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Tom,

If you can find a good deal on a used one that is your best bet. I would stay away from Acer. IBM (Lenovo) Thinkpads and Sony are known for excellent laptops but you pay a premium for these. I have a lot of experience with the Dell laptops and their quality is also excellent. Really the only cheap part it the battery. Toshiba also has very good laptops and are usually a little cheaper.



Intel Core 2 Duo processors are the best but you can go with an AMD to save money and if you are not worried about playing games or graphic intensive applications. Get something with 2GB of memory and a dedicated graphics card if possible. Take a look online and if you find something you are interested in let me know and I will tell you what I think.



George
 
I don't see any evidence for mac resiliency, versatility, compatibility, or customer service from apple.



There's no empirical evidence, and apple doesn't even claim that there is. A mac is a niche product...it just has a very large niche, a niche I personally am glad to be out of.
 
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Caymen, I have a pretty well unused Dell XPS M1710 I am looking to sell. I paid $4000 for it a couple years ago, but is in perfect condition with extra charger, etc..



If you'd like some more details let me know. Its ready to go.



EDIT: I didn't see the price you were looking at spending. I'd probably need close to 2-3x that for the one I have.







 
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kevin, you are a jerk,
**I have never seen anyone besides liberal arts fruits, and fruits without the arts using laptops produced by mac. Their marketing scheme works, but if you aren't in that niche, it is vastly inferior to a pc. Clay, I take it you are in that niche.
Click to expand...
.

but i am definitly not lame enough nor stupid enough to get upset over computer talk with the internet nerds. my mac runs every bit of windows software that i own, and since i and my family has about 7 more computers among us and they are mostly pc's that is a good bit of software. and if osx is so awful then you better better not be using vista. if you are then you are a hypocrite completely. Vista is an obvious cheap knock off of osx, the resemblance is ridiculous only vista didnt quite get it right even with a model to steal all of its ideas from. and my mac is pretty damn resiliant. it fell from the bed of my trac to the asphalt and still works fine, has a litte dent in it but oh well. at least its not gigantic like most pc lap tops and a mag light fell from about 4feet above it once and landed right on the keyboard and its still going strong



i thinks its pretty pitiful how you attack people on this website, you must have pretty low self esteem, or think you the greatest or something.

Wait, wait, wait....you sold something that goes for almost 120 US dollars for 30 bucks?!



...and the forum cheapskate bought it before I knew about it?



120 bucks for a digital caliper...it had better not say Hecho en Chine or it's anglican equivalent on it!
Click to expand...

what gives you the gall to call dingo a cheapskate for not wasting money
 
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i have had great success with pc's but ive had less trouble with my mac. i agree with what caymen said, a mac doesnt work for him then he shouldnt get one. its all about what fits your needs. but just because you feel one way doesnt mean you need prove everyone elses way to be wrong. i am hard on computers as far as i like to do more things on them at one time than they want to do, with my pc's i always bogged them down and ended up freezing them, im not patient with computers at all. since i got my mac though, i havent had that problem, because it doesnt run off of a registry i can have as many things open at one time as i want and it doesnt slow it down, good luck with you new computer cayman, pc or mac as long as you do your research im sure you will get what you need



and one more thing kevin, my niche is not liberal arts fags, or what every you are referring too, we all may not be as manly as you sir, but i am a fairly conservative Mechanical engineer major at one of the least liberal schools in the state. My school is the number one Engineering school around here(we design your pc's) and over half our computers are Macs, and the head of the engineering department has three mac laptops. open you mind a little bit bud. Stereotypes are for bigots and rednecks
 
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Clay, don't sweat that comment. The ignorance contained in it is unbelievable. I guess I'm in the "big law attorney fruit" class. :rolleyes:



Tom, I've also had a Dell Inspiron 6000D for about three years now. The wireless card and harddisk failed within the first year, and the DVD/RW drive just recently. However, each time Dell overnighted a replacement part (I opted for the four-year warranty + accidental damage). I was lucky with the HD in that I could tell it was going to die (small errors here and there, so I burned all critical items to a DVD) and did not have to go through much when swapping the new one in. But, I also think I'm an exception in that I dragged the Dell in my bookbag to class, threw it in the back of the Trac, etc. It really was a "beater" laptop and had taken a lot of abuse.
 
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haha well dang, now he went through and deleted all the parts of his post where he said ignorant a$$hole things and now im gonna look like a jerk to anyone who reads this. oh well:rolleyes:

back to the point of this thread, my roommate has an XPS like what XST was talking about, its a great computer, so many usb plugs and an awesome graphics card but unless your a gamer Cayman, i wouldnt waste the money, they aint cheap
 
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Clay, I edited out everything before your post was seen by me because I didn't want to drag myself into some asinine debate that I really don't care about.



Everything you hate on pcs for is a crime of windows, not the pc hardware. PC + linux = superior mac, since we all know mac is just unix with a candy coated shell.



Stereotypes prevail over time because they are true. The mac has a trademark liberal arts image.



I see the commercials, I see the ads...and I see all the fruity people around my area who consider themselves "avante-garde" carrying a mac and making statements about how it represents them.



I came to a logical conclusion, and as arrogant as I am, the fruity coalition of people I encounter with macs far surpasses my arrogance, as they claim that their differences from the "mainstream" (cough) make them superior, and their mac is the symbol of their superiority. In jest and in all seriousness they proclaim that, and either way I find it irritating. The mac debate thing of yours drew me out, and I fell into the trap. :(





On topic, I have abused a dell inspiron 1300 and an old dell P3 600, as well as other dells from the early 90s, and they all work superbly to this day. My gateway/compaq/sony laptops have all died on me.



(**the asians design pcs, along with everything else)

 
i didnt hate on pc's i said that i myself own seven pc's and just this one mac. kevin you have a twisted view of reality, to think you can judge a person by the type of computer they own is incredibly shallow and just pitiful. Cayman, i really apologize that i let someones arrogance get to me over this and we ruined your thread i hope you were/are still able to get what you need out of it.
 
Very little risk to trying Macs any more. If you don't like the OS you just format and install windows XP. Meanwhile you get the fun of trying a new OS and having the sexy hardware (Macbook air!) You won't have much luck finding a Mac at your $600 price point anyways, so no point arguing about it.



For $600 the best laptop I can think of is the Asus EEEPC. Small, light, portable, solid state memory (no spinning hard drive to break) and fits in your budget. Pair it with an external monitor, keyboard and mouse and you've got a nice Linux (or XP if that's your preference) machine.



Only other advice is to avoid Vista. Microsoft really pulled a turkey with that one.



 
Cayman, i really apologize that i let someones arrogance get to me over this and we ruined your thread i hope you were/are still able to get what you need out of it.
Click to expand...



Cayman...who is this Cayman guy? ;)



Seriously, wen't shopping today.



Went to BJ's Wholesale club. Seen a really nice Gateway MX8734. They want $560.00 for it.



Specs...

<hr>

MX8734 Notebook Specifications

Part Number: 1014366RGateway MX8734 Notebook





Feature Description

Processor Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core Mobile processor T2060

1 MB L2 cache | 1.60 GHz | 533 MHz FSB

Chipset Intel® 943GML

Screen 17.1-inch Ultrabright™ WXGA TFT (1440 × 900)

Memory 1024 MB 533 MHz DDR2 Dual Channel memory (2 × 512)

Maximum supported memory: 2 GB

Total slots: 2 DDR2 slots | Available slots: 0 DDR2 slots

Video Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950

Up to 224 MB shared video memory

Audio High definition 2-channel audio

Hard drive 160-GB 5400 RPM SATA hard drive

Optical drive DVD+/-RW Multi-format double layer

Write maximum: 8X DVD+/-R, 6X DVD-RW, 8X DVD+RW, 2X DVD-R DL, 2.4X DVD+R DL, 5x DVD-RAM, 24X CD-R and 16X CD-RW discs

Read maximum: 24X CD-R/RW/ROM, 8X DVD-R/RW/ROM, 4X DVD+/-R DL, RAM, discs



Media Reader 4-in-1 Digital Media Manager

Secure Digital® (SD), Memory Stick™, Memory Stick-Pro™, and Multimedia Card® (MMC)

Modem 56K ITU V.92 ready fax/modem (RJ-11 port)

Network 10/100 Ethernet LAN

Wireless LAN 802.11g



Interfaces 4 - USB 2.0 ports

1 - VGA external connector

1 - S-Video external connector

1 - IEEE 1394 port

1 - RJ11 (modem)

1 - RJ45 (Ethernet LAN)

1 - Microphone In

1 - Headphone / Audio Out

1 - Kensington lock slot

1 - AC adapter connector



Pointing Device Touchpad with vertical scroll zone

PCMCIA 1 - Type I or Type II; Card Bus

Battery 6-Cell 2400 mAh Lithium Ion

Dimensions 1.24 to 1.42-inches (H) × 16.06-inches (W) × 10.89-inches (D)

Weight 7.37 pounds

<hr>



It is very heavy, I know this. I do not do any business travel anymore, so size/weight is no longer an issue. I did 9 years worth of business travel and needed a PC (thought the Jerks were too cheap to supply me one so I supplied my own and would charge them for using it if they had a need for me to have one) many times. Since I have a new job, I no longer travel. Any vacations I take, that will not be a bother.



Anyther one we like is the Toshiba A215-S5837. Nice machine.



Specs...



<hr>

A215-S5837 : Detailed Product Specs

Operating System

Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium (32-bit)



Processor

AMD Turionâ„¢ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-60



Processor Type

AMD Turionâ„¢ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology



Processor Number

TL-60



Processor Speed

2.0GHz



Front Side Bus

HyperTransportâ„¢ Technology @ up to 800MHz



Memory Size

2048MB



Memory Speed

PC5300 DDR2 667MHz SDRAM



Display Size

15.4" widescreen



Display Type

WXGA with TruBrite® Technology



Display Resolution

1280x800, Supports 720p content



Graphics Engine

ATI® Radeon™ X1200



Graphics Memory

128MB-319MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory



Hard Drive Size

160GB



Hard Drive Speed

5400rpm



Optical Drives

DVD-SuperMulti drive (+/-R double layer) supporting up to 11 fomats



Wireless LAN

Atheros® Wireless LAN (802.11b/g)

Bluetooth

No Bluetooth (No Antenna)



Input Devices

TouchPad pointing device, 86 key US keyboard



Modem

Modem



LAN

10/100 Ethernet LAN



Audio

Standard stereo speakers, Headphone jack (stereo), Microphone jack (mono)



AC Adapter

75W (19V 3.95A) Auto-sensing, 100-240V / 50-60Hz
 
those specs look pretty good for a computer that cost $560. 4 USB ports will be very useful, at least to me. I paid 5 times that for my computer and it has two, you would think for that much dough this thing could fly, and have more than two usb ports. i bought one of those hub things that gives me four more, but take up one of my other ones so really only gave me three more
 
Caymen, might I suggest something like this, with Vista wiped and replaced your own copy of XP SP2...
Click to expand...



Some members have said Acer leaves alot to be desired. On a different note, you can buy something localy better for only about $50.00 more. More HDD space, more memory, etc.





Tom
 
Tom,

If the choice is between the 2 you listed I would get the Toshiba. The Gateway's processor is too slow to effectively run Vista and it has the integrated graphics. The Toshiba is faster and has a dedicated video card, more (and faster memory) and a better size screen.



One more thing. I believe you work for the government and Dell gives EPP (employee purchase programs) which can save quite a bit of money. Have you checked into this yet?



George
 
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Installing XP is not out of the question with any machine I get.



My old machine was only a 2.4 GHz P4.





Tom
 

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