Buying my first laptop - Advice please.

busenbust

MentalDesigner wrote: »

If I wasn't a Mac user I would go HP or maybe Sony Vaio I reckon. May I just ask Crimson what Operating System do you use? Windows XP? Vista? Ubuntu?

agreed; some of the Sony's I really do like

jayme1

MentalDesigner wrote: »

You need to consider how portable you want it to be and especially in a laptop don't compare numbers. Build quality, and design count for a lot as the machine has to cool itself in a tightly packed space. For ultimate portability and in you price range the new MacBook Air (if you get the 15% student discount) can't be beat. OSX will run MS Office.

Also do you really need office? Google Doc's and Open Office are free.

only problem is the OP is looking for a 14-17 inch screen and the only macbook air that comes close to the £800 price is the 11 inch model with a low low 64GB SSD, even the top spec macbook air comes with a 13 inch screen and only 256GB SSD and is almost double what he wants to pay

MentalDesigner

Screen size is a fair point but the 11" screen does improve portability and is still a useable size. As for storage things are increasingly moving to the cloud:

photos - flickr/picasa/facebook
music - pandora/spotify
docs - google docs/ MS 365
files - amazon S3/dropbox

jayme1

MentalDesigner wrote: »

Screen size is a fair point but the 11" screen does improve portability and is still a useable size. As for storage things are increasingly moving to the cloud:

photos - flickr/picasa/facebook
music - pandora/spotify
docs - google docs/ MS 365
files - amazon S3/dropbox

he also says he doesnt need it to be portable to take it out and about, and 11 inch is pretty small for mid to heavy day to day use as the OP wants.

and while yes things are moving to the cloud you have to pay cold hard cash to use most of thoes services flickr you have to pay for them to store full res images and picasa you would likely have to pay for more storage and I wouldnt trust facebook with my photos.
Also the same is true with the file storage, you would likely have to pay for more than the standard size you are given and then there is the security of having a local storage solution, esp with a limited internet bandwidth (plusnet maximum is 60GB a month).
but I would say that spotify is an excelent for music and so is office web apps and google docs.

needless to say I dont think the macbook let alone the macbook air is a relevent option for the OP

MentalDesigner

OP has also hinted they are not the best with computers so as far as usability, stability and security goes I would but OSX leagues ahead of Windows 7.

Also the OP would be best to have a local external storage solution for back ups anyway.

OTB

Deleted_User wrote: »

Hello - I am hoping to buy my first laptop and I don't have a lot of "know how." Is it possible to buy a laptop complete with Microsoft Office 2010 installed? Is Intel core 2 due processor 2 GHZ, RAM 4 GB and 500GB Hard Drive good? I have looked on line but I'm out of my depth - I'm afraid I don't really understand what all the terms mean. Any advice much appreciated.

Crimson:o

Well what do you usually do when you go on the computer?

edit:page didn't load up properly so replies didn't show up.

What's your budget?

MentalDesigner

Damn it im the one turning into a Mac v Windows thread

busenbust

MentalDesigner wrote: »

Damn it im the one turning into a Mac v Windows thread

OMG, please no!

OTB

busenbust wrote: »

OMG, please no!

Damn those people are everywhere .

busenbust

Just don't think it's gonna help the OP -- that's all