<p>samwise, read the sentence right above the one you are quoting.</p>
<p>There are many major brands with terrible support too.
Dell just replaced my touchpad and sent me back the laptop with a broken left mouse button.</p>
<p>However, fair enough, one should stay away from most unknown brands.
But just because the companies don't manufacture their own major parts doesn't mean that they don't choose the quality of the parts. Plus, I had trouble with the small things on my Dell (headphone jack broke, for example, and I spent an hour on the phone convincing the tech that it was in fact covered by the warranty, and it wasn't wear and tear).</p>
<p>I think I'm going to stick with the WAAAYYY overpriced 3k IBM my school forced me to buy until a better tablet comes out...or more like, I like the little rubber mouse things in the middle of the keyboard much better than the newer touchpad mouse thingys...my laptop contains both and I fear that that's a dying breed. It's really sad. SAVE THE RUBBER MOUSE THINGS!
Okay, I'm off to buy school supplies now.</p>
<p>Dells are cheap - Macbooks are BEAUTIFUL!!!! Seriously, they are such nice computers.</p>
<p>Oh, and is a tablet really nice to have? - I don't really get the whole concept of why being able to write on your computer screen when you can just type - especially when typing is so much faster.</p>
<p>I didn't think so either until I tried to the Toshiba one...okay, it's kind of a luxury item, but...yeah, I like taking notes over typed notes from reading, it can recognize your handwriting and math symbols, and it's much easier to highlight things and draw diagrams while you're typing...
Okay, it's a luxury item. But it's cool. And not that expensive anymore. It feels just like writing, so I guess it would save a lot of space, too. Plus, it's very easily converted into a small TV.</p>
<p>Off to Walmart I go...unfortunately, the rest of my family isn't as enthused about back-to-school shopping as me...</p>
<p>My Dell e1705 was dirt cheap and it's fully loaded.</p>
<p>I love my MacBook Pro. I honestly hate my Dell laptop. It's thick, heavy, (but fully loaded) and has constant problems. I just love the portability of a laptop instead of being confined to a chair and desk all of the time. Relaxation on my futon with the laptop has helped me finish a lot more work without being so aggrevated.</p>
<p>this might be a biased crowd, but what's better--mac or pc?</p>
<p>I'd say whatever you're more used to. It's be a pain to have to get used to a new system when all you're really trying to do is get work done.</p>
<p>I tried a mac for one summer and sold it. I didn't get why people like it so much. Sure, it's probably easier to use if you've never used either, but most people are already used to using windows. And it might have a pretty interface, but that's made up for on the windows side by much, much more software. I think people feel they're supposed to like it more or something. It's kind of like people who start using linux for no reason. Mac hardware used to be really overpriced too, although it's gotten better lately after they switched to intel processors. Their displays are still way overpriced and not very good either.</p>
<p>Oh, and beware of the whole laptop on the lap thing.</p>
<p>I picked up an Apple Macbook Pro recently and haven't looked back since. I get the pretty interface along with the UNIX-y goodness that is OS X - all the standard GNU utils like cron and wget, Xcode, the free compilers, you get the idea. I can run Windows if I want to. I realize that most people don't care about and don't need the things that I just listed, but it's all dependent upon your needs and your budget. For me, it was worth the price premium - a POSIX-compliant machine with no hardware or driver difficulties.</p>
<p>And the backlit keyboard just looks cool.</p>
<p>Laptop on lap thing? Is that laptop radiation causes infertility thing true? (Hopefully not?)</p>
<p>^ For guys.</p>
<p>Oh. I always thought it was for girls. Anyways, the statistics of infertility are frightening.</p>
<p>Wow, a new application for laptops - male birth control.</p>
<p>And a new debate for the Vatican.</p>