Laptop Advice

madcow2006

Marty_J wrote: »

Actually, for another £60 the OP could get a MacBook with a free 3 year warranty, by using their Apple student discount.

If the OP is thinking of selling it, an Apple would be a good choice as they tend to hold their value much better than other brands (just look at how much used Macs go for on eBay).

Don't let facts bother you though.

Marty J - Can you please explain how my son could get a Macbook & 3Y warranty for £660? He is at uni. Is the 3Y warranty thrown into the deal? Thanks Madcow

RobertoMoir

madcow2006 wrote: »

Marty J - Can you please explain how my son could get a Macbook & 3Y warranty for £660? He is at uni. Is the 3Y warranty thrown into the deal? Thanks Madcow

I'm not sure what the price comes out at but he will receive a substantial discount if he purchases via his university. Their computer centre may have a shop where he can buy at HE prices, or he can order via the HE website, from a computer on campus access http://apple.procureweb.ac.uk/

And yes there is a 3 year warranty there - not AppleCare which is support + warranty, but just the warranty.

madcow2006

Thanks RobertoMoir

Madcow

Leopard

RobertoMoir wrote: »

Well no, we could worry about the OP hinting that their budget is £600 at most when a 15" MBP weighs in at around double that, and concentrate on solutions to their problem instead.

When I concentrated on the solution to this problem, myself, in June of last year, I tracked down on eBay an effectively new, unblemished and more or less unused £1,600 Apple 15" MacBook Pro, with original hard drive removed for security purposes (so, no installed operating system) and paid £550 for it.

I'm writing this on it now – with Snow Leopard running on a new 320 GB, 7200 rpm hard drive, addressing 4 GB of Crucial RAM and covered by an AppleCare extended warranty that cost me £120 (shipped) on eBay.

Much is possible for those who get off their butts, think laterally and apply themselves to the task, instead of simply moaning on MSE about the prices of Apple computers.

The type of enterprising people, in fact, to whom Apple computers appeal.

pennylessstudent

Am I not right though thinking that if I did get a mac I would need to get all my software again in mac version rather than windows?

I could spend hours and hours looking for the best laptop but with little technical knowledge of what is good/desireable for my needs I feel I would do the wrong thing so thought it best to ask other peoples opinions...people that maybe have a laptop which runs the programs I want/need and could give me useful advice.

RobertoMoir

pennylessstudent wrote: »

Am I not right though thinking that if I did get a mac I would need to get all my software again in mac version rather than windows?

I could spend hours and hours looking for the best laptop but with little technical knowledge of what is good/desireable for my needs I feel I would do the wrong thing so thought it best to ask other peoples opinions...people that maybe have a laptop which runs the programs I want/need and could give me useful advice.

Yes you would - but if you have Windows XP at the moment, for example, and you got a new machine with Windows 7 on it you may find that you need to upgrade some of your software to work properly. You could also use products like boot camp (free with a mac) to make it switch between windows and osx as required or even parallels or vmware fusion to run windows and Mac OSX side by side.

If you're not sure what you need the best advice I can give you is to try and look at the models you are considering to see what feels best for you. If you have a machine with XP right now then familiarity with XP might mean you'd take to Windows 7 quicker than you would Mac OSX... but there are so many differences between Win 7 and Win XP this is by no means certain, and in any case it brings us back to trying out your possible machines to see how you get on with them.

Oneday77

This http://www.excitech.co.uk/it/brochures/recommended_workstation_specs.pdf will give you an idea of what would allow for CAD work just as a general guide.
It does list it as workstation specs so don't expect to find a Quadro in a laptop

Oneday77

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-095-SA fits the budget

RobertoMoir

Oneday77 wrote: »

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-095-SA fits the budget

We've just purchased a bunch of these for our standard windows-based laptop this year at work. They really are quite nice machines for the price. Wish I'd thought to suggest one now!