My partner and I are moving to Greece and want to exchange are two computers (a Dell and an iMac) for a laptop. We want one that will do everything for us (wireless surfing, watch DVDs (large screen needed), listen to music, normal computer stuff etc. etc.). We also want something ‘top of the range’ that will last us a good few years.
As I’m a Mac user I initially wanted a Powerbook but I’ve also been attracted to a Toshiba Qosmio (both 17’’). The Qosmio has a better screen quality than the Apple, but is heavy and seems to have a low battery life. On the other hand Macs are not very well serviced in rural Greece.
Any opinions or other suggestions gratefully received.
Make sure you get either a Pentium M or a Turion for the processor - they are a lot easier on battery life than say an Athlon 64, or Pentium 4 (which eat electricity like sweet delicious candy).
Dell’s Inspiron 9300 is pretty nice. 17" screen, and you can get it configured with a 1.6ghz Pentium M, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, Geforce 6800 video card, DVD-burner, 1 year warrenty for $1600-$1700 ish.
I have grown to dislike all laptops other than Apple Powerbooks and IBM Thinkpads. They’re the only two brands that don’t feel cheap and flimsy.
If those are too expensive, Dell is probably a good choice.
My company has had bad experiences with Toshibas. The ones we bought (I forget the exact model) were poorly built and horribly unreliable, filled with low-quality components that broke often. Friends have said the the same thing about HP/Compaqs, but I have no personal experience with them.
And I’ve never seen a Sony outside of CompUSA, so I have no information whatsoever on them. But someone must be buying them…
Oh, I just realized I didn’t read your OP fully. If you want a top-of-the-range laptop that will last you a good while, settle for nothing other than a PowerBook or Thinkpad. They are solid, well-built, reliable, durable, and good-looking.
The ThinkPad is probably a little bit higher-quality than the Apple, and IBM’s support is much better, but Mac OS X is so great it balances out. I have both, a ThinkPad T42p and a 15" PowerBook.
If your’e sufficiently clever and can get your hands on the x86 DR, you can install MacOS X (Intel version) on one partition and XP on the other and run either from a ThinkPad
Disclaimers: won’t be optimized, may require homemade modification to kernel extensions to support the ThinkPad’s video, you should not run pirated copies of the OS X Developer Release, restrictions imposed by Apple Computer should be honored where applicable, etc…
I’m an Apple guy, but I admit i sure do appreciate those thinkpads. They sure are nice, to be sure. They have a very high-quality feel that you only see with Apple. But Powerbooks tend to get a little banged up after a while, whereas thinkpads are sturdier, I think. And depending on your ethics you’d probably have the option of installing Mac OSX on the thinkpad in the near future if you so desired. A part of me wants to do it just for the coolness factor, but I don’t have the PC to try it on. I wouldn’t get a G4 laptop, as I think they are kind of slow. If you really want a mac, wait for the new intel versions, I’d say.
