Need a new laptop-what to get? Ben?

B

Badfish740

Explorer
Feb 19, 2005
589
44
Copperhead Road
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 :D

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

bobpbx

Piney
Staff member
Oct 25, 2002
14,742
4,936
Pines; Bamber area
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.
 
Teegate

Teegate

Administrator
Site Administrator
Sep 17, 2002
26,050
8,839
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 :D

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
 
Ben Ruset

Ben Ruset

Administrator
Site Administrator
Oct 12, 2004
7,619
1,878
Monmouth County
www.benruset.com
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.
 
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