[nathan wind]

Too late motherfucker, I bought a mac!!!

Sweet! Which did you go for?

[Jim]

presumably the overpriced one

[Johnny Brown]

13" pro with the faster processor. Its a nice piece of hardware but I'm not convinced by the OS, I get treated like an idiot enough in life without my computer joining in.

[Jim]

13" pro with the faster processor. Its a nice piece of hardware

of course it is, Intel inside  ,
shit, do these things cost about 2 monkeys?

[robertostallioni]

is that 300 fuck-alls?

[tomtom]

 

13" pro with the faster processor. Its a nice piece of hardware but I'm not convinced by the OS, I get treated like an idiot enough in life without my computer joining in.

Get W7 on it.. Works fine via boot camp.. (that I've seen..)

[Paul B]

Buying a Mac to run Win7? I can think of many more fun ways of spending cash.

[tomtom]

Buying a Mac to run Win7? I can think of many more fun ways of spending cash.

Yup.,...  worked well though... great screen, keyboard, touchpanel...  probably not much difference in £££ from a decent spec/light/thin sony etc...

[Jim]

hahahahahaha beep beep beep.... ..... ... ,,,,. .....    :|]

[Fultonius]

My old Dell (pentium 4, some ram, a hard-drive, shit graphics) is ready for retirement.

It can't play HD video - frame rate goes to shit. I've had it about 9 years, so it's had a good innings. I had thought of upgrading it, but the bits are so old, it would practically be a full rebuild!

So, I then looked into getting a new PC...buuut, in the meantime, I realised that I barely use my computer for anything other than surfing t'net, photo editing (photoshop, often quite big files/RAW etc) and I keep thinking about doing some video editing. I watch a fair bit of vimeo/youtube stuff and get fed up of it all being in HD and me not being able to watch. Due to the fact I'm not in Uni anymore (for a wee while now...) I don't actually spend much time atmy desk in my room, so I'm thinking of ditching it and making the room more of a bedroom, and less of a study!

[sorry for the tangent]

So, basically I need a laptop that can:

Play HD video
Edit HD video (not regularly, so mega processor maybe not a necessity)
Edit in Photoshop
Be fairly future proof. Blue-ray would be nice but not a necessity.
I'd like a fairly big/high res screen - not too bothered about portability as it'll mainly be used in the flat.

Anythoughts on whay spec I need (as I'm well out of touch) and any pointers to some laptops that fit the bill?  Price range will be decided once I see what the options are. I'm guess it'll be £400<laptop<£1000)

Cheers!

P.s. O/S not important - whatever's best...

[Bubba]

Topics merged.

Never trust the search facility - it's pants.

You're better off Googling laptop site:ukbouldering.com to find information.

[Johnny Brown]

Edit HD video
Edit in Photoshop
I'd like a fairly big/high res screen - not too bothered about portability as it'll mainly be used in the flat.

You need a decent spec for the first two, coupled with a big screen that prices you out of anything stylish like Macs or Sonys.

P.s. O/S not important - whatever's best...

I'd avoid Linux as it won't run Photoshop (Gimp I think is closest), not sure about Video editing but no doubt similar. Which leaves you with a generic Windows lump. Just buy on spec and shop round for the cheapest.

[slackline]

I'd avoid Linux as it won't run Photoshop (Gimp I think is closest), not sure about Video editing but no doubt similar.

GIMP has taken a back seat in my image processing these days.

Instead I use RawTherapee which as the name might suggest is capable of handling RAW (GIMP could handle this using UFRaw as a plugin but I never could get my head round using it).  It really is very simple and easy to use RawTherapee and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who can't afford a license for Photoshop (/Lightroom/whatever its called) and doesn't like using cracked/illegal software.  There are some other RAW image processing apps for Linux one written in GTK the other in Qt.

Don't edit videos so can't comment on the pros/cons but there are a number of non-linear open source options (unsurprisingly there is a pretty clear demarcation on the proprietary front with only two available under linux).

Which leaves you with a generic Windows lump. Just buy on spec and shop round for the cheapest.

Thats one way of looking at it.  An alternative is to consider using VirtualBox to run M$ under whatever OS you choose to use the one or two pieces of software that you can't get done natively (although there would be limited utility of doing so if you have M$ as you're not going to be doing web-development/testing where its handy to do this as it then doesn't matter if the virtual machine gets infected).  Of course you'd still have to fork out for a license which will increase the cost and reduce the amount available for buying hardware (even if it the laptop comes with M$ installed, its still an OEM version that will be incorporated into the cost you pay).

The positive advantage or running say OSX or a *NIX variant as your main OS and running M$ under a Virtual machine is that you avoid issues with viruses/spyware/adware/trojans/etc./etc. on your main system without any noticeable degradation in performance when running the Virtual machine software/OS.


I can't really provide any opinion on laptops as I still use an eight year old Dell Latitude X300.

[Fultonius]

Right, looking at prices - Mac seems to be out of the running! You basically seem to be paying more for the same spec - what does this buy you? Yeah, they look better and the software might be a wee bit better, but it's a big hike.

*Nix - Linux and variants I assume. Have thought about this in my computer geekery earlier years, but really, I just want something that WORKS form when i buy it, to when it dies, without much tweaking. My life's too busy to be fannying around with O/Ss and the like. Now, I may be way off the mark and it might be simple to set up and use - is it?

I've been looking on Ebuyer and need some advice on these three:

This Asus core-i5 17" beast fits the bill: looking good...

However, this Samsung has an i3 and 17" screen and is about 140 fuck-alls less Bit cheaper

The other thought is, do I really need/want a 17" screen - I may take this laptop on travels, so if it's a total back breaker for no massive benefit..hmmm... I may have to nip into a store for some testing before deciding on that one.

[Jim]

mac internals is mostly intel stuff so you are paying the extra ££££ for the brand.
I rate my asus eee pc and all the asus computer parts that I have bought/owned and used.

Have you not considered a desktop, if you're going to be doing video editing it would be a lot quicker, you could also stick 2 gig ram in your old laptop and a ssd and it'll be a lot faster than it used to be and use that for surfing and dosing about with on the sofa ( i recon it'll probably play HD vids with the ram upgrade but depends on the graphics card)

[Fultonius]

The main reason I'm going laptop is because I want to ditch my desk in my room and make it a bedroom, rather than a study bedroom - free up some space.

Video editing is a fairly low priority, more of a "nice to have the ability if it doesn't cost too much".

It's a desktop I've got just now - it's got at least 2gb RAM iirc, pentium 4 (3.08 Ghz Hyper Threading) and some kind of PCI graphics card. I'm not low on ram when it gets jittery, but the CPU is maxed and the fan sounds like a boeing 737 on takeoff! Can't get a new graphics card as they're all PCIe now.

Might just get the nice ASUS N73...unless someone can convince me a don't need the spec, or there's something else suitable...

[Johnny Brown]

You basically seem to be paying more for the same spec - what does this buy you?

mac internals is mostly intel stuff so you are paying the extra ££££ for the brand.

Not really, you're paying mostly for the externals - like a body machined from a solid piece of metal. I didn't want to buy a Mac initially, I just wanted a well-made laptop that should last and be enjoyable to use. Every other one I looked at, even the Sonys which actually cost more, felt like plastic junk in comparison, plus if you are using something a lot it is worth paying for the design, I could go on but God help me I'll start sounding like a Mac twat.

[fried]

My laptop (ASUS) went bang last weekend two weeks after the guarantee ran out. I started doing some research into what to buy as a new one, so naturally I talked to a mate who's a website designer. He is adamant that ASUS despite being (at one time) top of a reliability study is shit, apparently all his ASUS components developed problems around the one year guarantee date. He even told me not to buy the laptop that is fucked in the first place.

This is all completely circumstantial and possibly scaremongering, he is even of the opinion that Sony is no better quality than the rest now.

He said I should buy Samsung.

[slackline]

*Nix - Linux and variants I assume.

Spot on, and its worth remembering that OSX is included in this being essentially a fork of the BSD (although most people don't get under the hood with the terminal).

Have thought about this in my computer geekery earlier years, but really, I just want something that WORKS form when i buy it, to when it dies, without much tweaking. My life's too busy to be fannying around with O/Ss and the like. Now, I may be way off the mark and it might be simple to set up and use - is it?

No matter what OS you go with there is will be fannying around if you wish to maintain and use it.  If you're on M$ then its security updates (particularly to IE), service-packs and updating your anti-virus to have the latest signature, purchasing and installing upgrades to the software you choose to buy and so forth.

With GNU/Linux variants there are different levels of involvement/maintenance depending on the distribution you use.  Easy ones are essentially Debian based (or derivatives thereof), as Ubuntu is based on this and a lot of the easier distributions to install and maintain are in turn based on Ubuntu (e.g. I hear good things about Mint Linux from PaulB).

I'd avoid something like Arch Linux or Gentoo (my preference) which are source-based meta-distributions where you compile everything from source yourself (well not yourself, but using the package management tools) and there is a lot of editing configuration files (as opposed to using a GUI/wizard where when you tick a box it is essentially the same as editing a file and saying 'foo=0' or 'foo=1', anyway, I digress).

The other thought is, do I really need/want a 17" screen - I may take this laptop on travels, so if it's a total back breaker for no massive benefit..hmmm... I may have to nip into a store for some testing before deciding on that one.

My old laptop is still smaller and lighter than many modern ones as that is what I want from a laptop, light and portable.  I still have and probably always will have a desktop because if I want to sit down and do something on a computer thats where I want to do it, at my desk.  Yes you can have docking stations for laptops, but if thats at the cost of lugging a brick around I prefer to have a desktop (plus most things are on a NAS anyway so accessible from any computer at home, including the PS3).  Just my thoughts anyway

[slackline]

mac internals is mostly intel stuff so you are paying the extra ££££ for the brand.

To an extent, but what you are also paying for with Macs is that all of the hardware has been carefully selected to work well together.  Other vendors mix and match their parts and what is branded as the same laptop might actually have different chipsets under the hood (personal experience with the Dell Latitude X300, as the guide I found for installing Linux said it had an Intel wireless card and in reality it had a Broadcom, other examples abound).

Have you not considered a desktop, if you're going to be doing video editing it would be a lot quicker, you could also stick 2 gig ram in your old laptop and a ssd and it'll be a lot faster than it used to be and use that for surfing and dosing about with on the sofa ( i recon it'll probably play HD vids with the ram upgrade but depends on the graphics card)

 

[tomtom]

FWIW, (may have been covered) If you're getting a laptop to actually carry around then I'd get one of the 12-13" screen ones. Really light (<1.5kg) good battery life and fine for most things.

If you're doing mega heavy graphics shizzle, them I'd get a desktop for that, and a cheapo netbook for lap surfing in front of the TV etc.. (or even a tablet?? esp when new Android release Honeycomb(?) comes along).

Mac laptops are good - and now all run W7 through bootcamp (its really easy) if you have W7 specific software. The hardware is really good and they have a reputation for lasting a long time and putting up with quite alot of shit. Apple also have the genius bar in all their shops so if somethings wrong, you can book an appointment and generally get if fixed (often for free etc..). BUT, you probably pay c.30-50% extra compared to what you'd get (hardware wise) from a PC....The new macbook airs are lovely bits of kit (I'd like one) but seem to me just that wee bit too pricey for what they are - and then the do something daft like have no RJ45 for the network, and charge you £25 for a USB adaptor to hook it up to a network... tsk tsk..

[Jim]

that's the trouble with apple, basic shit that everyone wants they just won't put it on.
for another example, was reading some possible rumours about the ipad2 and apparently they are still not putting a usb port on it.
I mean WTF, you pay all that money and it doesn't do some of the most basic functions that most people would expect.
It's like they are either doing it for:
a) just to piss people off or
b) to hold out for the ipad6 just to make people keep on buying it
talk about hating on the geez

[Fultonius]

I do agree that a desktop would be a better option for performance & price - but there just isn't the space! (It's a compromise I'm willing to make)

Slackers, I'm sorry to say, but I got about halfway through your post at that was enough to confirm why I don't want to get Linux.... I just can't be arsed with the amount of knowledge I'd need to be able to run it. I just want to be buy something that works, load my favourite programs with a few clicks and get out climbing, rather than be stuck googling how to do shit on linux while everyone else is out cranking! I'm on XP and spend very little time on maintenance.

Fried - I was looking at Samsungs too. I notice the Asus has a 2yr warranty and if I buy it on my RBS card I'll get an additional 2 years warranty (I think, need to check the small print) so that would keep me going a while! Those 2 certainly are in the front running just now.

Looking at comparable specs, I'd need to practically double the price to get the same spec on a Mac. They are still strangely tempting though... buuut, I could do so much with that money...

[slackline]

Fair-dos, but remember to make sure you update the system with security patches, install and maintain anti-virus, spyware & adware. Regularly defragmenting the file-system is useful too.

You could always try out something like Mint Linux for the simple cost of downloading an image and either burning to a CD or putting it on a USB drive and booting from that (you don't even have to wait for the new computer, you could try it out now).

[Fultonius]

I suppose the linux/windows 7 thing isn't something I need to decide on now.

Editied to say: Had a quick google to see if my most used programs are easy to install on Linux.

Songbird: NO
Canon Digital Photo Pro: NO
Photshop: NO
Sony Vegas:: NO

   Not looking good!  I'm not bashing linux as such (as I know it's a far superior operating ssystem in many ways to windoze). it's just, well, I want life to be eaaassy!