Laptop hunting

[kams]

I know this was done before - but that was a while ago..

been looking at the Lenovo T61s.. some of the Vaios.. Dell.. possibly Mac

looking to get as fast a machine as poss for about £700 - anyone know whats cheap and decent at the moment?

Its for gigging and graphics work.. so nice screen would be good.

[nempsey]

i been looking at getting a dell inspiron with intel core duo 2.5 gig, 2 gig ram, 150gig 7200 hard drive, nvidia geforce2 graphics, 15.4" screen, 3 years warranty for just under 800. seems reasonable.

not very sexy looking, mind you.

sony vaio seems to be about twice the price for that kind of spec.

[FiST]

my mate hecktoe ruiez just got this one http://www.johnlewis.com/Technology/Computers/Computers/Laptops/398/230436569/Product.aspx

or you could get a decent second hand powerbook/mac bookpro maybe for that money?

[edit]

with vaio's you pay for the 'sex look' through the nose, but get the same spec as a much cheaper dell. Although dell use slightly dodgy components in their machines, they're really ok, and do a good support package where a bloke will come and sort yer machine out at yer house.
Thinkpads have really sturdy guts, but T61s are considerably more than 700squid I tink...
If you thinkin mac - talk to the Tec!

[nempsey]

also the dell has 5 usb ports, which is nice

[Yer_Maw]

cant go wrong with a macbook.

[nempsey]

i looked at a macbook but its lower spec than that dell i mention, for more money. with a smaller screen. only 2 usb ports. and i have a shitload of pc software.

am i missing something really bad about dells? (apart from them being kinda ugly)

(edit) this sony looks ok http://www.johnlewis.com/Technology/Computers/Computers/Laptops/398/230446817/Product.aspx

[Yer_Maw]

personally i dont like the build quality of most pc laptops cos im always moving mine around the houes. They seem creak about and the tray loading drives always seem wonky. Btw you do know macs can run windows? Who needs 5 usb ports?

I get a student discount on mac stuff so maybe i think its better value. Although about 6 months ago they were just about the same price as pc laptops. Ive noticed now that those with dedicated graphics cards have came right down in price.

[nempsey]

ah, to be a student again.

i need lots of usb ports! mouse, ext hd, backup ext hd, sound card, serato = 5

dunno about mac v pc build quality. my current old pc is a vaio and is very solid. lots of other things i hate about it, but keyboard/screen/disc tray is all solid. nothing has ever broken on it. i need 15" screen minimum so i'd need to spend 1500 quid on a mac...no ta!

[kams]

this looks pretty good
(http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Lenovo-IBM-Thinkpad-T60-Core-2-Duo-2GB-WSXGA-UMTS-T61_W0QQitemZ120189395267QQihZ 002QQcategoryZ177QQssPageNameZ WDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)

[Spandex]

It looks like shit :)

Do you need to spend £700? I recently got a lappy for work for £420ish inc VAT... Toshiba Satellite Pro with Core Duo. Works good. If you ARE gonna spend mac prices.. why not get a mac?

There's a chap in my office who knows all about PC hardware and his advice was "Buy your laptop on looks, cos it doesn't matter what you get, it'll be out of date in 18 months anyway" :)

[nempsey]

If you ARE gonna spend mac prices.. why not get a mac?

There's a chap in my office who knows all about PC hardware and his advice was "Buy your laptop on looks, cos it doesn't matter what you get, it'll be out of date in 18 months anyway" :)

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

consumerism is so fucking complicated these days.

[kams]

i'm kind of factoring in the gigs thing and the thinkpads are sposed to be pretty solid.. i'm not arsed really about looks.. well a bit.. else I'd be getting a Dell straight off...

reading spec sheets makes me hurt

cheap should really be the number one issue.. but I just keep pushing the spec up little by little...

[nempsey]

fucking hell, just tried putting the dell package together and its coming out 200 quid more than the other night.

i give up

[Yer_Maw]

what specs do you need though? Never play brand new games? Intel graphics will do. As long as its a core duo, the clock speed isnt that important. Ram is though. 5200 rpm drive is fine for audio. I doubt you need to spend the same as i spent on my mac to get that on a pc lappo.

Just go down pc world and pick the one with the most ram for a decent price.

[kams]

dont need fancy gaming graphics.. hi-res posh monitor would be nice for photoshop..

Dell's coming in around £500 ish

[nempsey]

was reading a big laptop thread on here that said you should get a 7200 drive for audio. mind you my main external is a 7200 tho that's usb

[Yer_Maw]

I dont think you desperately need it on the system drive. Especially if your running audio tracks from an external drive at 7200.

maybe thats why i like mac. you either buy the expensive one or the really expensive one.

[nempsey]

i wonder if having data go through the usb port negates the access speed increase

yes, i'd probably rather just be rolling in cash and buy a big shiny silver mac

[Yer_Maw]

Ha the MRC havent exatcly got me rolling in cash. i saved the pennies the old fashioned way.

Anyway, it probably is slower but in a real world test i doubt you will ever really notice. I noticed a big difference between a 4200 and a 5200 drive though. I use ableton a lot and ive never had to cut down anything because the drive wasnt fast enough. Its usually something else that hits the limit before that. Still it would be nice to have but i wouldnt pay a premium for it.

[kams]

s'only £60 for the Dell upgrade.. reckon thats worth it?

[nempsey]

wots the story with AMD chips...are they ok?

[cut out]

I got the previous version of this:

Vaio VGN-BX51XP Core2 Duo 2.00 GHz 120GB 15.4" LCD (http://vaio.sony.co.uk/view/ShowProduct.action?product=VGN -BX51VN&site=voe_en_GB_prof&category=VN+BX+Series)

It's supposed to be for 'business' usage, but I use it for music, design as well as officey stuff and find it a real joy to use (esp. after having my standards raised by using G4s and Macbooks for 2 years at work). Best of all - it's quiet. damn near silent.

£762 inc vat.

[Yer_Maw]

s'only £60 for the Dell upgrade.. reckon thats worth it?

Would you rather have the 60 quid?

Re: AMD personally i wouldnt bother. Intel have pretty much won this round of chip design.

[KuffDam]

Also if anyone gets OSX properly running on PC Intel hardware you'd be shit out of luck with AMD.

[love_tempo]

don't get the vaio N-series, they are cheap, slow and plasticky.

The FZ-series ones are nice though, probably around £700 for a fastish core duo 2 with 1 gb of ram and a 5400 rpm decent sized drive.

https://www.sonystyle.co.uk/SonyStyle/mimes/openAccess/promotion/promotion_vaiofz_images/gb/shelf1.jpg

The screens are really really good on those vaios, probably better than almost anything else I've used including macbooks. If you are set on spending £700, then that or a macbook are both good bet. I'd go for the sony, better bigger screen but it depends on whether you want a mac or not. mac might be slightly faster for the money but with a smaller screen, but then more portable so ... you decide :)

(http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Sony_VAIO_FZ21E_VGN-FZ21E/version-1.asp)

[MJimD]

You can get cheaper Dell laptops from the outlet site. I think people use scripts to swipe the best ones to resell though.

Months ago I asked on this forum http://www.outletbargains.co.uk/ for someone to let me have a laptop meeting my requirements that they had reserved on the outlet site.

Alternatively my friend saved money buying a new (returned to Dell) or refurbished laptop from this seller on ebay http://stores.ebay.co.uk/EComputers-LTD_W0QQcolZ2QQdirZ1QQfsubZQ2d 33QQftidZ2QQtZkm

I think he gets his computers from the outlet site.

Check their prices against the same spec computer on the official Dell site.

[nempsey]

yes i am gradually finding myself drawn to the sony FZ. the ugly factor is putting me off the dell.

i already have an old sony - it's really noisy and massive with useless battery life, hence new purchase, but the screen and keyboard are both excellent, and i've had almost no trouble with it at all in 3 years.

[love_tempo]

yes i am gradually finding myself drawn to the sony FZ. the ugly factor is putting me off the dell.

i already have an old sony - it's really noisy and massive with useless battery life, hence new purchase, but the screen and keyboard are both excellent, and i've had almost no trouble with it at all in 3 years.

I wouldn't want an ugly big brick laptop with a not so good screen, probably end up spending a good part of the week in front of it, so it's worth getting something fairly decent for the sake of £100 or £200. I'd rather get something with a good display than something with a 20% better CPU, that makes fuck all difference anyway it'll be outdated in 18 months anyway. Upgrading the RAM to the max and replacing stock hard drives with 7200 hitachi yokes makes a bigger difference and you can do it later when you can afford it.

mine old sony FS was fine too, I thought it broke once but it turns out I was using a dodgy chinese replacement battery that fucked it. So if you get a sony and need to replace battery or psu go back to sony even if it's expensive. The old f-series had very good keyboards and trackpads too, I'd happily still use 'em.

[nempsey]

so now i find myself thinking about spending an extra 250 quid to cross over to the other side, after playing with a macbook - has to be the black one tho, the white one gets all mucky.

hmmmm.

[kams]

got an FZ... dual core 2gig - 2meg ram. £799. Bit more than i was gonna pay - but It'll keep me going for a while. Need to ditch Vista now.

Is it worth buying XP? Someone advised me to - to keep update available and to avoid spyware/virus' etc. Wont AVG/Spybot etc. cover all that?

[nempsey]

if it was me i'd probably use a dual boot with a cut down dodgy version of xp for music stuff and vista for web.

i might be stupid tho

[Spandex]

got an FZ... dual core 2gig - 2meg ram. £799. Bit more than i was gonna pay - but It'll keep me going for a while. Need to ditch Vista now.

Is it worth buying XP? Someone advised me to - to keep update available and to avoid spyware/virus' etc. Wont AVG/Spybot etc. cover all that?

If you contact Microsoft, you should be able to get a downgrade from vista.

[spoon]

i got a vista laptop a few months back. after realising it was useless i just bought a new hard drive and put xp on that - a copy i downloaded from demonoid, works perfect. i haven't put the vista drive back in for any reason, so i have it in an enclosure now and i just use it as an external backup. looking forward to xp sp3, supposedly it's 10% faster or something.

the only things i really liked about vista were the search-as-you-type start menu feature and the alt+arrows folder navigation. i use launchy on xp tho, so that covers the start menu thing nicely.

[Spandex]

the only things i really liked about vista were the search-as-you-type start menu feature and the alt+arrows folder navigation. i use launchy on xp tho, so that covers the start menu thing nicely.


You seen launchy (http://www.launchy.net/)? Someone posted it in a thread about handy software. I never use the start menu now, cos launchy is loads quicker.

edit: heheheh.. I just read that you use launchy.. um.. right.. i must need a nap :)

[spoon]

I never use the start menu now, cos launchy is loads quicker.


same here, i don't know what i'd do without it. i've started using it for gcal appointments and as a calculator now, love it!

[kams]

Rubbish... the bloke in the sony shop.. after being repeated questioned about XP downgrades (warranty validity/driver availabilty etc) was adamant that the model i got (FZ21E) was supported by sony for downgrading to XP and that drivers were available. Apparently not according to their phone support bloke. Webcam/function keys/power management all get overlooked apparently.

So I ask them which laptops they still offer with XP pre-installed - none.

Love_tempo what model did you get? How was the downgrade to XP? Lots of stuff i've just been reading make it sound like a right pain in the arse.

[love_tempo]

it was a pain in the arse, I think I complained here about it at the time and sony shop salesmen misinformation too :) The thing that took the longest to setup on a N-series was the wifi. got it working in the end by getting generic chipset drivers and hacking the config files. You might be able to get some/most of the troublesome devices working that way. The function key and power mgt. didn't bother me as I usually setup the machine for always on. webcam isn't too big a deal either for a work machine. dual-boot is worth the effort.

[kams]

FUCKING SHITE CUNTS.

I'm taking it back.

[love_tempo]

FUCKING SHITE CUNTS.

I'm taking it back.

I took my N-series back cos it was mis-sold to me as a Core Duo 2 when it was the much slower Centrino Duo. Got my money back after a little fighting and a couple of days wait. Be careful though, many (if not most) vista laptops have this problem to some extent. Even getting XP drivers for some desktop parts is getting hard. PC is a nightmare at the moment with 32bit/64bit XP/Vista.

[spoon]

PC is a nightmare at the moment with 32bit/64bit XP/Vista.

yeah. you'd need to have a really, really important reason for buying a pc laptop these days - and price isn't one.

[kams]

Sony phone support just sent me this list of models for which they support XP drivers for..

VGN-SZ4
VGN-SZ5
VGN-BX4
VGN-BX5
VGN-TX5
VGN-TZ1x
VGN-FZ19
VGN-CR19
VGN-CR29
VGN-G1x
VGN-TZ2x
VGN-FZ29
VGN-SZ6


tbh i'm rethinking the mac option... how much of pain is bootcamp to set up? Bearing in mind i hate this kind of thing and have never used a mac before...

[love_tempo]

yeah. you'd need to have a really, really important reason for buying a pc laptop these days - and price isn't one.

abundant 'free' software is one reason :)

It's a pain, I spent 2 days fucking around with dodgy/non-existent xp drivers for a pc laptop, ditched it, got a desktop, then spent 2 days trying to find xp64 drivers for a desktop. a weeks work wasted. and you just know MS are forcing the oem retailers to support Vista and Vista only screwing us and them.

[kams]

Microsoft are fuckers

[love_tempo]

Sony phone support just sent me this list of models for which they support XP drivers for..

VGN-SZ4
VGN-SZ5
VGN-BX4
VGN-BX5
VGN-TX5
VGN-TZ1x
VGN-FZ19
VGN-CR19
VGN-CR29
VGN-G1x
VGN-TZ2x
VGN-FZ29
VGN-SZ6

tbh i'm rethinking the mac option... how much of pain is bootcamp to set up? Bearing in mind i hate this kind of thing and have never used a mac before...

I didn't go for a mac in the end cos I thought that getting that working would be as much of a pain and some peripherals probably would act up.

The FZ19 is the one I was going to get before opting for a desktop. nice laptop but a little bit slower than the one you got?

[kams]

Yeah - speeds not really the issue though.. i'd happily loose a bit of processor speed to actually be able to run the software I want.

Is anyone running OSX/XP on a mac?

I can't believe this shit. I really hate doing this sort of computing. I thought this kind of thing had passed.

[Yer_Maw]

bootcamp was slightly tricky to get going but if you have ever installed windows before you should be fine. It sets up the partition and all that for you, and the only difficulties i had were normal windows things. I also had to get the latest drivers as the audio one was dodgy but ive just updated. Although i havent used it enough to comment. See i dont know if these are just usual windows problems or a bootcamp thing,cos i havent had a pc for my own to tweak for so long.

It seems ok now but to be honest, i thought id be using xp a lot more than i actually do. i can never be arsed booting in except for games which ive got working fine. Just installed parallels too which runs off the bootcamp partition and it ran better than i expected.

what software do you need on the windows side?

[kams]

I'm just used to Cubase.. I like Logic tbh but there's the cost issue. Never worked in Ableton either - but that's one i want to get into having portability now.

I want to get an audiomulch/reaper (or whatever free/cheap DAW it is that can work as a VST plug can't remember if it is that) thing going to see whether there's any milage there as well.

Plus Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign CS2 - which i've always found issues with opening files across platforms and as I work on PC at work it'd be nice to be able to take things home (alright, maybe not 'nice', but useful)...

[kams]

so in short - quite expensive on a mac...

[JonnySpeed]

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/110495/32-reasons-why-pcs-are-better-than-macs.html

I'd buy the Sony VGN-CR21S/W as its got a great spec for its price and its £740 at Dixons online if you use the GIMME5 discount code.

[KuffDam]

Is anyone running OSX/XP on a mac?

I can't believe this shit. I really hate doing this sort of computing. I thought this kind of thing had passed.

Yeah it's piss. Installing bootcamp is dead easy, I work on PC at work and regularly do stuff at home. You wouldn't know you were using a Mac tbh.

[penciLneck]

xp is supposed to run faster on an intel mac and they also put some extra work in getting the drivers just right.

[nempsey]

hmm this xp issue is making me come down in favour of mac. serato is more stable under xp at the moment so i need xp if i use a pc.

can you install xp on a vista machine as a dual boot quite easily?

here (thanks google):

http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp

instructions on how to do it.

sounds fairly complicated but par for the course in my experience of getting pcs to work properly.

fuck it, i'm gonna stop thinking about it for a month.

[mdk]

I want to get an audiomulch/reaper (or whatever free/cheap DAW it is that can work as a VST plug can't remember if it is that) thing going to see whether there's any milage there as well.

that'll be energyXT 2

and there is plogue bidule as well, not a DAW, more a modular thingy but runs standalone and as a vst as well.

theyre both cheap. xt2 is good, but under heavy development so i dont use it much atm (although xt 1.4 is still fine for a lot of stuff)

bidule is great, when i remember to use it.

[kams]

i've fucked about with bidule - i quite like the idea of using a DAW to run sequences within that kind of modular environment - patching the outpouts to things on the fly..

or am i just reinventing ableton?

[wheezer]

I thought that bootcamp was way easier than most windows installs, simply because you have the nifty wizard driven installer disc with all your drivers on after the regular win install has completed... but I don't boot into it either unless I'll play a game...