Its time to buy a new computer. Bonus gets paid tomorrow, my last laptop was purchased in 2000, and I have a baby on the way. I want a computer that I can: 1) Burn home movies, and manipulate the data, so I can do kid movies for the grandparents all over the world. 2) Photoshop well. 3) Handle music well.....my library is about 45 gigs and growing. 4) Do regular pc stuff. 5) Play cool games on....I am not going to get the next gen console. It needs to be a laptop. Any recommendations? My wife is leaning towards Mac but I havent had a Mac since the 90s.
How much you're willing to fork over? I guess you're buying ready made... This cheapo machine can handle 1-4 for 200 bones (After Rebate): emachines T3114, sempron 64bit 3100+,256mb,DL DVD+RW, 80gb, $199.99 AR at compusa It needs a gaming video card (150) for #5, plus at least a gig of ram (50 AR), and probably a monitor (280), but if you have some or all of the parts, it's a great deal.
That does seem like a good deal, but I think mateo said that he was looking for a laptop. BTW, while a Mac can probably do 1-4 very well, you'll have some problems trying to play games on one. You'll probably have to get something else (something that runs Windows) if you really want to play games on your laptop. FWIW, I'd rather go with a decent laptop(that basically does 1-4) and a gaming desktop instead of a laptop that does both. It could get really expensive to put it all in a laptop, especially if you want to play newer games as well as some of the games that will be out in the next few years.
What kind of games are you wanting to play, cutting edge or older games? What size/length movies are you wanting to cut, shorts or DVD long? Also, what do you use photoshop for, web or print design? These all make a huge difference in what you need.
Yeah, I missed that. Gaming laptops aren't worth it, IMO. If the price doesn't scare people away, the size, batterylife, and dated-ness will. You could add a zero to the end of the deal I gave and it'd be outdated for new games in 3 years. http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2172363&cp=&kw=toshiba&parentPage=search 750 after coupon (RS25) and possible $50 manufacturer's rebate.
So essentially, if I was to cut out the games (I pretty much only play Final Fantasy or Medal of Honor type games), a Mac would be the way to go? I may not have the time for games anyway. Addressing the other questions, since my family lives everywhere else BUT New York, I need to make kid movies for the grandparents in Manila, Houston, and "the OC". I guess DVD long style would be the type of movie I am trying to make. Photoshop for web design, the wife is starting up a business, plus she is taking some professional protography courses to go with the camera I just got her. Didn't get the check today, anyway...getting it on the 15th. What a bummer.
If your wife is doing web-design for a business and was leaning towards a Mac in the first place then I'd probably go Mac, but the bad thing about the Mac is the price. You aren't going to get a new Mac for much less then $1,000 and that is just an iBook, the really nice Macs are the Powerbooks which can run from about $1500-$3200 but you can find some really good used ones for $1000 all day long on eBay. You can get a pretty powerful PC Laptop for $1000 though, one that can definately play games like you mentioned. Mobility Radeon is the graphics card you should look for in a PC laptop, most IBMs come with them standard for about $850-$900, and IBM laptops are second to none, just a little pricey when compared to others. If you can hold off for a few months there are going to be some PC based Mac OSX laptops hitting the market in March or so that give you more hardware for the buck. Basically there are a lot of options out there for you, but it all comes down to how much you are willing to spend versus what you need it for. Laptops can last you quite a few years because their technology doesn't progress nearly as quickly as the desktops, so you don't want to skimp if you don't have to... a couple hudred extra bucks can mean a year or two more usage out of your laptop. Give us a ballpark of what you'd like to spend and maybe we can give you a few more options... We haven't even begun to think about software... "finding" software for PC based systems is MUCH easier then Mac based systems, although if you know where to look they are both pretty easy. If you are going to pay for all of your software this is a moot point, well except for the fact that web design software (Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, etc) can easily cost you over $1000 bucks alone...
It should be mentioned that Intel's much anticipated Yonah dual-core laptop chip is expected to be released as early as the CES next week in Vegas, and if not then, pretty early in 2006. I recommend you wait just a bit (you'll have to anyway since the bonus isn't until the 15th.) Intel put out some ridiculous claims saying that the Yonah will be twice as fast as the Dothan but 28 percent less power usage- I highly doubt those claims unless you had software optimized for dual-core. Anandtech got their hands on one and put it through the paces versus the top of the line AMD desktop chips and it held it's own for the most part, and at a remarkably low power usage at that. Basically starting in 2006 we will no longer have the power lag between desktops and laptops that we've had in recent history. If and when Intel drops the Yonah pressure will be on AMD to relase their competing dual-core low-power Turion for notebooks. And on top of that, as Svpernaut has noted, Apple may even release notebooks with the Yonah in 2006 too. Don't wait necessarily to buy a notebook with this processor, because it likely will be pricey- but wait for it to release anyway, because that means all the Centrino and Turion laptops will take a drop in price.
The mac rumor mills claim that intel-based Mac will come out in January 06. The rumored models include ibook, powerbook, and mac mini. You should definitely wait. Most likely, you will be able to boot both xp and osx on these machines.
Whatever you do, make sure it has a good warranty. Especially the video card. Those tiny fans don't last forever.
Make sure to grab a coupon from xpbargains.com, they have 40% off deals from time to time for Dell. Right now they have a $750 off coupon available. www.xpbargains.com
Cutting out games does make a Mac a more appealing option depending on your price range, although as Svpernaut said, you might be able to find a PC laptop that does what you want as well for much less. I sort of misunderstood your comment about playing games; since you said you weren't going to get a next-gen console, I thought maybe you were looking for a laptop that would perform at a level similar to them. IOW, I thought you wanted to play UT2k7, Oblivion, and other games, which will probably only run well on a few desktop PC's let alone any laptop. If that's not the case, then you can probably find several laptops that do all 5 thing well at a decent price. I got a laptop earlier in the year for college with no intentions of playing games on it, but it basically had a ATI X300 thrown in there for "free." I found out I could play a lot of games on it with decent performance (Age of Empires 3 was the last one I played). In this case, it isn't really necessary to go for a desktop PC and a laptop PC as I mentioned earlier. Make sure you take into considerations what Svpernaut, Nolen, and some of the other posters said. I'm more of video card/video game advice guy; still working on the the whole package. FWIW, going along with what the other posters said about waiting, I believe ATI and Nvidia are getting ready to release another line of video cards pretty soon (the "next gen" Nvidia GPU is due out in the first half of '06, shortly after a refresh of the 7800 series according to the rumors). Since I was more interested in the desktop side of things, I can’t recall off hand if any of them were geared specifically for laptops, but I wouldn’t doubt it. Again, kind of like Nolen said, these will all be a bit pricey, but it might lower the price of the other video cards.
