<p>it hogs system resources and stuff. the 1 billion microsoft spent on it? haha nah i wont acknowledge it as one. </p>
<p>i mean come on... playing halo 2 for pc on xp is 30% faster than on vista. progress should breed better performance!</p>
<p>I friendly advise on laptops.</p>
<p>Do not skimp on price.
Do not skimp on performance.
Do not skimp on weight.</p>
<p>XPS M1530 and XPS M1330 are the two best laptops outhere if you want lightweight and mobility without sacrificing power and performance.</p>
<p>I should have been checking back sooner.
Anyone compare Bootcamp to parallels? have an educator copy of Parallels, so can legally put it on up to 3 macs.</p>
<p>well from what i understand, parallels is program which allows you to use another OS while booted into OSX. Normally, such a program requires a decent amount of ram, and a fairly effective processor.</p>
<p>Bootcamp, on the other hand is essentially a dual boot system, allowing you to choose whether to boot into either OS (Windows or OSX is normally the options).</p>
<p>Bottom Line, if you want to be in OSX and Windows at the same time, use Parallels. If your only going to be in one at a time, use bootcamp.</p>
<p>Thanks Orpheus. Glad I chose parallels then.</p>
<p>I'm going to buy a Macbook Pro, more than likely. I don't like the Macbook. It's a little underpowered in the graphics department for my wants. Plus, I need some sort of Unix operating system, be it Linux, BSD, OS X, Solaris, or something else. It's just where I feel at home. I can't stand Windows and am not used to that style of computing anymore.</p>
<p>I use virtualization software to work on some Gentoo stuff, but I don't think it's a viable solution. If you're using OS X or another Unix operating system, then you may want to look at WINE or the commercial version of it called Crossover Office (or Crossover Games). WINE is a reverse engineered implementation of the Windows API and ABI layers on a Unix operating system. It started out on Linux, and it's fully open source. These days WINE is in beta stage, and it's stable. It runs many many applications without a hitch. Only WINE requires that you use the command line. There are some GUI frontends for it, but this is where Crossover Office comes in. Codeweaver (company developing CXOffice) take a version of WINE and add in their own tweaks and features. They then package their own elegant GUI frontend and sell it for $40 I believe. It is some of the most useful software I've seen, and it runs many many Windows applications on a Unix operating system without a hitch. Granted, sometimes the applications don't look aesthetically pleasing, but that's really a non-issue if you're looking for productivity without the pain of rebooting.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.winehq.org/%5B/url%5D">http://www.winehq.org/</a>
<a href="http://www.codeweavers.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.codeweavers.com/</a></p>
<p>Don't have to reboot using Parallels and the software is nearly all graphics. Special imaging software for a laser-based cell imaging machine in the lab.
The computer is an Intel iMac. Wish this one software package were mac-native, have another laser cell analyzer, the software packages I use for that one are all Mac-native.</p>
<p>i am a computer science major so ive had my fair share of getting the right stuff for my needs. i actually can triple boot using my hp (not xps) with vista, tiger and ubuntu. its really easy to do and recommend it to anyone needing a unix system.</p>
<p>Hmm right now I've got it down to the Lenovo Thinkpad X61, Sony Vaio SZ, and Dell XPS M1330...going to wait a little longer to see if better discounts come out.</p>
<p>FYI, all of the major laptop makers will be releasing new notebook lines in early June with Intel's new Montevino (Centrino 2 VPro) platform. So if you're looking for the latest technology and don't mind paying a little more, you might want to wait another month. </p>
<p>I know Lenovo in particular will be releasing several new lines, including a W series, X200, and refreshed T and R series. The new Thinkpad T series is supposed to be equipped with an LED backlit screen for better brightness/battery life and switchable ATI HD3600 graphics.</p>
<p>This is the 2nd time around for us on the laptop for college. Actually, ordered laptop today.
As we are to some degree limited financially, so the graduation present is a laptop. As the the kids did quite well with financial aid and scholarship money there was no holding back (at least to my financial standards). The nonexistant downside to giving as a graduation present is not being able to shop the college IT selections. In looking afterwards 2 years ago (at Penn's It shop) and at what is currently posted at JHU shop, I think I got a slightly better deal. I work IT and am very comfortable with the selections made as I did shop very, very hard both times.</p>
<p>This year's shopping went like this. I shopped IBM/Lenovo, HP, Dell, Toshiba. Apple and Sony though very nice products, I believe are overpriced and do not at all offer "good value".<br>
Lenovo recently cut way back on its actual Lenovo offerings, making the IBM the models to look at. The T61 models are a decent value and were the second choice this time (bought Lenovo 2 years ago).
Dell, though a value in their low end servers, do make it difficult (just like 2 years ago) to comparison shop. More difficult to pin down specs. Also, price seems to jump around a bit. If you like them and the price jumps up, wait a week and it will probably come back down.
Toshiba, the young gamers I work with, seem to favor them, but my price to feature benefit analysis couldn't get them above 3rd place as a student PC.
This year, it will be a HP 6710b (RM406UT). But not bought directly from HP. Put RM406UT into a pricegrabber.com search and you will find the exact same product from a reseller at a discounted price with free shipping and no sales tax (probably possible with other models and some mfr's). Now the HP come w/ wide screens which they didn't 2 years ago. Also, in conferring with my current student, other young people that travel, and the gamers, the 15 - 15.4 screen is good for those who use a laptop as their main computer though certainly subject to debate. The HP business class laptops (which this is one) comes standard with a 3 year warranty), the others all have one year standard. My students are not gamers, so the models selected have the shared graphics card rather than a discrete graphics card. It comes with Vista business downgraded to XP business which means it does have vista disks (actually the HP restore disks) but loaded with xp (I think, will know for sure at the end of the month). Also, purchased the Office 2007 (pro, academic) from viosoftware.com. Weird but you get a better price through pricegrabber.com than searching their own website. Will install AVG free antivirus software, unsure of what anti-spyware software will be used.
The company ordered through was a first time purchase so until the unit is received and opened (after graduation) I don't feel comfortable recommending them.</p>
<p>XPS M1330 are now cheaper than ever. I got it when it first came out. $3000 laptop, saved $1000 via discounts. $2000 for an extremely powerful, extremely lightweight and portable laptop.</p>
<p>The key to any laptop is weight. It is equally as important as sufficient specs. Laptops are essential because you have to carry it every from her to there and to class. Weight is crucial, you will find that out soon.</p>
<p>What would you guys say about this laptop here:</p>
<p>Gateway</a> Computers: Retail - Product Details for Gateway® ML6731</p>
<p>id say its a good entry level laptop. ram, HDD, OS, DVD and wireless are mostly all on par with todays standards. the processor, although dual core is under 2ghz which i dont see much today. the screen also is a standard aspect ratio (not widescreen) good res though. my biggest qualm against this, like phead mentioned, is that size is important. make sure that you are willing to tote this around. </p>
<p>for the price, its a great entry level laptop. check this review out on cnet. they usually make good recommendations. if i was buying a new laptop for college and having it for a while, id spent at least 200 more and get something a bit more powerful.</p>
<p>I know next to nothing about computers, so could someone tell me whether I should get a laptop with AMD Turion or Celeron processor? What's the difference between the two?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>My opinion is that Rule 1 of purchasing a computer of any sort is do not buy anything with either an Intel CELERON or an AMD SEMPRON. Both are designed to be used on the lowest cost, entry level computers. In very general terms they less than full processors. The chip will based on the full model but have certain features disabled (cache, math processing,etc -it varies by model). It is a good way for the chip mfg to use chips that don't pass quality control checks that would enable them to be full TURIONs or CORE DUOs.
AMDs generally sell at a bit of a discount to their processing capabilities due to market perceptions of inferiority. Both AMD and Intel have numerous chips that compete directly against each other at different price points.
The most currently available CORE DUOs would be T9300 (?), though the T8100 is more common and affordable, the minimum I would consider purchasing would be T2600 (an older model).
The AMDs TL-60 & TL-58 are the more common more recent chips in mainstream laptops. I do not know enough to venture what a suitable slightly older AMD would still be acceptable.</p>
<p>In response to OldOldMan's post:</p>
<p>I would not recommend the purchase of an AMD Turion/Turion X2 equipped laptop UNLESS price is an extremely major concern. At the same clock speeds, Turion X2 CPUs perform much worse than equivalent Core 2 Duo CPUs AND get worse battery life. This is because the Turion X2 is built on the aging AMD K8 architecture (which dates back to ~2003), while the Core 2 Duo uses Intel's new Merom/Penryn Core architecture with smaller wafer sizes, much larger integrated L2 caches, and more efficient execution pipelines. Even if price is a concern, I would recommend purchasing a laptop that uses Intel's Pentium Dual Core processor, since the Pentium DC has all the benefits of the Core 2 Duo architecture with a smaller L2 cache to reduce costs (Despite the Pentium name, the Pentium DC actually has little in common with the inefficient, power hungry Pentium 4 series of processors). </p>
<p>The Turion X2s literally get slaughtered in every single benchmark against the Core 2 Duos:
Benchmark</a> Results - Tom's Hardware : Dual Core Notebook CPUs Explored</p>
<p>The perception of AMD chips being inferior was completely untrue during the Pentium 4 era (AMD's CPUs were more efficient and faster during that time), but now that very perception actually holds a great deal of truth. AMD can't compete with Intel in any area except price; on the desktop side, even their high-end Athlon/Phenom chips are greatly outperformed by the cheapest Core 2 Duo/Core 2 Quads, and on the mobile side their aging Turion/Sempron chips cannot keep up with Intel's Core 2 Duos. I built my own desktop around an AMD Athlon X2 3 years ago. Back then, it was a pretty high end system...now the X2 processor in it is outperformed by even entry-level Dells with Core 2 Duo processors.</p>
<p>Regarding which Core 2 Duo to pick:
The T9300 is actually one of the higher-end Core 2 Duos and is not available in most budget to midrange systems except as an upgrade. It's not worth the price premium over a T8100 or T8400 (the one I would currently recommend for its high clock speed and decent cache), since it often costs $150 more as an upgrade and only provides a 5-10% performance boost over a T8300. Getting additional memory, discrete graphics unit, bigger battery, or a larger/faster hard drive would all be more worthwhile upgrades than getting a T9300 over a T8100/8300.</p>
<p>The T9xxx and T8xxx Core 2 Duos are based on Intel's new 45nm Penryn architecture, which is more efficient and gets slightly better battery life than the older T7xxx and T5xxx (which use the 65nm Merom core). I would not recommend getting a T2600 or the like, since those are the original (Yohah core) Core Duos that are already beginning to become outdated.</p>
<p>Hope that clears some things up for those currently shopping for a laptop...</p>
<p>Interesting...</p>
<p>Would you suggest waiting for the Centrino 2 chipsets this summer? Or would the Core 2 Duos be almost the same?</p>
<p>Centrino 2 comes out in early June from all of the major makers, and the new Montevina chipset that accompanies the platform adds several minor performance tweaks and features (for example, WIMAX support, DDR3 support, SSE4.1 support, and faster FSB speeds). The updated Penryn processors will get a speed boost as well, ranging from 2.26 to 3.06 GHz, and will consume less power in the process (29w TDP vs 34w TDP of current generation Penryn).</p>
<p>What this means in overall terms is that laptops using the Centrino 2 platform will perform 5-10% better and get about 5-10% better battery life than similar Santa-Rosa (the current Centrino platform) laptops. Whether this additional performance and battery life is worth the price difference is up to you. If you want the latest and greatest, then go for Montevina. If price is a concern, you can save money by getting a slightly older Santa Rosa laptop. If the latter is the case, I would suggest that you wait until after Centrino 2 is released to buy because the current models will become outdated and command very low prices at the outlet stores of each manufacturer (even though they don't perform much worse).</p>
<p>I'm one of the few insane students who personally built a massive PC just for the sake of college. My doctrine is that laptops will never be as powerful as desktops, especially for price, and I'd be better off investing in building a high end pc and a very cheap laptop, the laptop only for being able to work mobilly, the desktop for anything else.</p>
<p>As per the proc discussion, time to get technical.</p>
<p>I would actually support celeron for being perfect, but only in a very slim area, namely, fileservers and hosting main/sub hubs. Otherwise, Intell makes wonderful core2duos. I would never really support a quad, especially in a laptop, merely due to the fact that very few applications will actually use one, and if yours do, you probably know it already and know to ignore what I'm saying here.</p>
<p>If you're looking into laptops, my advice would be the EEEpc.</p>
<p>I can't say enough things about that machine, it is, in my eyes, beautiful. If you have any more specific questions, I'll try and answer them as best I can, computer building is something I've done as a hobby for quite a bit now.</p>
<p>Oh, and the OS debate... -sigh- My new box runs gentoo and XP, both 64 bit, but my secondary box is a pure mac machine. I wouldn't reccomend Wine to anyone who wants to do anything like gaming, or especially hardware reliant applications, it's... awkward, and oftentimes innefectual. I would however reccomend to NEVER go vista, and if you're looking into linux, Kubuntu is a good starting point. Other than that, it's basically your choice, you can always partition your drive after the fact to install another OS, linux and mac both play very nicely with windows but sadly not the other way around.</p>