The little voices inside my head are back- not bad voices, who tell me to mouth off cops at 3am in city parks wearing nothing but a tshirt and a BMI in the 30’s. No,the voices who say Yes, Annie, you should buy that shiny thing that goes beep. Fuck saving up for a new car! Anyhow, now I want to get a laptop. I might be moving next year to a smaller place, and not having to move the 10-ton PC (1.67 gigahertz AMD Athlon XP, 512RAM, RAEDON 9100 graphics card, 80GB HD) into reduced accomodation sounds good. However, I hear that laptops are a bitch to upgrade, particularily things like graphics cards. I do like to play The Sims 2 and Black and White 2 and I know if I want to use the laptop for more than 2 years as my primary computer I’ll need to be able to get some new stuff in there sometime.
So- if I get a decent one now, will I be able to upgrade later?
If not, should I just get something cheap that I can use like a old mule for 2-3 years then give it to my dad so he can play Solitaire, wash, repeat?
(What I want to be able to do now with anything I get: play aforementioned games, wireless internet access, want Windows MediaCentre, dual layer DVD burning)
The one I want if I can upgrade components at a later date: Toshiba dual core
Laptops are more upgradeable now than they used to be, especially the video cards. However, not all of them are equal, and if you’re looking for specific upgrades, caveat emptor.
That said, I’m the past owner of 2 laptops that I bought in part for gaming. I learned my lesson; a gaming laptop is a LOT pricier than a similar desktop, and even now they’re not nearly as upgradeable. Both times, with in 12-18 months, some game came out that I really, really, really wanted to play, and the laptop wouldn’t support it and couldn’t be upgraded enough to handle it.
The second laptop I bought was the cream of the crop at the time I got it. It was top of the line, ran me nearly $4K. 18 months later I replaced it with a desktop and vowed never again.
Now, my desktop is my primary machine, and I have a cheapo lowend skinny light laptop for when I want to go mobile. That’s the best of both worlds IMO, but not everyone can justify it.
If you don’t need to take it on planes and such, or carry it around on your shoulder, I would have to say to go for a desktop. I’ve heard waaaay too many people grumbling about playing WoW on their laptop in the last year. And in the grand scheme of things, even a big PC is only the cumulative size of a suitcase. Compared with the potential stacks of books, pictures, and memorabilia–which overall probably contain less information than you could fit on your hard drive–the PC is the smallest of your moving worries.
If you get a few toys though, you can dump your TV and go unidevice though. For a smaller price than a new laptop you could get a projector (who doesn’t want a 10’ screen), cable jack, and some TiVo-like software.
It’s not just the size of the PC, it’s the monitor and assorted crap. Most crap I will have to retain, of course. But still, every bit helps.
I’ve sent an email to Toshiba to see how I can replace the graphics cards when the time comes on these 2 models- I have no delusion I will get useful directions, but the form of a non-answer should be very instructive. I’m betting on something like “we equip our mobile solutions with the tools you will need and use for Years To Come!” Which is marketing-dink for ‘possible, but still about $200 more than the cost of a new unit’. In which case, I’ll go cheapo.
Yes, but as said, even combined, a case + keyboard + mouse + monitor is still only the size of a suitcase. In the long run, you’re going to be a lot better for having a full unit that can be upgraded and has a proper sized keyboard + mouse + monitor for comfortable playing, than sparing yourself an extra 2 square feet of packing room out of a total of 50 when you add in all your other stuff.
And, as said, if you get rid of your TV or anything that can be done by a full-sized computer just as well, you’re still going to save the 2 square feet, and have spent less money to accomplish it.
I can’t lie in bed all day surfing the net on my desktop, nor drag it over to the dining room table when I need el mondo work space. And as far as proper size k’board and mouse go, I already use a touchpad mouse and wee keyboard for ergo reasons.
I share the sentiment with others that says that a mid-priced desktop combined with a low-end laptop for secondary service is the way to go. I work in IT and it is also my hobby when I get home and I really don’t like laptops as primary computers. I firmly believe that anyone that feels a laptop is a good primary computer isn’t doing anything that important or impressive on their computer to begin with.
You can get a low-profile case and a flat-screen LCD monitor on a desktop computer and it just won’t take up that much space. A decent set-up can be had for $1000 - $1300 all-inclusive. Combine that with a $700 laptop as a secondary. mobile computer and you still save money over the $2500 it would cost to get a decent desktop-replacement laptop that attempts to do everything for you.
I figured as much- I would like to be able to dump the desktop but I will probably hold onto it for the time being-if a laptop meets my (pretty meagre) needs, I can pass the PC off to computerless relations at some point. If not, I’ll hang onto it. Thanks for the input Shag
Back when I was working my last job, I was into evercrack. I bought a nice HP z4100, and it was just fine for EQ, and it had full on XP pro and office, as well as a selection of avg, adaware and spybot, and nero for my dvd/cd needs. I was just fine with it as my main computer. The only thing that got me to make my own desktop was getting into World of Warcraft. [ok, and also my roomies cat spraying the TFT screen and making it develope a couple of areas of gap.] I played EQ for almost 3 years on Diogenes before switching to Socrates. I got into the closed beta for WOW, and started doing a lot more game beta’ing needing more HDD space, and aa screen without a cat pee problem…
I would kill for a laptop to play WOW on again, I lurved my laptop. I had no problem with the keyboard, and only added a trackball to teh equation. I always had my games with me, my email and any docs I was working on. I could go from couch to table to bed in perfect comfort. I would say that in the 3 years I was unemployed and job hunting, unless I had an appointment, I spent about 3 hours a day surfing job sites, cranking out resumes and cover letters, and about 8 or 9 hours a day playing EQ [for the first year] and world of warcraft.