New laptop

Hey, I have a laptop now and it is a Compaq Presario CQ61

I have installed the stuff I needed on it!

I have installed WoW on it and other stuff!

It boasts a 160GB Hard drive and 1GB of RAM. It also has powerful speakers and a webcam!

Do any of you have a laptop?

No I don't wish I did...most likely getting one when I leave for collage
(after senoir year I take two years at a very cheep collage and that'l save about 30,000 or so for my aiming at UCLA)

I need to get one before University in late September, I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to afford it, but it's a must.

TheStratMan said:
I need to get one before University in late September, I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to afford it, but it's a must.

It's probably not a must. I didn't bother with a laptop in my first year, and I did great.

TheStratMan said:
I need to get one before University in late September, I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to afford it, but it's a must.

Score for you Angus, I'm from what is considered a disadvantaged area and I didn't get a thing!

I want a laptop before uni...I'm doing computing so I think it would come quite in handy...
don't have the money though

I got a Dell Inspiron 1525 with 4 GB of RAM, a 2GHz processor, Vista, 250 GB of Hard Drive space, Intel's "Chipset Family"(meaning "meh" graphics), built-in Webcam and microphone, and a pretty schweet sound card.

That's close to what it looks like. Imagine it with a black top and webcam with microphone holes right above the screen.

CRUCIS Fatal+Fake works perfectly on it.

Show Spoiler

saunderscowie said:
Sounds like an impressive piece of equipment!

Lol a mac.

Angus said:

TheStratMan said:
I need to get one before University in late September, I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to afford it, but it's a must.

I'll probably get one off my university for free 'cause I'm from a "disadvantaged area".

Cunt, your getting a free laptop and I can't even get a grant fuck sake....... People in the middle of the road never get a cent.

Simon_ said:
I want a laptop before uni...I'm doing computing so I think it would come quite in handy...
don't have the money though

Get a laptop, the best thing I ever did in my first year of college (excluding passing my exams).

In my 2 years of University so far, i have spent more time pissing about on the Internet or playing games on my laptop in lectures than actually listening to the lectures.

4GB RAM, 250 GB HDD, 2.4Ghz Processor, Windows Vista (will soon be 7), 256mb dedicated graphics.

Birdo Is A Tranny said:

Lol a mac.

And?

As far as I can tell, Saunderscowie is going for a video/film related course, and the software for that is far superior on a Mac than a PC (Final Cut and DVD studio are far better than anything similar on a PC). Also, they are standard in the film industry.

( Edited 25.08.2009 01:23 by Lrrr )

Lrrr said:
In my 2 years of University so far, i have spent more time pissing about on the Internet or playing games on my laptop in lectures than actually listening to the lectures.

Birdo Is A Tranny said:

Lol a mac.

And?

As far as I can tell, Saunderscowie is going for a video/film related course, and the software for that is far superior on a Mac than a PC (Final Cut and DVD studio are far better than anything similar on a PC). Also, they are standard in the film industry.

Joke. My course is very video/film orientated, but personally I prefere doing my work on a PC rather than a Mac.

Women's breasts > All operating systems and their associated software.

Don't worry I will be bootcamping Windows 7 on it

Hmm. My birthday just over a week away, I'm thinking now is the best time to sucker my parents into paying for a large chunk of a decent laptop. I may make another thread about this, but does anyone know of some good deals? I'll probably have about £450 to play with.

I'd just like something that's very snappy, has wireless, a large hardrive, is portable with very good battery life and capable of dealing with HD stuff smoothly. Safely return dog and I give you stars.

This one seems alright. Basically the same, but no Blu-ray, 2.1Ghz processor, and is £400. Pretty good deal, if you ask me.

However, like I said, you won\'t need it. I\'m not even going to bother with a laptop in my second year. All the notes from lectures and stuff gets uploaded to my university\'s web page for enrolled students, anyway. You\'re better off listening and taking part rather than sitting in lectures typing everything down in short-hand.

Are you living away from home? Can you not just take your desktop PC with you? If you already have a good desktop PC, and can use it whenever you want, then a laptop is not needed. Besides, a laptop is either going to be pretty under-powered for much beyond general use, or is going to be fairly powerful, at the cost of a pathetic battery life.

I know everyone thinks before going uni that everyone is going to have a laptop, but they don\'t, trust me.

( Edited 25.08.2009 22:32 by Martin_ )

Those both seem like very good deals. I'll look into those a bit more tomorrow. I didn't know Tescos did laptops!

Anyway, while I agree with you generally on the laptop/uni thing Martin, I'd say I'm going to be needing one. I'm doing Creative Writing, so things would be pretty difficult and dis-organized without one. I'd like to be able to do work where-ever rather than being confined to my room for serious work, there's that and also I don't fancy my PCs chances on a four train journey every couple months.

Also need a computer for downloading my general programs. I'll be damned if I have to pay for a TV liscence.

I've got an Advent 5302, which has
a 15.4" widescreen,
Intel Core 2 Duo 1.83GHz processor,
250GB HDD,
2GB RAM.
Crappy graphics chip with 128MB of memory running at 250MHz.

Yeah, I'm just saying. It'd be a shame to spend all that dosh on a lappy to then not really use it. The bad thing about the lappys you're looking at is that they have fairly small battery lives (three hours). So your laptop will be confined to your room plugged into the wall a lot of the time, anyway. True say about the train journey, though. I used to just leave my PC at my place at uni whenever I came home.

saunderscowie said:
Sounds like an impressive piece of equipment!

Birdo Is A Tranny said:

Cunt, your getting a free laptop and I can't even get a grant fuck sake....... People in the middle of the road never get a cent.

Firstly, its not certain if I am eligible but what is wrong with the scheme? I think its great. People who cannot afford a laptop will receive one. If you can afford one why should you get one? Why should the education of the less well off be hindered just because of their financial situation? It's all about trying to level the playing field. You don't get a cent because you have the cents.

I've used all three OS' (Windows, OSX, Linux) quite a lot. They all have their share of perks and downfalls.

Firstly, its not certain if I am eligible but what is wrong with the scheme? I think its great. People who cannot afford a laptop will receive one. If you can afford one why should you get one? Why should the education of the less well off be hindered just because of their financial situation? It's all about trying to level the playing field. You don't get a cent because you have the cents.

At the time I couldn't afford a laptop but my godfather gave me 500 euros for going to college and I begged my younger brother to give me a loan of money. Only then was I able to afford a laptop, there's a huge difference between being able to afford a laptop and "not being able to afford a laptop".

Also your education will not be hindered just because you can't afford a laptop but my education might because I might not be eligible for a grant. The grant system is so silly, people who get the full grant just fill the form up with lies, I've seen it happen people are just making a mockery of the system. Level the playing field? Oh ya getting a laptop will make me study harder and better just like all the other people who have a laptop. No it won't, if anything a laptop makes you lazier. There should be more money invesested in tutors, grinds and counseling for all students instead of schemes for laptops for poor kids, just because people are 'rich' doesn't mean they are going to sail through third level education.

What do you guys think of this Sony Viao?

Apologies Firefly for hi-jacking your thread.

Martin_ said:
Yeah, I\'m just saying. It\'d be a shame to spend all that dosh on a lappy to then not really use it. The bad thing about the lappys you\'re looking at is that they have fairly small battery lives (three hours). So your laptop will be confined to your room plugged into the wall a lot of the time, anyway. True say about the train journey, though. I used to just leave my PC at my place at uni whenever I came home.

Yeah the battery life is really annoying me. But it just doesn\'t seem life I can afford something more substantial. Even laptops over a grand don\'t seem to fare much better. But if there was something in my price range, or even a couple hundred over, that could do a solid six hours or more - I\'d jump at it.

( Edited 27.08.2009 15:10 by TheStratMan )

I think I've decided to go over my budget for something we a decent battery life. This Ascer Timeline manages an average 8 hours which is pretty impressive. It may not have best processor, but it has lots of ram and decent sized hard drive. Looks like the one for me. I reckon anyway.

Yeah unfortunately, manufacturers are still using really ancient battery technology. If you get a powerful laptop, it will have a short battery life. My mate at uni has this really fucking hench laptop that he reckons he can play Crysis on, but the battery life is only about an hour or so.

If you want something that doesn\'t need charging every couple of hours and that you can actually take places with you, then you\'re going to have to settle for lower specs. Things that really eat battery power are CPU and GPU. I advise getting a lappy that has no dedicated GPU, but instead has onboard motherboard graphics. You can still have plenty of memory and stuff, though.

That Acer Timeline does seem to fit the bill perfectly. I would be very careful about what anti-virus software I used on it, though. Anti-virus software slows your computer down, and the CPU on that isn\'t very fast to begin with. Unless you\'re going to be gaming etc (which I doubt you\'ll be doing much of on that lappy), and you just want it for general use (word processing, web surfing, music listening, etc), I would at least consider Linux over Windows. It will maximise the speed and stability of that laptop massively. You also won\'t ever need any anti-virus software.

Edit: Did you notice that the Acer Timeline has no optical drive of any kind? So you won\'t be using any CDs or DVDs on it.

( Edited 28.08.2009 03:51 by Martin_ )

I looked into the Dell Studio 15, but the battery life isn't great - and people seem to run into huge problems with it, often before even a year has passed.

I've decided to go with an Acer. Only problem is there are two models. The 3810TG has a ATI Mobility Radeon HD graphics card, while the slightly cheaper 3810T instead has a Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD 64MB.

Which one should I go with? Would one be better for battery life? Or is there just an obvious choice here?