Laptop or Ipad?

davester

I still think the iPad was made cause americans are too fat and their fingers can't use the touch keyboards on the iphone/ iPod touch. So they made a large version.

Get a laptop, more powerful, useful and less likely to slip down the back of the sofa for someone to sit on it.

red0209

Thanks for all the replies. :T

dealsearcher wrote: »

In fact the direct comparison is with netbooks. The iPad has a 9.7 inch screen. Ipads at present are around £450 for the 16Gb, lowest memory, version. It has no flash compatibility. It has no proper keyboard. It is vulnerable to scratches and damage. Netbooks are at around £250. They have screens around 11 inches. They have hard drives starting at around 160Gb. They are compatible with all windows or open source programs. They have a proper keyboard which acts like a clamshell to close, protecting the netbook.

So why get an iPad? Fashion? Fad?

All very fair points. I guess I've been slightly taken in by the hype, and also because I like the iPhone 4.

It also seems a valid option as all I want from a laptop/netbook/iPad is web browsing/emails, plus reading the odd document or pdf file. The iPad weighs about 700g and is 242.8mm by 189.7mm. A netbook with a 10" screen would weigh about twice as much and be more fiddly to handle. I certainly wouldn't need a lot of hard drive storage space either, so that isn't an issue. The lack of flash I can live with as I only need to visit specific websites when on the move, which don't require me to watch flash videos. I wouldn't be doing much typing, so lack of a keyboard is a positive for me.

macman wrote: »

A new battery is a lot cheaper than a new laptop, if you can live with the other defects.

I just looked this up, and it looks like I can pick one up for £35-£40. The battery hasn't worked properly for ages, and the replacement battery prices used to be much higher. Food for thought certainly.

closed wrote: »

red, you have plenty of ram, however the high commit charge and high cpu usage suggests some bloat, possibly security software. tasklist or task manager should give you a clue as to what is slowing it down.

If money is no object, a lightweight laptop or macbook would be more useful than an ipad imo

Yes, upgrading the ram from 512MB to 2048MB a few months ago improved the laptop from very, very slow (10 minutes to get into Windows) to just quite slow. Everything works fine except web browsing, which is often painfully slow, particularly if you try watching a video.

I'm not really sure what the issue is. I recently reformatted the hard drive and don't have a great deal of software installed. I took your advice from the other thread and installed ccleaner, startuplite and cleanmem. All very clever tools, but didn't make much difference as ccleaner just automates removing the pointless files that clog things up (which I do anyway) and startuplite didn't find anything I could remove as I use msconfig to remove all pointless things from the startup list myself anyway. cleanmem seems to get good reviews online although I'm not sure exactly what it does in the background. It reckons my memory usage is 25-35% according to the little box on the taskbar.

I run a Malwarebytes scan weekly anyway and it's never picked up any problems. Hijackthis also doesn't seem to list anything that shouldn't be there. I never use IE, Firefox instead, and both browsers have all their settings set to defaults anyway. I don't have any toolbars, updaters or AOL software installed. I turned off the advanced text services as advised, wasn't aware of that before.

I use Comodo Internet Security, with a few other bits and pieces installed, like Spybot, AVG linkscanner, McAfee site advisor and rapport. How likely is it that they are the cause of the problem? I didn't uninstall any of this security software and replace with avast 5, would doing so likely to have a big impact?




Having realised how cheap a replacement battery would be - when I checked a year or two ago it was about £115, now £35, if I could fix the slowness issue I could probably live with this laptop and it's bumps and bruises for quite a while longer. If I do end up replacing it, I'll probably go down the netbook route. It's probably not worth considering an iPad until the second generation one comes out.

closed

red0209 wrote: »

I use Comodo Internet Security, with a few other bits and pieces installed, like Spybot, AVG linkscanner, McAfee site advisor and rapport. How likely is it that they are the cause of the problem? I didn't uninstall any of this security software and replace with avast 5, would doing so likely to have a big impact?
.

Very likely!

Slowness is usually one of 3 things

1. high commit charge/too little ram (not an issue on your machine)
2. too much bloated and overlapping security software.
3. infections (unlikely if you have all that av software, and scan with malwarebytes.

The security software you have listed is known to slow machines down on their own, and you have multiple layers. Try uninstalling them, and replacing with avast 5 free version and windows firewall. malwarebytes is ok to leave on for manual scanning, it's all the resident software that needs to go.

If that doesn't fix it, post a hijackthis log.

There is one but to this, if you are trying to watch high def video, then it is possible your machine may struggle or buffer, it depends on your cpu/graphics card spec, and your available bandwidth on the net. pausing the video to allow it to buffer should help.

red0209

OK, will give it a go tomorrow and see if it does the trick.

zen.works

davester wrote: »

I still think the iPad was made cause americans are too fat and their fingers can't use the touch keyboards on the iphone/ iPod touch. So they made a large version.

Get a laptop, more powerful, useful and less likely to slip down the back of the sofa for someone to sit on it.

Great observations...especially the fat finger one....

I don't get these people... Nobody including apple never said this is a laptop/Pc replacement. But these guys spent their whole life comparing it with a full blown laptop which Ipad never is a never will be...

Ipad is made for totally different audience, for people who just want to browse and read emails and play simple games if they wish to and all these tasks are executed brilliantly on an ipad.

Its a media consumption device not for creation, and thats what it does best.

And on the plus side you don't need any security software like antivirus, anti spyware/malware and the all important Firewall and what not.

When apple launched ipad I was'nt impressed with it, but later on I got to use it at a store and I do listen to lot of tech shows and discussions and get to know about it a lot better and the I went ahead and bought one last month.

The first impression, as I was expecting it to be as a big ipod touch...its really looks like one but when you actually starts to paly with it its in a totally different league. The screen size alone makes a huge difference in the way you interact with apps.

The first one to catch my attention was the email, I never felt so good when reading emails this is the device that is designed for email, its a pure joy. You can always argue outlook looks almost the same but the fonts the way you can change the orientation and the ease with you can add and delete your email accounts and everthing its totally brilliant.

I too jumped onto the netbook bandwagon about a year ago, but that damn thing is too slow and xp really sucks. My biggest issue was video I do like to catch up with bbc iplayer and occassional you tube but don't even think of doing that on a netbook, it starts alright but 5 to 10 minutes down the line it slutters and stops or the gets out of sync with video. Its a total nightmare. I had the top of the range Asus eepc seashell costing £285 at the time, but within a week I got rid of it and sent it back to amazon for a full refund.

But on ipad iplayer and youtube works perfectly well. No issues at all and I did tested the battery with video and it lasts well over 10 hours.

When it comes to the cost it does cost more and If I borrow the words of Leo laporte who is a well known tech podcaster in the states. "Ipad or any Apple products are like the BMW'S/Audi's of the tech world".

you do have to pay for the luxury but you do get your moneys worth in terms of build quality design, performance and looks. And I do care about the user experience which is what Apple Cares the most. And in my opinon thats the reason why they have omitted USB ports and things like that. coz they want to simplify the device and concentrate on the things that it can do best. So I'm happy to live with that, the same goes with the omitting flash from the device if they would have added flash the battery life would halved, its just so buggy and badly implemented piece of software.

And most importantly Ipad is not a computer, Its an appliance. And it used to be unitasker prior to 4.2 upgrade but not any more. But it does only few things and does em solid.

So its for people who can afford a bit of luxury. And in my opinion thats exactly what it is.

red0209

closed wrote: »

Very likely!

Slowness is usually one of 3 things

1. high commit charge/too little ram (not an issue on your machine)
2. too much bloated and overlapping security software.
3. infections (unlikely if you have all that av software, and scan with malwarebytes.

The security software you have listed is known to slow machines down on their own, and you have multiple layers. Try uninstalling them, and replacing with avast 5 free version and windows firewall. malwarebytes is ok to leave on for manual scanning, it's all the resident software that needs to go.

If that doesn't fix it, post a hijackthis log.

There is one but to this, if you are trying to watch high def video, then it is possible your machine may struggle or buffer, it depends on your cpu/graphics card spec, and your available bandwidth on the net. pausing the video to allow it to buffer should help.

Thanks for taking the time to reply so many times closed. :money:

I downloaded some software called Process Explorer URL]http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653[/URL, which lists your CPU usage at any one time. Roughly speaking, Comodo was using 20% of the CPU, and Firefox was using anything from 80% upwards most of the time. A quick search online suggested doing things like disabling Firefox addons/extensions, and opening less tabs/windows. None of this made any difference as I hardly have any addons and don't have more than two windows open at once anyway.

I probably am slightly overdoing the security software, but I am fairly paranoid about such things as I carry out five figure financial transactions using the laptop on a daily basis. Someone getting hold of passwords and other details would be my worst nightmare.

However I thought I would give what you suggested a go, and I went a little further too. It's been a good 12-18 months since I last did it, so I formatted the hard drive and reinstalled Windows XP. I reinstalled only the bare minimum, including avast, Malwarebytes and a few other essential things. Result was just the same as before. Web browsing on the whole was the same, fairly slow but manageable unless watching videos. I don't watch HD stuff, just standard embedded flash videos on the BBC site for example, or Youtube. I have tried many times pausing the video until it's fully downloaded, but that makes no difference.

Bandwidth wouldn't be a problem as I have a 20MB connection used by just the laptop, although the graphics may be an issue. According to the little sticker on the VAIO laptop, the graphics are "Intel Graphics Media Accelorator 900 with 128 MB/Mo max, shared with main memory". Clearly not the best, as you would expect given the laptop was purchased in April 2006.

I read a thread on another forum, http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/103442 , which sort of confirmed my suspicions. Hardware can slightly degrade over time for various reasons, but most importantly software bloating is a problem with older computers not designed to handle 2011 software demands. The laptop has been used very heavily since I've had it.

I'm tending to lean towards replacing it immediately. I could attempt to replace the processor and/or graphics card, but how easy and ultimately successful would that likely to be? I know my way around the inside of a desktop PC, but not when it comes to laptops. You could probably replace all sorts of parts, certainly the hard drive as well, but you may as well start afresh with a new laptop if you're going to do that, particularly as the battery doesn't work and the screen is scratched.

zen.works wrote: »

Ipad is made for totally different audience, for people who just want to browse and read emails and play simple games if they wish to and all these tasks are executed brilliantly on an ipad.

Very good post, thanks for that. :money: I agree completely in that I was interested in an iPad for what it can do, not what it can't. I am aware of the limitations and am comfortable with them. I'll likely get one, but will probably wait until the second generation one comes out later in the year.

pamelamalcolm

Laptop is more practical than an iPad.

closed

red0209 wrote: »

I read a thread on another forum, http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/103442 , which sort of confirmed my suspicions. Hardware can slightly degrade over time for various reasons, but most importantly software bloating is a problem with older computers not designed to handle 2011 software demands.

There is a lot of nonsense on the web.

If you have reinstalled windows, then it should be fast, there is no bloat to slow it down, unless you have installed it on top - windows will be busy patching the first few times you boot though.

Comodo using 20%, and firefox using the other 80% of your processor should tell you something. Try IE or opera on the same website.

Please post a hijackthis log, output from tasklist, and commit charge figures if you want to get to the bottom of it - without it, no-one can advise you. Here is the link, it should take a minute, and is far cheaper than buying random bits of hardware that will make no difference

http://www.trendmicro.com/ftp/products/hijackthis/HijackThis.exe

Your machine is capable of being fast, the age of it isn't relevant. A machine 2 or 3 times the age of yours with a much slower processor/graphics card/ram, on a slower net connection is capable of watching embedded bbc video full screen without buffering or maxing out the processor.

One thing to try, run it without the battery in, and make sure the vents aren't covered up.

red0209

If enough people say something there is usually an element of truth in it.

I'll do the HijackThis log, tasklist and commit charge. Will have to wait till tomorrow though as I'm off to bed now. I checked the HijackThis log before the format, and to my untrained eye there didn't look to be anything there that shouldn't be. I'll install it again tomorrow and post up the log file.

Videos have the same problem using IE as Firefox. Since I formatted and reloaded Windows, I haven't yet installed Firefox but IE is running slow just as before. It is a bit puzzling, which is why I've held off getting a new laptop as it looks like there might be a solution for it. Thanks for your help so far. :money:

closed

There are urban myths in the world of IT too

Did you install commodo?

you don't have to install hijackthis, just click on the exe and run it

IE is slow on every website, or just video content?