Laptop Shoping, Your Thoughts?

[Keshdogga (Casey)]

G'day Everyone

Story is, I'm looking for a new laptop for Uni and Uni only. My current laptop is really giving me the sh**s with it's 30 minute battery life (on low performace i might add), lack of compatibility with every mouse I use and is too cumbersom for the performance it gives. He's gunna be formated very soon and the operating system replaced with XP instead of Vista for use purely for Astro stuff. Anyway, at the moment i'm tossing up between a Macbook Pro or this little piece of machinery http://www.asus.com.au/product.aspx?...9O0XZhFswxrTrn Macbook Pro's are currently going for around $1400 but this Eee PC I can get for $1000 and at the moment i'm strongly leaning towards the Eee PC because it just seems purpose built for a Uni student. Anyway what are people thoughts, suggestions, recomendations about a laptop for Uni? Also has anyone had any experiences with laptops similar to the Eee PC?

Hope to see what people think!

[supernova1965 (Warren)]

Originally Posted by Keshdogga

G'day Everyone

Story is, I'm looking for a new laptop for Uni and Uni only. My current laptop is really giving me the sh**s with it's 30 minute battery life (on low performace i might add), lack of compatibility with every mouse I use and is too cumbersom for the performance it gives. He's gunna be formated very soon and the operating system replaced with XP instead of Vista for use purely for Astro stuff. Anyway, at the moment i'm tossing up between a Macbook Pro or this little piece of machinery http://www.asus.com.au/product.aspx?...9O0XZhFswxrTrn Macbook Pro's are currently going for around $1400 but this Eee PC I can get for $1000 and at the moment i'm strongly leaning towards the Eee PC because it just seems purpose built for a Uni student. Anyway what are people thoughts, suggestions, recomendations about a laptop for Uni? Also has anyone had any experiences with laptops similar to the Eee PC?

Hope to see what people think!

I really need to know what you are planning to do at Uni if you are doing anything to do with Graphical design or video rendering I would go for the Mackbook Pro. The Eee PC is not a power horse so don't expect too much from it

[AstroFlyer (Arek)]

What about Lenovo Edge ?
They have a sale on right now.

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Best advice is buy a 'name', not some unknown manufacturer and buy a warranty. Laptops have a hard life carted around, dropped, bumped, cooked in cars etc etc. I support about 400 DELLs for engineers and sales staff and we go with three year warranty because you can bet one day you will need it. And DELL batteries only get a one year warranty regardless and that's about how long they last.

[JethroB76 (Jeff)]

How about this:
http://www.microsoftstore.com.au/sho..._PC_SEM_Google

It really depends on whether you're after portability or computing power

[wasyoungonce (Brendan)]

That's a lot of money for an Intel Atom N450 CPU system IMHO.

[starlooker (Duc)]

Don't buy a laptop with a an Atom CPU. They should only be for netbooks. There are plenty of laptops with dual-core CPUs that sell for less than $500. That is plenty of power for the average user.

[acropolite (Phil)]

Toshiba, IMO nothing else comes close when it comes to reliability.

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

I have owned and used several laptops over the past 20 years for work. My wife and son have also had a few different laptops over the past few years. I have used Dell, Acer, ASUS, Toshiba, Panasonic, HP and Compaq.

My current laptop is a Lenovo T400, with all the toys, running Windows 7 64 bit pro. It is now about 18 months old. It cost well over $2,000 when new.

What I can tell you is this. I will only ever buy a Lenovo Laptop from this day forward. More rugged, more reliable, superb battery life and everything, and I mean everything, works "exactly" how it's supposed to work. That old adage in life holds true. "You get what you pay for".

Cheers,
John B

[ausastronomer (John Bambury)]

Originally Posted by acropolite

Toshiba, IMO nothing else comes close when it comes to reliability.

My wife currently has a Toshiba. It's about 400 times better than the ASUS she had before that. It's a good machine and probably my second choice behind Lenovo, but I wouldn't put it in the class of my current Lenovo, in terms of "useability" or "ruggedness". Battery life is also marginal. I had a lot of trouble getting the drivers for the dongle for my wife's Janome embroidery sewing machine (MC11000) to talk to the Toshiba. I did eventually get it working, but it was a major pain in the A. It straight plugged and played on my Lenovo

Cheers,
John B

[Waxing_Gibbous (Peter)]

Don't buy - Rent or Lease. Especially if its only for Uni. and personal stuff.
Laptops are old news by the time you get them out of the shop.
Leasing allows you to claim a certain amount back on your income tax (if any) and usually includes some sort of free-service clause.
I haven't bought one in years and reckon I'm about $1500 ahead because of it.
Mind you, I probably just spent it on booze and fags!

[alexk13 (Alex)]

My wife and I just bought new laptops

well I bought a new one to replace my old XP BSOD'ing laptop.

I got this:
http://www.orangeit.com.au/catalog/p...oducts_id=2301

When i got it home, and did the setup and stuff, my wife had a look and the next day I was off to get her 1 as well to replace her old Vista laptop.

With the right power setting, we are getting up to 4 hours on battery, and still very usable in this mode.

I know they are only Core i3, but we couldn't be happier with them for the price (we both took the upgrade of RAM and bag) If I need something more powerful, I'll sit in front of my beast PC at home

I know they are in Sydney, but I think they deliver if you need them to.

[stattonb (Statton)]

jump on ebay ya can get a descent laptop on there for under $500.
EXAMPLE:http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI....=STRK:MEWNX:IT the one i purchased.