me "But Joe you're ten years dead!" "I never died" said he "I never died!" said he Level: 99 Posts: 3125/5458 EXP: 9854489 For next: 145511 Since: 03-15-04 From: ... Since last post: 2 hours Last activity: 2 hours |
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| When I say "serious" I SHOULD specify something that will be most acceptable and manageable to play new games that come out with relatively decent settings slapped on. | |||
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neotransotaku Baby Mario 戻れたら、 誰も気が付く Level: 87 Posts: 2488/4016 EXP: 6220548 For next: 172226 Since: 03-15-04 From: Outside of Time/Space Since last post: 11 hours Last activity: 1 hour |
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| Then a laptop with specs similar to Dell's Inspiron 9200 should suffice. The key is finding a good laptop with a strong graphics card and lots of memory--that's all you need for decent gameplay. However, when it comes to a laptop, size is a big factor as well. So if you want something light to carry, you might have to sacrifice some performance to get something you don't mind carrying. | |||
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tuna ... Level: 3 Posts: 280/2 EXP: 51 For next: 77 Since: 12-02-04 Since last post: 1 day Last activity: 1 day |
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| Believe me, laptop size isn't much of a factor unless you NEED it to be remarkably tiny. Mine is one that's about as big as a large dictionary and about as heavy as one. No problem carrying around or storing it, so I doubt that size is a factor. However, 2500$ is a good amount of money to spend. I'm sure you could find a good computer for that, and that computer neo linked to seems good... (then again I'm the old-schooler computer person who doesn't use anything above 1000 MHz xD) |
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alte Hexe Star Mario I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night Alive as you and me "But Joe you're ten years dead!" "I never died" said he "I never died!" said he Level: 99 Posts: 3126/5458 EXP: 9854489 For next: 145511 Since: 03-15-04 From: ... Since last post: 2 hours Last activity: 2 hours |
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| I don't need supreme, I need something that I can actually use happily. If anyone else can make suggestions/build ideas, I'd be happy to know. | |||
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HyperLamer <||bass> and this was the soloution i thought of that was guarinteed to piss off the greatest amount of people Sesshomaru Tamaranian Level: 118 Posts: 3494/8210 EXP: 18171887 For next: 211027 Since: 03-15-04 From: Canada, w00t! LOL FAD Since last post: 2 hours Last activity: 2 hours |
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If I were you I'd get a laptop with a LOT of RAM and HD space, and at least 32MB of video memory. Between ROM hacking, programming, and just having a tendency to have a lot open at once, I tend to run out of memory pretty often. Plus a laptop would just pwn.  I don't know about you though, it all depends what you need...-Crazily powerful computer to play games? Build a PC with a fast AMD CPU, plenty of RAM, and a huge graphics card (at least 64MB, I hear Raedon and GEForce are good). -Cheap, decent computer? Build it yourself with some cheaper parts. 2Ghz CPU, 256MB RAM, and 32MB video should be plenty for most of what you'd want to do with a computer. -Something to just read email and type with? Get a cheap Dell or HP. They won't be nearly powerful enough to do much besides that, but they can be really cheap. (If you go with HP though, you might want to install an extra fan. Also, keep in mind that a 1Ghz Celeron is equivilant to ~800Mhz with most others; they may have a 1Ghz clock signal, but they're poorly designed overall.) Of course, pretty much the same applies for a laptop, except you probably won't be able to build your own, and you can pretty much forget about using one for serious gaming. As far as hard drives go, get at least 40GB. I suggest around 80 for anything more than the basics, and ~120 for more advanced stuff. If you have any plans to download TV shows or movies I suggest getting the biggest possible HD you can, that stuff will fill it up REALLY fast. Also note that just about every HD manufacturer measures 1KB = 1000B, rather than 1024... Why this is legal, I'm not sure, but the end result is that what they call 250GB is really only around 232. Also, some older computers and OSes might not support partitions over 137GB. Finally, I highly suggest 7200RPM or more. It's frickin fast! |
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Jesper Busy, busy, busy. Level: 69  Posts: 2133/2390 EXP: 2856000 For next: 13743 Since: 03-15-04 From: Sweden. Since last post: 176 days Last activity: 79 days |
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| What kind of gaming do you want to do? Pretty much anything Blizzard does comes out on the Mac, but there's also a lot of things that don't - most small games don't, and the perhaps 40% of the big games that do come out on it take their sweet time. I think it's pretty much established that HL2 isn't coming to Mac and neither are the old Valve games. Aspyr's roster of Mac games includes a lot of titles for sure. (Doom 3, The Sims, Medal of Honor, Jedi Knight, Battlefield 1942...) The Mac mini is some pretty good bang for your buck either way you look at it, even if you have to bring keyboard, mouse, monitor and some RAM for decent coverage. If you want to play all the newest PC games, or games just available on the PC, or need to run PC-only software that exists in your school (there's decent alternatives for most commercial PC software, but if they're making this "in-house", you probably can't use it), you'll need a PC laptop suited for that, however, and I do know that the tab for that can run up pretty quickly, as will it with the small form factor PCs like Shuttles. In the end, base your calculations on $600, minimum, and if you decide you have to have a laptop, base it on $800 minimum. Edit: A few of HyperHacker's points about laptops - if that's what he was talking about - are moot. Laptop HDs are smaller and so have a few limitations; they currently max out at 100GB (and that's generally only available in high-end laptops) and have a slower RPM value (5400, mostly). Also, technically, the 1000KB = 1MB is correct. Mebi is the correct prefix and belongs in the "-bi" group for powers of two, such as 1024. One megabyte is 1000 kilobytes, while one mebibyte is 1024 kibibytes. Here's a good writeup. (edited by Jesper on 03-02-05 08:51 AM) |
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