Need a new laptop-what to get? Ben?

[Badfish740]

Ok so my Dell laptop is going on 5 years old, which may as well be eons in computer time. It lived through college and many a beer spill on the keyboard, being banged around, etc... It now makes a weird beeping noise on startup, the battery is totally shot, and the fan is broken so the thermal shutdown kicks in after its been running for a while.

Since there are many here that are more tech-savvy than I (Ben) how about I tell you what I do with a laptop and you tell me what you think I need? This would help me out a great deal because while I'm computer literate, I don't know if I'm going to see/hear/feel the difference between a 1.6 GHz processor and a 2 GHz processor, and I'm not really sure what dual channel memory is, etc...

Here is what I will do with a laptop on a daily basis:

Surf the internet, manage e-mail, and waste valuable work time on www.njpinebarrens.com :mrgreen:

Use free Wi-Fi hotspots wherever possible (coffee shop/school) and connect wirelessly to my home network

Manage my iTunes collection

Watch DVDs

Burn CDs

Use Microsoft Office for work and school (Powerpoint, Word, Excel-Don't really need desktop publisher)

Manage my digital camera pictures

Manage maps and software for a GPS

My one guilty pleasure is that I'd reeeeeeally like a 17" screen

That's basically it. Does anyone have suggestions on what might be a good fit for me within a price range of about $1200-1500?

[bobpbx]

Whatever you do; get no less than 1Gb of memory. That is even low when looking towards the future. Make sure it will eventually accept at least 2Gb.

I bought my daughter an HP Pavilion Sunday. I have lost some faith in Dell over the years.

[Badfish740]

Good to know. Hey more qualification-I want to be able to run Google Earth without having every other program run slower or not at all!

[TeeGate]

Since you are running iTunes wouldn't you want to have a computer that was made by the company who invented iTunes? I would.... so buy a Mac :mrgreen:

It runs both Windows and Mac so you can run Google Earth, iTunes, and Office when you are booted in either OS. What more could you want? And as for cameras, my wife just bought a new one and when I hooked it to my Mac I did not even have to load in the software and I could download the photo's. In her Windows she had to load the software and still had problems.

Lets see what Ben has to say about that!!

Guy

[Badfish740]

Could you float me the $3000 Guy? :mrgreen: Seriously, Macs are great, but they're way out of my price range unfortunately.

[TeeGate]

Could you float me the $3000 Guy? :mrgreen: Seriously, Macs are great, but they're way out of my price range unfortunately.

Yea...that is true.

Guy

[bruset]

Trust me, you don't want a laptop with a 17" screen. Heck, the 15" screen in my current laptop is way too big.

Look at the Dell XPS M1210. Small and very powerful. It's a good laptop.