laptop Help - At wits end

soulfood

You don't need to! Neither with Apple for which, there's a special Mac MS office suite nor with Linux for which you can find plenty Office applications [complete with a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation and everything else] that work just like, and are compatible with MS office.

Sure. Yahoo Smartsort is a terrific tool. I recommend it to anyone who's interested in buying digital products but is confused about how to juggle gains and compromises in the purchase when there are so many choices and features to consider.

mountaingirl

I spent 3 whole days in Nehru place looking for secondhand ones and had found a quite nice secondhand one. But looking at all the additional expenses etc - i thought, 'Why am I trying to save a few thousand rupees'? I prefer to have a waranty onstead. SO I bought a new one from my computer guy. If you want his number - PM me. He can guide you. I bought it in Delhi and believe me - the price difference isn't that great.

Unless, you are definitely going abroad soon or have someone who will DEFINITELY BRING one for you - buy it in India yourself after seeing the machine and discussing with the sales people about your needs. Remember you will get a guarantee for India - for just in case cases.

soulfood

Mountaingirl, here's a link for you too for new and used computers/laptops in Nehru Place. It isn't a very well designed site but there are plenty of things you can do with it.

mira4bai4

kaushiks 7) I don't play games and don't want a great graphics card.
It used to relate that way but these days one needs a good graphics card just to ensure compatibility, some programmes now are only designed to work with a certain standard of graphics card some don't think games just screen functionality.

mountaingirl MS Office 2004 is great on Mac, Entourage is a really good management programme, not quite the same as MS Outlook but different and better and not so. That is the nature of version comparisons, sometimes Mac OS programmes are tops and the MS OS is not so good, then the reverse it the case, most frustrating if one jumps from one OS to another.

I have a computer engineer friend that is full on, 4 screens running 2 different operating systems and drags files etc from one screen to the next through different OS in the space of seconds, multi tasks like you would not believe. So hated MS with a vengeance after some 20 years of trouble shooting systems round the world, Sun, Unix and whatever. Anyway found after 2 years of concentrated effort that he could not get his contact management just the way he wanted it with Mac so he had to xfer everything to MS and happy as a chook until it all crashed and had to rebuild everything. He then remembered why he switched to Mac OS. Not more multi multi tasking for him, one step at a time. I reckon GOD loves an Apple so fine, ah so fine. Anyway graphics and music are tops on Mac and average office stuff also excellent if ACT and TheBrain were available for Mac OS then there would be no reason to use a MS OS at all.

I have a friend in North India that is a Mac Authorised seller tech etc, he might have a good price if you are a friend of mine. By the way I have 256 Ram for G4 iMac or G4 PowerBook going cheap, but you will have to come and get it heh heh

kaushiks

Mira, If you come to India with in the next one month. I will give you a place to stay, plan your travel and buy your laptop, all for real cheap .

AllanM

I'm using a HP zd8080 and it fits all of your requirements except one, battery life(1 1/2 hour). It has 1 gig of ram and a 3.6 ghz p4 processor. It's been really reliable for the past two months and has taken a pretty big hit(fell off a table)and still works fine. HP has really come a long way with quality.

Here's a review from cnet.

http://reviews.cnet.com/HP_Pavilion_...2.html?tag=top

__________________
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soulfood

They make laptops like that?? That's a Super Laptop. But wait, it also has a neat price tag. At $2,549, this beast is only $1,049 outside Kaushik's budget.

AllanM

Oops, didn't see the budget requirement , sorry. It's a heck of an upgrade from my ancient p1 CTX easybook though!

kaushiks

Allan, I have been thinking of such monsters myself,though not as expensive.
How difficult is it to carry them around. Lets say, I am a freelancer. Travelling and working with my laptop. Do you think,this kind of a machine makes sense?.

What is the max weight I should put up with. I have decided on around 7 to 8 pounds.
Is that stretching it?.

soulfood

It's a great option if you work from one location most of the time [close to the power point, I mean]. With that battery life and weight [12 pounds?], it's hardly a mobile machine. Unless you also carry one of those solar chargers with it, adding even more weight.

soulfood

Of course it doesn't. It's a totally wrong machine if you intend to travel with it. What would you do with one and a half hours of power. Continuously searching for power points for a laptop doesn't serve its purpose, does it?

That's why these configurations are so rare in laptops. Manufacturers have stopped making more and more powerful machines because they've hit a ceiling in how much power consumption they can support because of the enormous heat that faster proccessor generate. Apple isn't coming out with a G5 notebook for the same reason.

This trend isn't limited to laptops either. They're now even saying that the Moore's law is slowing down.

AllanM

Kaushiks,

I pack the zd8080 everyday. At first it felt really heavy, now I am used to it. I was concerned about the weight too, but now I feel that I made the correct decision for me. I can almost always find a place to plug in, so the power issue isn't that big of a concern for me. I've never carried a notebook in India, so I don't know how the power point issues are there. The zd8000 series can be configured for under $1300 on the HP website and it still smokes the notebooks that are weight conscious.

I guess the bottom line is how much does 4 lbs matter when compared to the additional capabilities and how easily one can access power points.

Allan

mira4bai4

Oh how I just luuuuv my 12" PB, so light bewty. The screen was interesting at first but now its easy, a few weeks back I travelled to NZ to do a book edit for my Mum, simple, PhotoShop for the graphics was easy to, ok the space is different but enlarging and scrolling takes care of it all and I would have to say that there has been no frustration and excellent over 4 hours battery life. Previously I had an Acer 10.5 Tablet, oh what a load of crap. Mind you I work between the 17" iMac at home and the PB but I am surprised how much time I spend on the 12" even though I could use the 17".

To be really serious, I am impressed as I needed to be set up really well for the future business in India. So the 12" is excellent, but better still is that I found this AUD $50 briefcase styled bag that will hold the 12", beside that my digital camera and a batteries etc., in another section, I put my iBreeze and I can carry a Centrix C1800 DVD player which is the smallest an most compact player that I have seen and for A$99 was great. I have this so it is easy to plug straight into any TV and do a presentation without fiddling with the 12". I can also carry a portable scanner, or HD, discs and cables plus all of my papers and docos; so it is really excellent. I have to carry my Apple Pro speakers separate though but they fit into this neat camera bag so that is easy and man can I rock with that set up.

The new Mac Mini is a real interesting option. With Pentium coming up with the new processors we may see laptops with more power soon though it all depends on the cooling and maybe an iBreeze might become standard issue. I like it anyway as it gives the good angle for working.

edwardseco

The display is so critical. My wife's Fuji lept out at us so she took the plunge on that. Check it out in person for the qualities of viewing and the handling of the pointers (yeh, I snuck in a mouse)..

soulfood

4.9 pounds, to be precise.