Can someone help me with laptop buying?

daviesee

Weejie54 wrote:

I also needed to have full MS office functionality, and the hassle of running two operating systems which is the Mac solution is just too much of a pain,

The solution is usually this:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/

or this

http://why.openoffice.org/

for free.

SteveR_100Milers

ah but do they allow for full function of Excel - I don't think they do. Therefore the only way to work it is to install windows for OS

Weejie54

ah but do they allow for full function of Excel - I don't think they do. Therefore the only way to work it is to install windows for OS

What particular function is not available?

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/excel

redddraggon

Weejie54 wrote:

ah but do they allow for full function of Excel - I don't think they do. Therefore the only way to work it is to install windows for OS

What particular function is not available?

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/excel

I believe Office "2011" is much improved over the previous version of office. I'm not sure it's got 100% of the functionality of the windows version though.

Weejie54

The first version of Excel was actually written for the Mac.

father_jack

Some integrated GPU's are lousy, ie my brothers Trident. It's so slow, when you type you can type faster than what appears on screen. I've installed the videocard drivers. It really is a POS, it can't even do opengl screensavers in Ubuntu either. It's a 2.4ghz P4, but because of the videocard, it behaves far slower than my Pentium 1.6ghz laptop I had yonks. When mate bought a Intel GMA tried games and pretty suprised at what it could do (for a budget laptop) could play latest games at that time, albeit at lower settings & resolution.

Oh video playback uses CPU. For 720p, a AMD X2 2.2ghz 4200 and 4400 is plenty, but they struggle with H264 1080p video.

As to 64bit, Windows 32bit will use upto 3.5GB total (system plus any dedicated video RAM), so ok you're losing 512MB of RAM that's not being used but tbh with 64bit it'll use 2x as much RAM in allocation, but since it has 4GB it has enough RAM. I'd avoid 64bit on a machine with. Intel GMA is fine for videos, so your daughter can watch Mandingo movies without a problem

proto

Daughter who know even less than me about laptops has declared that she doesn't want an ASUS as 'I just don't like the look of them'. :roll:

Maybe the Lenovo then :?

Suffolkwheels

Just a warning, there is (and has been for some time) a MAJOR nvidia fault in the market. Thousands upon thousands of laptops are failing due to this fault and consumers are having to battle with the retailer and or manufacturers in court to get refunds/compensation. I myself have an HP Pavillion with the fault and it has been driving me mental. The laptop has basically become a £500 doorstop.

I urge you to check whether your proposed laptop is affected by the issue. If it is, DO NOT BUY IT!!!!!!

Loads more info here: http://www.nvidiadefect.com/

The guy running this forum is a technical genius and knows everything there is to know about this fault. It might be worth asking him for his advice on what laptop you should buy in order to avoid this fault. Unfortunately it seems to be affecting various manufacturers including HP, Asus and Toshiba.

Also, avoid PC World like the plague. ebuyer is generally qiute cheap. As much as I hate to say it, Tescos also has some good deals from time to time.

SteveR_100Milers

Weejie54 wrote:

ah but do they allow for full function of Excel - I don't think they do. Therefore the only way to work it is to install windows for OS

What particular function is not available?

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/excel

I was told that some of the macro functions won't work. Office for Mac doesnt have great reputation either. In any case, this was just one of several reason for not getting a mac; I can use a PC and prefer to be able to dictate what and how I use it. W7 is always gpoing to work better with other windows software than OS X does, and to be honest the only advantage that a Mac had was the screen. There are several PCs that have equal or superior screens to a MB pro from what I have read and seen....

Weejie54

I was told that some of the macro functions won't work

The Visual Basic functions were removed for some versions, but the latest version has it restored.

I can use a PC and prefer to be able to dictate what and how I use it. W7 is always gpoing to work better with other windows software than OS X does, and to be honest the only advantage that a Mac had was the screen. There are several PCs that have equal or superior screens to a MB pro from what I have read and seen....

The Mac/PC debate will probably never stop. However, there are two distinct elements. Hardware and software. Because Mr Jobs continues to bind his operating systems to his own hardware, the two are also bound together in the debate. There is, in fact, very little difference between the hardware of Macs and PCs these days. Because of the exclusivity of the Mac operating system with Mac computers, there are fewer drivers written for components. As mentioned before, the OSX86 project has produced many patches to enable OSX to be run on PCs. Running Windows on an Intel based Mac is possible too.
I run both Macs and PCs (with Windows and Linux installed) and PCs with OSX86 installed. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. The computer that I tend to use for many tasks is an AMD dual core based machine running OSX Leopard.
It's hard to fault. Gives better results than Windows machines when it comes to the bulk of Adobe applications and some music programmes too. It is on a network with a few PCs (and an old OS 9 Mac) and it is quite surprising how well the various operating systems work with each other.

NervexProf

A few pence shy of £300 - limited offer.

Worth a look:

http://www.techdepot.co.uk/TD/product/C ... uot;Laptop

SteveR_100Milers

Weejie54 wrote:

I was told that some of the macro functions won't work

The Visual Basic functions were removed for some versions, but the latest version has it restored.

I can use a PC and prefer to be able to dictate what and how I use it. W7 is always gpoing to work better with other windows software than OS X does, and to be honest the only advantage that a Mac had was the screen. There are several PCs that have equal or superior screens to a MB pro from what I have read and seen....

The Mac/PC debate will probably never stop. However, there are two distinct elements. Hardware and software. Because Mr Jobs continues to bind his operating systems to his own hardware, the two are also bound together in the debate. There is, in fact, very little difference between the hardware of Macs and PCs these days. Because of the exclusivity of the Mac operating system with Mac computers, there are fewer drivers written for components. As mentioned before, the OSX86 project has produced many patches to enable OSX to be run on PCs. Running Windows on an Intel based Mac is possible too.
I run both Macs and PCs (with Windows and Linux installed) and PCs with OSX86 installed. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. The computer that I tend to use for many tasks is an AMD dual core based machine running OSX Leopard.
It's hard to fault. Gives better results than Windows machines when it comes to the bulk of Adobe applications and some music programmes too. It is on a network with a few PCs (and an old OS 9 Mac) and it is quite surprising how well the various operating systems work with each other.

I don't disagree, it was a very close decision in my case. However, as it turned out my hunch about the screen was right - it is better than the macbook pro now that I had it calibrated. It's also about 50% faster too - I did some back to back tests of time taken to process a dozen images in LR into TIFF and JPG at max quality - the Sony just breezes through them in a matter of a few seconds. I am sure though that I would have a much better sense of ownership "good feeling" with a mac.

proto

I ordered this last night, but an ex-display unit, so only paid £404.20
64 bit Windows 7, dedicated graphics chip, plus all the connectivity and ports you're ever likely to need.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/227402

Might be a bit light on RAM, but that's easily fixed. Reviews indicate it is well built, with very good performance.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/laptops/ ... eapad-z560

jc4lab

You probably dont need this feature if you are into multimedia,graphics etc but for me the essential feature is having a numeric keyboard for quick number input.nothing more frustrating than having to use the numbers on top of the querty keyboard for nunber crunching...

freehub

I find a QWERTY keyboard essential.