What spec for a laptop? Any recommendations?

[Hulababy]

Trying to peruade Dh to get me a new laptop sometime in next couple of months or so LOL!

But need to price up and I have been out of computers/IT for so long I just don't really know what I should be looking for these days.

I want a simple home computer (laptop) primarly for use at home but maybe to take out occasionally. I use it mainly for the internet and then some basic Word, Excel type stuff. We also use iTunes a fair bit. I also use it to download and store all my photos from my digital camera, but hope to get n external hard drive for backing up these too. We don't really use it for games or anything like that as DD has her own old laptop for her games.

Any idea on type of spec I want to be looking for? Or any recommendatiions for any models out there?

[McDreamy]

I am just trying to get to grips with a macbook which so far is quite impressive.

[Jinglywoo]

Sounds like the kind of thing we've just bought - pcworld toshiba for £399. Does all of the stuff you've mentioned. The thing we were told when looking at the cheaper end of laptops is that do you need a minimum of 2gb of memory to run windows vista properly so we got the cheapest and most reputable laptop with the best spec we could find.

here:www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/339848#productInformationSection

[Hulababy]

Whilst I love the look of the Macbook it is expensive for what it is though isn't it? And I would assume much more hassle to move things between mine and DD's laptop (or someone else's - all non Mac ones).

[Hulababy]

jigglywoo - thanks, will look at that

[McDreamy]

Probably would be difficult if using other windows computers, good point. Not sure about the price, don't want to know as it was my xmas present, although I know DH gt a good deal because he's a student!!!!!

[jorange5]

Don't get one with an Intel Celeron processor. Most cheapo laptops advertise large disk space and memory and so look attractive but they contain these not-very-useful processor chips.

If you ever want to mess with photos or play games etc a Celeron processor will dissapoint big time.

[Hulababy]

Actually just remembered the point about being in academia - I am employed as a lecturer, so may be able to use that to my advantage in some places IIRR, esp when buying software I believe.

[justagirlfromedgware]

You're right about academic discounts. You could have a look at the 'procurement' (or equivalent) section of your university's website - mine has a link to companies which give discounts for personal purchases by staff members. Although, double-check the discounts are genuine! My other tip is to ask your departmental computer support colleague for advice on what to buy. In my experience they're only too happy to help you avoid an expensive mistake.

Moving files between Macs and PCs, unless you're using some really obscure file format is a doddle nowadays. I do it regularly when my DS bumps me off my PC to surf the internet and I move my work onto my decrepit Mac (and back again) with ease.

n.b. When buying a laptop check the weight! I've got a Dell Latitude weighing just over a kilo, which is just fine. Any more and you won't find it truly a portable if you've a briefcase, papers etc. to carry too.

[MrsRecycle]

second memory and vista - I brought a Toshiba from pcworld - was £500 in June but memory is only 512 and Vista is crap. It takes me ages to do anything and I hardly have any spare memory capacity and I'm only using Internet Explorer. I found out a few months after I brought it that Windows know about the problem and recommend at least 1Gig memory but pcworld don't tell you that and they still try and sell you pc's with below this spec.

[RubberDuck]

I think the trick to Macs is not to compare them to the cheapest Dell (which most people do). They're not comparable in terms of quality of components etc at all. (Which is just as well as dh has managed to destroy two Dell notebooks from heavy use in a very short space of time).

Low end Macbook starts at around £700. Spec is very good, but recommended that you up the RAM (but you can buy the RAM elsewhere rather than direct from Apple to save some cash). I think you can get an educational discount - not sure on the criteria to get it, but it seems fairly loose given that we got one seemingly just because we were spending a lot of money in the Apple Store with kids in tow on Leopard release weekend!

iWork is a very nice spreadsheet/word processor package which is much cheaper than Microsoft Office, yet very powerful and easy to use. Time spent on maintenance is much less (was permanently reinstalling the OS on my old windows machines, or defragging, or running the antivirus...).

I'm currently writing some training documentation on Pages (the word processor component) and it's just awesome - it's part word processor, part DTP ... just drag and drop photos in and the text wraps for you ... one click adds an index... sorted out a glossary really easily.

Buying software is great because so many of the packages offer family packs (5 licenses) which are usually less than the cost of buying 2 licenses separately - so if you have more than one Mac in the household it doesn't cost a fortune to have duplicate software. There's also a good supply of cheap/free/open source software on the internet which are as good as many of the expensive commercial Windows packages.

Plus you can also (if you get a Windows license too) run both Windows and MacOSX on the same machine either by booting separately into each one using BootCamp (utility that comes with the Leopard OS) or at the same time using 3rd party software like Parallels or Fusion. Do bear in mind though, that you will need antivirus protection for the Windows install!

[RubberDuck]

Oh if you do go Windows, best not to get a Vista machine for the time being - I would pay extra to get an XP license if necessary, personally.