Heartland

your m*****n..
please.. a laptop with vista premium, medium capacity, speed etc... not looking for anything fancy but needs to be able to cope with msn messenger and photoshop c2. and wireless, dvdRW
not a mac.. i'm too old to convert and i don;t really need the fancy stuff. we'll get on to that for Mr S when we replace this one.
HELP
up to.. umm... £600-700 but as cheap as poss

i know you can do it..

but... but... ems

all yours for £750

but can i do all my windows stuff on it? will all my files and things work? aaaghhh
oi.. there's no spec with that

Yep and google applestore uk for spec, although you can probaby get it cheaper mail order. For on-hands info, ask Zeno, he made the switch recently and it's 'true love'.

Acer's are pretty good for performance/price. Have a look here

Do you qualify for an educational discount, since you're a teacher? That might be worth looking into (I know Apple do some pretty good educational deals).

Good point Mike I forgot about the education discount, in which case Miss, you could probably get one of these sexy beasts for the same money...



otherwise known as, The ZBook

emilystrange wrote:but can i do all my windows stuff on it? will all my files and things work? aaaghhh
oi.. there's no spec with that

You can!

Before I opted for Mac I had a look at all Big PC Brands, and there were really none that offered a proper spec laptop for decent money. It's not just me, a mate of mine is looking for a new one too, and if he'd go for a PC it will even be lower specs as his previous 4-year old laptop Don't ask me what's going on with the world...

Anyhow, I could easily move all my necessary files to the Mac via my USB Hard Disk as OSX doesn't have a problem at reading it (sadly it has at writing on it, but there's another solution for that). MSN works perfectly fine (some features aren't present though - not the ones I use luckily - like webcamstuff and all that).

AirPort is really the best, much better than what PCs have to offer. At school PCs have to do all sorts of complicated installs whereas I just had to log in once (1 time) and now I just have to click to get on to the right network.

Then, if you really need certain Windows applications, have a look at Parallels, it's something that let's you run a PC, virtually, within your Mac (as a program), the latest beta is even equipped with a stunning feature called 'coherence' so you can just make it look like your applications of choice run under OSX. Very nice

I, have not regretted buying a Mac one single second, and sure you wouldn't either (just one warning: the black ones get dirty quite quickly and are a pain in the arse to clean!) Converting is really easy, you'll have it in your fingers after a couple of seconds

If you want to get a Vista Laptop which will run for a decent number of years you'll have to pay more than a Mac FACT!

Macs
Macs are over-priced and you get conned into paying to upgrade (read: security-patch) your operating system every year. But they don't get targeted by viruses as often as Windows PCs (although that's starting to increase). 90% of industry-standard software you see in the shops won't run on them (because the industry standard is a Windows PC unless you're a graphic designer). As stated above, you can open and edit standard Windows files such as MS Word documents, but remember to save them with a file suffix (NOT the default Mac procedure) or you won't be able to open them when you transfer them back to a Windows machine at work. As stated above, you can buy software to run Windows programs if you need to. On the plus side, they come in very pretty cases and the OS is reasonably stable.

PC with Vista
Cheaper than a Mac and you won't be charged for your security updates and service packs, but you should expect a lot of security updates over the next few years. And viruses. And bugs. Because Vista is new and (relatively) untested. I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.

PC with Windows XP
Probably cheaper than a PC with Vista, and far more stable - it's been around for 7 years and Microsoft will continue to support it for free for years. Still, it's Windows so there'll be security holes and viruses. XP is the industry standard and is likely to remain so for at least the next couple of years. I used to use it over a year ago, but I wanted to upgrade, so I chose:

PC with Linux
Cheapest option yet. Linux is based on the same operating system that Mac OSX is based on (Unix) but whereas Mac OSX costs an arm and a leg, Linux is free. As is 90% of the software for it - absolutely and completely free. You don't even have to go to a shop - you just download it completely legally. Like a Mac, you can open & edit standard Windows files then happily transfer them back onto a Windows PC. Because it's based on the same operating system as Mac OSX you can make it look and behave exactly like Mac OSX. But because it's highly configurable you can also make it look and behave exactly like Windows. Less viruses are written to attack Linux than are written to attack Macs. Security updates are free (as are all software upgrades) and can be configured to download & install automatically. If you want to run Windows applications you can run Wine (a free program) which allows you to run Windows software.

lazarus corporation wrote:Macs
Macs are over-priced

I'm affraid I'll be starting to sound like a Mac Fanatic, but anyhow I strongly disagree with the fact that Macs would be overpriced. I haven't been through the update yet, but still there are little laptops I've come across at the same price of my MacBook with the same specs. 1GB RAM, 120GB HDD, 2Ghz Dual Core, the hard disk is equipped with a shock protection motion detector - more than just a bit useful on a laptop I'd say - and I'm sure I forgot a handful of features even.

Can another manufacturer offer that at €1500? I for one haven't seen any around here...

Obviousman wrote:

lazarus corporation wrote:Macs
Macs are over-priced

I'm affraid I'll be starting to sound like a Mac Fanatic, but anyhow I strongly disagree with the fact Macs are overpriced. I haven't been through the update yet, but still there are little laptops I've come across at the same price of my MacBook with the same specs. 1GB RAM, 120GB HDD, 2Ghz Dual Core, the hard disk is equipped with a shock protection motion detector - more than just a bit useful on a laptop I'd say and I'm sure I forgot a handful of features.

Can another big brand offer that at €1500? I for one haven't seen any around here...

You can certainly get that hardware for slightly less than that price - but because Linux is less bloated than OSX you don't need as high a spec to get the same speed. Plus Linux software is free and all security/software upgrades are free, so that ongoing cost of a Mac (the £100 annual OSX upgrades) has to be considered - when you buy a Mac you don't just pay the price on the box - you have to keep paying every year.

well... umm.. i went out and bought a phillips x58, 2048 ram, 120 gb and lots of other stuff for £700... best deal i could get. with vista premium.

emilystrange wrote:well... umm.. i went out and bought a phillips x58, 2048 ram, 120 gb and lots of other stuff for £700... best deal i could get. with vista premium.

Phillips x58
# INTEL CORE 2 DUO T5200 Processor 1.6GHz
# 533MHz FSB
# 2MB Cache
# 2048MB RAM
# 120 GB Hard Drive
# DVD+/- RW Optical Drive
# 15.4'' widescreen
# Microsoft Windows Vista Premium
# 128MB 950 GMA Graphics
# 1 year FREE warranty

Seriously, that's a good spec machine and should do you for years to come. And for £700 I think you've got a good deal.

Now just uninstall Vista and install Linux instead

lazarus corporation wrote: Seriously, that's a good spec machine and should do you for years to come. And for £700 I think you've got a good deal.

Indeed

Where are those machines hiding in Belgium, 'cause I - and my mate who's still on the look - have been/are searching but can't find anything priced like that hereabout

Obviousman wrote:

lazarus corporation wrote: Seriously, that's a good spec machine and should do you for years to come. And for £700 I think you've got a good deal.

Indeed

Where are those machines hiding in Belgium, 'cause I - and my mate who's still on the look - have been/are searching but can't find anything priced like that hereabout

I'm guessing Ms Strange went here

Don't have any of those here, I'm afraid

lazarus corporation wrote:

emilystrange wrote:well... umm.. i went out and bought a phillips x58, 2048 ram, 120 gb and lots of other stuff for £700... best deal i could get. with vista premium.

Phillips x58
# INTEL CORE 2 DUO T5200 Processor 1.6GHz
# 533MHz FSB
# 2MB Cache
# 2048MB RAM
# 120 GB Hard Drive
# DVD+/- RW Optical Drive
# 15.4'' widescreen
# Microsoft Windows Vista Premium
# 128MB 950 GMA Graphics
# 1 year FREE warranty

Seriously, that's a good spec machine and should do you for years to come. And for £700 I think you've got a good deal.

Now just uninstall Vista and install Linux instead

How do Dell compare?

Obviousman wrote:Don't have any of those here, I'm afraid

Then you have no excuse not to come over to the next UK MyHeartland weekend - think of the money you'll save by picking one of those up on the way back!

scotty wrote: How do Dell compare?

Dell are reasonably reliable, but you probably pay an extra £150 for that.

Obviousman wrote:Don't have any of those here, I'm afraid

Always worth a check here - http://fr.kelkoo.be/

I despair...
thanks for trying Z

yup, i went there.. i never intend to, but i end up there. not bad is it?

And in case anyone is setting up some security -


Top 10 Most Common Passwords
10. Thomas
9. arsenal
8. monkey
7. charlie
6. qwerty
5. 123456
4. letmein
3. liverpool
2. password
1. 123

emilystrange wrote:yup, i went there.. i never intend to, but i end up there. not bad is it?

Yeah, I think you got a good deal there.

Rise&Reverberate wrote:Acer's are pretty good for performance/price. Have a look here

My laptop is an Acer purchased from that very site. Two or three years ago but I've never had a problem with it. From what I can recall the order / delivery etc. all went pretty smoothly.