Computer shopping (and the accompanying confusion)

[scorpionldr]

Well guys, its that time again. I feel like sometime soon I'm going to have to pull the trigger on a new laptop.

Thing is, however, tech has changed a lot in the last five years. Anything I knew back then is more or less irrelevant. I mean, sure, I understand RAM, screens, hard drives, operating system, but just how much have things changed in the amount needed to actually make things WORK? AMD, I-3/5/7 processors, etc.......Man, I grew up in the day where you had Intel/Pentium or you didn't, and that was that. Like I'm running medium-slow on one gig of RAM with some virtual memory thrown in, but I'm seeing the standard with notebooks today around 4. Processors of today I know nothing about.

My current laptop is a 06/07 Toshiba Satellite notebook. 120 gig hard drive, 1.83 gigs Centrino Duo processor, 0.99 gigs RAM. My current opinion of it? ........it works. Its good for net browsing. Can run very few games. The last one I was actually able to run was Postal 2 (2003), which keeps up decently provided I don't get creative or anything. Any game from 2004 on (such as, I don't know.....The Sims 2, Half-life 2).

That being said, aside from gaming, I'm also looking to do some computing in the way of working with DAW's (for all who don't know, the abbreviation is Digital Audio Work-stations) as well as working in video. I can run something basic, like FL Studio, for instance, but Pro-tools, Ableton, etc...She no go . Then again I happen to LIKE FL studio, so there ya go .

I'm looking to find more creative ways of marketing myself than just working my 8-6, and what I'm using, which can now be considered a ghetto-machine, is holding me back. But I don't know how much will really be enough now, what the good brands really are, etc. My folks have a few other Toshibas that run pretty well, but I'm having trouble doing "my homework" as far as the hunt for the next PC.

My budget I'm looking to not really go above 600 unless I really am just asking for a lot.

Any suggestions?

[MJ5150]

For heavy audio and video work, I suggest you cough up the cash and get a MacBook Pro.

-Mike

[Scioneyed]

I'm in agreement with Mike. Dollar for Dollar, you're not going to get better than a MacBook Pro. The big Plus? Mac know how to use Multimedia. The traditional games issue with Macs is also out the window.

BIG HOWEVER though.

If you already HAVE games that you play, you'll need to get Mac versions. Which would suck.

My advice is, find out what specs the games you want to play have recommended and buy to that. (Or get a Macbook)

[Raven2k360]

I second that... Nice thing about newer macs is that you can dual-boot MacOS with Windows or Linux, so you can still play your Windows games.

[scorpionldr]

Ok......this wasn't called the "What mac should I get" thread. Many things about Mac make me say "***?"

Lets begin with the whole "No Mac Viruses". Well, there is very little software I find of interest out on the Mac to begin with. Other than Logic, I could care less. So, right. Yes, your operating system has no viruses because nobody cares about trying to infect a Mac.

Dual booting........why??? I'm already very adept with windows OS. And, like I've expressed in the prior paragraph, I find very little use for a Mac in my home.

I'm not looking for heavy work. I'm working for a solid working machine. As in well rounded for all aspects of computing. I can make soundscapes using FL studio, which is pretty easy (easiest for me) to work around with. But its clear that I'm deficient in the amount of system resources which could allow me to run more.

As far as the video aspect, I'd probably be looking for a built in webcam (since I'm kind of sick of having to pull out my camcorder whenever I want to vlog), and something with enough power to record gameplay from consoles so I can do Lets plays on youtube. I've done the research in software that I can't use.

So, to clarify, I'm looking for a PC which I can happen to put myself in the middle/high ground of computing, that can solidly handle games at least on the xbox 360 level of detail, and can do the things I've mentioned so far. Not a Mac.

But overall, this was supposed to be about learning about the standards of modern computers.

[fdeck]

Originally Posted by scorpionldr

Ok......this wasn't called the "What mac should I get" thread. Many things about Mac make me say "***?"

No problem, that's a matter of personal preference.

Lets begin with the whole "No Mac Viruses". Well, there is very little software I find of interest out on the Mac to begin with. Other than Logic, I could care less. So, right. Yes, your operating system has no viruses because nobody cares about trying to infect a Mac.

Mac is largely immune to viruses because it's based on an OS that was designed to be secure from the git-go. And because it's open source, its vulnerabilities are discovered and fixed more quickly. Its close relative, Linux, runs most Web servers. These OS's have been refined under continual hacker attack. Regardless of the reasons, anti-virus is something that is exclusive to the world of Windows.

Dual booting........why??? I'm already very adept with windows OS. And, like I've expressed in the prior paragraph, I find very little use for a Mac in my home.

I'm with you here. Paying for and supporting not one but two bloated proprietary OS's is a double fail in my book.

I'm not looking for heavy work. I'm working for a solid working machine. As in well rounded for all aspects of computing. I can make soundscapes using FL studio, which is pretty easy (easiest for me) to work around with. But its clear that I'm deficient in the amount of system resources which could allow me to run more.

Get an Asus notebook from NewEgg and be done with it. Asus has the highest reliability rating.

As far as the video aspect, I'd probably be looking for a built in webcam (since I'm kind of sick of having to pull out my camcorder whenever I want to vlog), and something with enough power to record gameplay from consoles so I can do Lets plays on youtube. I've done the research in software that I can't use.

Others have suggested to me that a desktop box will always have more affordable power than a notebook. Here's an idea. Re-juvenate your notebook by switching it to Ubuntu, which runs just fine on hardware of that vintage. Get a desktop machine with more horsepower and a larger display for gaming at home.

So, to clarify, I'm looking for a PC which I can happen to put myself in the middle/high ground of computing, that can solidly handle games at least on the xbox 360 level of detail, and can do the things I've mentioned so far. Not a Mac.

But overall, this was supposed to be about learning about the standards of modern computers.

A suggestion for more powerful notebooks is to check a forum for people who use SolidWorks or some other engineering CAD system. But there's a tradeoff because the horsepower adds pounds to the computer and to the power supply brick. That's why I suggest trying to keep your aging notebook running, as I have done with my 6 year old Dell.

[Papa Dangerous]

Instead of buying a new laptop, you can always upgrade. Get an external hard drive without about 1500 gb, move all your information on to it. Make a complete back up of the hard drive and reinstall windows. Now just go out, get the latest operating system you want (probably windows 7), and buy new pieces of equipment.

My friend has a computer that is technically 12 years old. He randomly finds computers in the garbage, and takes them home. He will gut them, check out what type of hardware is on the inside and then connect it to his current rig.

He currently runs two computers. One as a desktop, and the other is hooked up to his tv for all his gaming purposes. He never spends money on repairing his computers, he just builds em up from scratch and repairs them himself. He is kind of a crazy genius when it comes to it.

Hell, he has a DS with a video games on it, and never paid for any of them. If he wanted to, he can make his DS into a cell phone.

[mmbongo]

I love it when somebody asks for a $600 laptop and the response is 'you should spend just a little more and get a $2500 Mac!' I thought Mac people were smart?

ANYWAY!

The biggest thing you'll want is a dedicated video card. Onboard video is crap.

However, your budget is right at the starting point for dedicated video processors. Acer seems to be about the only thing in that price range with dedicated video. I can say that I've had no problems other than the battery with my Acer, which I've had for 3 years now. Quality wise I think they are a notch below companies like Lenovo and Asus, but on par with HP and Toshiba.

Newegg.com - Acer Aspire AS7551G-7606 Notebook AMD Phenom II Quad-Core N970(2.2GHz) 17.3" 4GB Memory 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi AMD Radeon HD 6470M
Not bad for $500, but I would get more memory if it were me.

Newegg.com - Acer Aspire AS7741G-6426 Notebook Intel Core i5 480M(2.66GHz) 17.3" 4GB Memory 640GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi AMD Radeon HD 6550M
Little over budget, but steps up the processor. Still I would add more memory.

The memory upgrade is $45, of course you could add that later.
Newegg.com - G.SKILL 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Laptop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBSQ

I can't stress enough how important dedicated video processing is for what you want to do.

[Tupac]

Originally Posted by Papa Dangerous

Instead of buying a new laptop, you can always upgrade. Get an external hard drive without about 1500 gb, move all your information on to it. Make a complete back up of the hard drive and reinstall windows. Now just go out, get the latest operating system you want (probably windows 7), and buy new pieces of equipment.

My friend has a computer that is technically 12 years old. He randomly finds computers in the garbage, and takes them home. He will gut them, check out what type of hardware is on the inside and then connect it to his current rig.

He currently runs two computers. One as a desktop, and the other is hooked up to his tv for all his gaming purposes. He never spends money on repairing his computers, he just builds em up from scratch and repairs them himself. He is kind of a crazy genius when it comes to it.

Hell, he has a DS with a video games on it, and never paid for any of them. If he wanted to, he can make his DS into a cell phone.

Building computer is pretty common among gamers, I built my own rig and it saves hundreds. But the idea of gutting old computers and using them... now THAT'S an interesting idea! Where does he find those computers?

[Papa Dangerous]

Originally Posted by Tupac

Building computer is pretty common among gamers, I built my own rig and it saves hundreds. But the idea of gutting old computers and using them... now THAT'S an interesting idea! Where does he find those computers?

In the garbage hahah he either walks a lot, or go for 20 mile bike rides. He lives in a borough of the NYC so there are many people who throw out computers that do not even realize what they are getting rid of. He has found family pictures amongst other things on people's computers. He is a good cat though and deletes these things for the people so their pictures, identity or other private info won't leak.

A few months ago, he found a computer with the same type of video card he used in one of his current rigs, except it was more powerful. Simply swapped it out and poof! He is now running half life smoothly on a 12 year old comp.

[scorpionldr]

Originally Posted by Papa Dangerous

Instead of buying a new laptop, you can always upgrade. Get an external hard drive without about 1500 gb, move all your information on to it. Make a complete back up of the hard drive and reinstall windows. Now just go out, get the latest operating system you want (probably windows 7), and buy new pieces of equipment.

Its all cool about your friend, but at the moment I just don't have that kind of time. Working fifty hours, managing a semi-dysfunctional band, and hitting the gym prettymuch whenever I can (suffering minor health complications ATM) prettymuch all do a fine job of killing some of my willpower.

Its not that I don't want to get into that some day, but right now, I need one machine to handle most of it. People responding to the thread seem to be worried the most about video handling, but lately I just put together stuff with windows movie maker, and I'm going to be trying some stuff with Sony Vegas studio. Given what I can put together (which to me is decent quality) I'm not worried about doing extreme video making as I am just "catching up" to the rest of the current generation tech. Lets face it; 2 gigs of processor and a single gig of ram aren't going to do much of anything these days.

I DO have a 500 gig seagate hard drive, but I'm thinking about getting a terra for myself, as I'm always filling the drive up with Samples (among other things). The whole "money" deal would dry me out if I actually started buying everything I needed

Originally Posted by mmbongo

I love it when somebody asks for a $600 laptop and the response is 'you should spend just a little more and get a $2500 Mac!' I thought Mac people were smart?

ANYWAY!

The biggest thing you'll want is a dedicated video card. Onboard video is crap.

However, your budget is right at the starting point for dedicated video processors. Acer seems to be about the only thing in that price range with dedicated video. I can say that I've had no problems other than the battery with my Acer, which I've had for 3 years now. Quality wise I think they are a notch below companies like Lenovo and Asus, but on par with HP and Toshiba.

Newegg.com - Acer Aspire AS7551G-7606 Notebook AMD Phenom II Quad-Core N970(2.2GHz) 17.3" 4GB Memory 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi AMD Radeon HD 6470M
Not bad for $500, but I would get more memory if it were me.

Newegg.com - Acer Aspire AS7741G-6426 Notebook Intel Core i5 480M(2.66GHz) 17.3" 4GB Memory 640GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi AMD Radeon HD 6550M
Little over budget, but steps up the processor. Still I would add more memory.

The memory upgrade is $45, of course you could add that later.
Newegg.com - G.SKILL 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Laptop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBSQ

I can't stress enough how important dedicated video processing is for what you want to do.

My sister has an Acer.....the model she has I don't know, but the case,etc looks a bit flimsy. I may consider similar brands (or stick with Toshiba, just considering how they've held together for my family), but either way, I took a look at Asus. Yea, seems like they want a hefty bit more for pretty similar specs than you were suggesting of the other machines.

So lets take a look at the few suggestions you made.

First up the Acer Aspire AS7551G-7606 Notebook AMD Phenom II Quad-Core N970(2.2GHz) 17.3" 4GB Memory 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi AMD Radeon HD 6470M. A mouthful indeed. Ok, so 320-500 gigs seems to be a standard hard drive amount of storage. How much of this is eaten up by Windows 7? 4 gigs seems to be the standard as far as RAM....what amount really keeps the system "responsive" and "on top of it" compared to just "working"? I know my computer (provided I shut all programs off every time I leave it when its on for 24 hours or so) is medium at best. Keeps up, but definitely slow for some.

How good of a processor is AMD? Would this particular processor be on the par of an I3 (I did a little asking around last time I hit staples/radioshack....I3 is four cores with 2 gigs or around per each core from my understanding.....but like a salesperson mentioned, 3 will be old news by next year).

I will obviously have to come back to revise this, but my hangup on processor power is.....how many cores does one really need? I mean to work on somewhat simple projects. Cuz I really know nothing about how multiple cores work compared to a single one. Just me

[mmbongo]

Originally Posted by scorpionldr

How good of a processor is AMD? Would this particular processor be on the par of an I3 (I did a little asking around last time I hit staples/radioshack....I3 is four cores with 2 gigs or around per each core from my understanding.....but like a salesperson mentioned, 3 will be old news by next year).

I will obviously have to come back to revise this, but my hangup on processor power is.....how many cores does one really need? I mean to work on somewhat simple projects. Cuz I really know nothing about how multiple cores work compared to a single one. Just me

Just from my IT experience (15 years, thank you!) I would put Toshiba about on par with Acer. Not a fan. Fixing them makes me good money, though! Like I said....I have an Acer. It is flimsier than my Dell I use for work (which was $1400). For $600 you're going to have to deal with flimsy.

320 gigs is plenty of space for most anything. Win 7 takes very little of that, maybe 10 gigs? Keep in mind that many laptops come with solid state drives which are 30-60 gigs, so 320 is enormous. If you need more, just get an external drive. You should have one for your backups anyway.

AMD processors are great, as are Intel. When I build a system I use nothing but AMD. I would use Intel more if it weren't for the cost. Both are fine.

Cores...2 minimum. Don't even bother with a single core. That's so 1992. The more the better, but 2 is a good start.

RAM with Win7? 2gb will turn it on. 3gb is useable. 4gb is slick. 8gb is bliss. Keep in mind you have to have a 64 bit OS to use over 3gb.

The most important thing is video processing. You could have the fastest processor and the most ram, but if you don't get one with dedicated video, you're just pissing in the wind, so to speak

[MJ5150]

Originally Posted by mmbongo

I love it when somebody asks for a $600 laptop and the response is 'you should spend just a little more and get a $2500 Mac!' I thought Mac people were smart?

If you notice the original post, he asks if what he wants for $600 is asking too much for a laptop in that price range. My opinion is yes that is too much to ask from a $600 laptop, so I suggested a step up to what I feel are the best multimedia platforms, Mac.

-Mike

[iamdenialNJ]

Go to the apple website and build your own mac. Get everything top of the line and look at the price. It is such a big FAIL.

big +1 to mmbongo's post

[MJ5150]

Why would they guy build everything top of the line? He already said there is a budget. Why do you guys think he has to go get a $2500 model? The used market is an option. I suggested he look at Mac and you guys run off on this tangent about how expensive they are.

That's fine if you don't like Macs, but don't call them fail because you can't afford one.

-Mike

[i_got_a_mohawk]

You are wanting to do audio work, do you have an audio interface?

(dont know if that has been covered yet)

[Papa Dangerous]

Macs are such horrible computers! They make everything so easy and there is no worry about a virus! That is CRAP! I want a ton up dirty viral trojans lodged into my CPU hard drive! Damn these Macs for making life so easy and worthwhile! Bleh! x(

On a serious note, the only thing that makes a Mac iffy to me is its simplicity. Windows give a lot of control, but that is a risk cause files get lost and such. Anyways.. to avoid a Mac vs Windows debate... I am going to shut up

[Rusty Chainsaw]

Originally Posted by iamdenialNJ

Go to the apple website and build your own mac. Get everything top of the line and look at the price. It is such a big FAIL.

big +1 to mmbongo's post

Try going to the Dell website and pricing out something that's equivalent to a top-of-the-line Mac Pro (with server-grade quad-core Xeons - not common-or-garden Core i7s or such like). The difference comes down to a few hundred bucks, and you're still stuck with a big cheap-looking plastic box that runs Windows. There really isn't that much in it ($4500 vs $3900 or so, if I remember right, that's with 3TB HD, 16GB RAM, a good dedicated graphics card and a good monitor).

You could save a couple of hundred more by buying the components and building it yourself, but, even on Newegg, a single 2.66GHz quad-core Xeon processor is over $800. And that's just for one - a top-of-the-line Mac Pro has two.

But, I'm not a Mac zealot, I just like busting the myths put out by the haters.

Anyway, for the OP's needs I'd suggest something like the Lenovo IdeaPad Y470 - good machine. I'd take Lenovo's build quality over anything except a Sony Vaio or a Mac. Dedicated graphics too - a NVIDIA GeForce GT 520M 1GB card. Lenovo's selling them for $669 right now.

[MJ5150]

The Lenovo is a great suggestion. In my limited professional experience with them, they have performed well.

-Mike

[Longhair]

I have a Dell Precision M6400 laptop that has a quad core cpu & 16GB ram running Windows 7 64-bit and 2 hard drives. VGA and DisplayPort output (able to use HDMI if using DisplayPort to HDMI adapter). Fingerprint reader, smart card writer / reader, blue tooth, etc... Basically more bells and whistles than my desktop.

I use it for CAD/CAM programs (SolidWorks, AutoCAD), have no problems running Ableton Live 8 w/ M-Audio Profire 2626 Firewire, ripping CD's & DVD's (no blu-ray drive), and use it for other light tasks like running WinRar, multiple remote desktops at the same time, web browsing, playing music, etc. all at the same time. I cannot comment on gaming since I use my PS3 or PSP to play games.

I bought it from a Dell reseller, refurbished customer return, that still has another year on the next business day warranty about 2 years ago. It was about 30% cheaper than getting a brand new one from Dell with the same specs.

Even though the model is about 3 years old and there is a newer version on the market for about a year already, this laptop is out performing all the brand new "high end" laptops that my co-workers bring in. I do not see a need to replace this for another 8 years.