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Thread ID: 47903 2004-08-08 11:54:00 Buying a Notebook - suggestions please... Myke (3277) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
259651 2004-08-08 11:54:00 512 MB RAM
Maybe a DVD writer
XP Pro
Good for video editing
& some not too fancy other multimedia
& ur standard business apps.
Great screen - will be teaching with it.
Usually will have a power supply nearby
Firewire & media card slots would be good.

Thinking $2400 to $3500
Any thoughts or recommendations?

At $2200 the Sony Vaio K series looks inviting,
Tohsiba M30 ... with large screen and new LCD tech looks sharp.


I'm so hopeless at making decisions.
Myke (3277)
259652 2004-08-08 12:20:00 Get the most feature packed one you can afford.

And get a brand you know you can trust.

Are you going for perfmance or portability?
Growly (6)
259653 2004-08-08 12:58:00 Hi Myke

I'm no expert and have only had my Toshiba A10 notebook since March.
Although really happy with it, I do wish I had:

1. Had the Ram upgraded from 256MB it came with to the 1Gb it can go up to, at the time I had bought it. Apparantly cheaper that way. Also Windows hogs a lot of it, and so do some commonly used Antivirus programs.

2. My model didn't come with floppy disk drive, but you can buy an external one, USB FDD Kit. Wasn't aware of this when I bought it. Now have to save up again to get it. A lot of photos I scanned with my old PC are on floppy and can't get at them without the floppy drive.

3. A second Universal AC Adaptor. If I move from my usual desk to another place, have to undo the bands I clamped sl. loosely around my cords to keep them tidy and not dangling every where. Would rather have the second adaptor I could just pick up and go with.

4. A second battery. They don't last that long, and if you select the option for longer life, your screen goes darker which is hard on the eyes.

But as long as it is capable of doing all the things you intend doing, you'll be happy with whatever you get.

Best of luck, Marg

Although I can use the Touchpad, I still prefer my optical mouse. Feel more in control.
pulling hair out (4493)
259654 2004-08-09 00:46:00 Probably after a balance of performance and portability.
Performance first.
Myke (3277)
259655 2004-08-09 02:53:00 I use a Compaq NX9005 with 512 RAM, AMD 2mhz mobile processor, and XP Pro. Lovely machine but I wouldn't even try video processing.

The advice I have picked up from this forum and computer people is that you are wasting your time trying to play with video on a laptop.

Possibly if you had a high-end graphics card, lots of RAM, and lots of fast cache, you may get what you need. One of the problems is that laptop hard-drives spin at approx 5000rpm whereas a desktop drive spins at 7200rpm. Info gathering is much faster on a desktop.

The easy solution is to get a Mac and use iMovie. I've seen it used by my childrens teachers and it works very well.
Winston001 (3612)
259656 2004-08-09 03:06:00 Hmmm,
I've just spent the last 18 months using Macs.
If only I could afford a Mac & a Win PC...

The last version of iMovie was a bit buggy on my last few plays.
I'm not looking at major video productions, mainly short stuff... probably not full DV streamed.

I work with teachers and students, so I need to be mobile.
Myke (3277)
259657 2004-08-09 03:24:00 Plenty of Laptops capable of video editing (and game playing),A highend video chipset does nothing for video editing that a low end one won't do,the idea is just to have dedicated video ram so it isn't fighting with the rest of the system over resources.

Laptops being brand name units suffer the same problems as brand name desktops,they are so loaded up with crap programs that it has a negative impact on performance,My laptop (as powerful as it is...woot woot) took a significent knock running all the fluff.

I have done a boat load of editing and encoding and burning to dvd,water off a ducks back.
metla (154)
259658 2004-08-09 04:58:00 Of course, I didn't say anything about listening to Metla when I got advice. :D

He knows more than I ever will.
Winston001 (3612)
259659 2004-08-09 05:16:00 I sell the Clevo D430
Pentium 4 2.8Ghz
512MB Ram
30GB Hard Drive
1x Firewire
3x USB2 Ports
56k Modem
10/100 LAN
TV-Out
InfraRed
PCMCIA Slot
Floppy Drive
DVD-Rom / CD-RW Combo Drive
Built-in Webcam
15.1 XGA TFT Screen
Windows XP Home w/Service Pack 2 Final

Looking at about $1880 + gst if you're interested ;-)
Chilling_Silence (9)
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