Stupid laptop questions

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m not in the market for a new laptop yet, but will probably be in the next few months or so. The laptop I’ll buy is my only computer. 17 inch screen or larger is a must. Portability is not important. The computer only travels by car and that is rare.

  1. Does any brand offer decent built in speakers? The Toshiba I bought has harman/kardon speakers and they were the best I was able to find. I listen to a lot of music, mostly classical.

  2. Is it worthwhile to get a laptop with a blu ray? I’ve got a blu ray player at home. Still, aside from being able to watch blu ray discs, is there any other reason to get a blu ray player?

  3. Is an upgraded display worth it?

  4. Anyone have a laptop with a screen larger than 17 inch? How do you like it?

  5. I’m leaning very strongly towards a Windows 7 machine, but I’ll let the Mac people tell me why Macs are better as well. I use one piece of work software which doesn’t run on a Mac, but that should be corrected by next year.

2

The speakers on the 17-inch Macbook Pro are excellent. I can tell you that much, at least.

3

HPs can be had with Altec Lansing speakers. None of them will be as good as good headphones.

Only if you get a Blu-ray burner, then you could store up to 25/50 GB worth of backups per disk. Do they make any laptops with Blu-ray burners? Dunno.

Depends on (a) how crappy the non-upgraded display is and (b) how much they want for the upgraded one.

Can’t address the others.

4

The first thing many people do is buy a computer then think about their software. This is wrong. You need to sit down and make a list of everything you’ll want to do. Then simply organize these “things” by priority. Things you MUST have, down the line to “would be nice, but can live without.”

Then go shopping online. Go to places like Buy.Com or PriceGrabber to see what is going to cost you what. Build a computer at Dell and see what it costs you.

Do you need blu ray? Probably not. High Def can only be seen by humans on screen of 30" or more. If it’s less you can’t preceive the difference. But of course you can hook your computer up to run through a TV bigger than 30" so that might be a consideration.

Battery life is very important in a laptop. You’ll probably use your battery more than you think. So definately look into that. READ reviews online to see what is the TRUE life.

Running hot. Some laptops tend to run hot which can make them uncomfortable to put on your lap or a bed. Again read reivews.

Consider weight and size. I know you said it isn’t an issue, but why not make it convenient if you must. Who knows you could move some day and need to walk with it.

A firewire port or an eSATA port is extremely useful. As a matter of fact, I’d have an eSATA port put in. If you hook up an external hard drive an eSATA port will make the external drive almost like a internal harddrive. An external hard drive of 1TB can be bought for about $100.00 now.

As many USB and Firewire ports as you can get always helps

RAM unless your a serious gamer up 4g of RAM should be fine for most people. If you’re a gamer you can’t have too much RAM (which means 64 bit system).

Macs tend to be hardier than Windows. So if you’re one of these people who refuses to shut down the computer right and just unplugs it, go with a Mac. They handle the abuse better.

Software for Macs tends to cost more, but if you made your list you’ll know what software you’ll be needing.

I think the most important things are: Weight, Heat, Battery Life, and and eSATA port.

Last thing, never buy a laptop online without trying a similar one. If it’s cheaper online fine, but go to BestBuy or somewhere like that and try the model out. Some laptop keyboards just are not comfortable or have have keys that don’t press right. You want to be able to type and hold the laptop. Then if that’s OK you can go online and buy it

5

I am posting from a very lovely HP Pavilion dv7. 17in wide, full keyboard w/numeric. Says it has SRS Premium Sound. I adore it. Moving from a desktop to a laptop was a big change, I still use my trackball, but otherwise, the screen is fantastic, the keyboard is nice.

It’s also very pretty. :slight_smile:

6

I concur. If you are concerned about sound quality, just get the regular built-in speakers, and buy a good-quality pair of headphones.