£1800 laptop

September 3, 2006 3:36 PM

I have approximately £1800 (≈U$3400) to spend on a new laptop. I'm currently looking at a Dell Precision M65 but I'd like MeFites to explain why I shouldn't buy this, what I should buy instead in the same price range, and why. (In case you haven't guessed I have a real problem with post-purchase dissonance!)

I'm mainly intending to use it for simple things - web browsing, office software, music and video (and a lot of apps at once). A high-resolution screen ≥ 14" is essential and nothing too heavy (≤3kg?). I don't plan on doing any video editing or 3D rendering but I'd like it to be fairly future-proof (hah!) and it needs to be able to run Vista in the future and be able to dual boot with Ubuntu. Bundled software is mainly unimportant but I'll need a new copy of XP.

Also, if someone could update me as to what's "good" at the moment I'd be greatful - Dual core? SATA? I'm a bit behind with the hardware side of things.

Apologies, but I have to go to work soon so I won't be able to check up on this thread until later, but I wanted to get it posted before the populous US goes to sleep!

posted by alby to Computers & Internet (43 answers total)

In my opinion $3400 is A LOT for "simple" things.

Keep an eye on coupon sites and wait for something affordable... more in the $1000 and below range ?

I use www.bensbargains.net a lot.
posted by k8t at 3:42 PM on September 3, 2006

1) Get dual core, get a real (ie ATI or NVidia) graphics chip and a big hard disk.
2) You have no reason to spend more than £1000.
posted by cillit bang at 3:43 PM on September 3, 2006

I'm not sure, but my impression is that it's not really necessary to spend $3400 to get a top notch laptop. I bought a used iBook for $300 bucks that does everything I want (which, admittedly, isn't much). For $2000, I think, you can get all the bells and whistles you'll ever need (or at least so I imagine). But then again, I'm a cheap bastard.
posted by MarshallPoe at 3:44 PM on September 3, 2006

I recommend against it simply because of my experiences with Dell; They're crap. Battery recall aside, at work we have a room of 41 Dell PCs where, on average, one fails with a hardware fault that needs a part replaced to repair every two weeks. Also, expect to get something different from what you order, then waste time trying to get it sorted out.

I also recommend against Sony; They hate their customers.

Try Fujitsu instead.
posted by krisjohn at 3:47 PM on September 3, 2006

Definitely dual core. In fact, if you can wait a few weeks, Intel Core 2 Duo will be out with every manufacturer if they aren't already, giving you the choice of latest and greatest or a significant price break on Core Duo. And, as others have said, $3400 seems like a lot to spend for what you plan on doing with it. You can get a 17" widescreen Alienware notebook with Core 2 Duo for much less than that.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 4:04 PM on September 3, 2006

my impression is that it's not really necessary to spend $3400 to get a top notch laptop.

US retail prices (or even second-hand market prices) don't really apply in the UK. But £1,000 sounds like a more than decent cutoff. As ever, gladly sacrifice clock speed for more RAM and a bigger/faster HD.

If you want (or need) to max out your budget, there's always the 15.4in MacBook Pro, fully loaded -- it runs Windows now, either with Boot Camp or Parallels. Heck, fly to New York for the weekend and buy one.

Alternatively, if you're planning on using it at home, think about putting a good chunk of that budget towards a nice external monitor. And an external hard drive for backups and data dumps.
posted by holgate at 4:04 PM on September 3, 2006

Consider an Apple MacBook. There are detailed instructions out there on how to triple-boot XP/Ubuntu/OS X all off the same hard drive, and Apple design and service are very hard to beat. With $3400 in my pocket I'd get a MacBook, max out the RAM (through Mushkin), upgrade to the full-size internal hard drive, get an external laptop hard drive, get an ergonomic keyboard and mouse set, and still have room for a 23" Apple Cinema Display!

You do not need a faster processor according to your description of requirements. You do not want a faster processor. The Intel Core Duo 2's will run extremely hot, the heat coming off a MacBook is still bearable.

I'm an admitted Apple fanboy. I owned a Powerbook 15" for 3 years that I absolutely loved. I've just bought a new MacBook, and although there have been a few hiccups, I'm very happy with my purchase.
posted by onalark at 4:13 PM on September 3, 2006

On postview: holgate and I are on pretty much the same page. The MacBook is already priced for post-Intel Duo Core 2 release.
posted by onalark at 4:15 PM on September 3, 2006

Check out notebook review. I would reccomend IBM Lenovo or Acer notebooks if you simply must have a PC. I am about to buy a MacBook myself, and I agree with holgate when I say also that your budget is way too high, spend that extra money on a large flatscreen display that you can plug your laptop into and an external hard drive for backups.
posted by sophist at 4:23 PM on September 3, 2006

For that matter, with your price range check out a macbook pro (wait for the core 2 duo update though). I think you could probably max it out (well, doing some quick checking at the apple site the 17" one comes out a little over 3400 if you use their ram prices, which are pretty ridiculous prices) and still not have spent $3400, at least by US prices.
posted by advil at 4:29 PM on September 3, 2006

Work gave me a Dell Inspiron 9400, and it's fucking sweet. Buy it.
posted by cellphone at 4:30 PM on September 3, 2006

The standard config for the MacBook Pro 17" is £1900 incl. VAT. Like I said, it's misleading to think in terms of dollar prices -- unless alby's going to fly over and buy one.

A pimped-out MacBook with third-party RAM comes closer to around £1100, the same as the Dell, leaving room for a nice big display and external HD.
posted by holgate at 4:38 PM on September 3, 2006

I believe that the Dell he's looking at is already shipping with the Core 2 Duo, unlike Apple's line. Isn't that what "CoreT Duo" means? Correct me if I'm mistaken.

I'll also advocate buying a MacBook or MacBook Pro-I love my 15.4' MBP-but if you're going that route, wait till Apple's shipping Core 2 Duos. Which will be quite soon, I'd wager.
posted by evariste at 4:40 PM on September 3, 2006

BTW, reports from the field are that Vista RC1 installs and runs great on MacBook Pros.
posted by evariste at 4:41 PM on September 3, 2006

Dell laptops are flimsy breakable little things with crappy keyboards in my experience. I try to avoid them.
posted by grouse at 4:42 PM on September 3, 2006

Look into Thinkpads. I love mine, even though its on the older end.
posted by devilsbrigade at 4:48 PM on September 3, 2006

Thinkpads are great, i'm typing on a T42P. It's hit or miss with the Dell laptops. I've had many and had a couple miss, so I tend to stay away from them.
posted by Inetdave at 4:52 PM on September 3, 2006

Alienware
posted by geekyguy at 5:09 PM on September 3, 2006

Alienware

...is overpriced, underperforming, visually tacky crap.
posted by evariste at 5:12 PM on September 3, 2006

Stay clear of Dell, Sony or any of the off brands (Averatec, Acer. etc). Second the Thinkpad suggestion. Those machines are rock solid, and will do exactly what you ask for. Look for either an off lease t42p or t43p, or pickup one of the new T60's. In the absence of a Thinkpad, HP's buisness class notebooks make a good second choice. Or you could go with an Apple, if it will fit your needs.

Do not buy Alienware, Falcon Northwest, Voodoo, Rock, etc. It has the same guts as the Dell, which you should avoid.
posted by richter_x at 5:16 PM on September 3, 2006

Dell laptops are flimsy breakable little things with crappy keyboards in my experience. I try to avoid them.

Amen to that. The Lattitude on which I type is rubbish. Owned for 3 years and had a new keyboard and motherboard in that time. Plastic casing is still cracked. Getting through to their tech support (outsourced to India) is a labour of the damned and they're impossibly unreasonable to deal with.

I hear very good things about Toshiba if you're not convinced by the Mac advocacy above.
posted by dmt at 5:19 PM on September 3, 2006

All a roundabout. Had so many problems with my Tecra over the last few years and shifted to Sony, a SZ2XP. Spec seems broadly similar to the Dell as is the UK price.
posted by A189Nut at 5:26 PM on September 3, 2006

Counterpoint on the "off brands" remark above:

I owned an Averatec that I thought was a brilliant little machine. And I'm surprised to read Acer described as an off-brand (Averatec, sure. Acer?).
posted by evariste at 5:32 PM on September 3, 2006

(My Averatec served me well for two years, after which I sold it. The new owner loves it. I never owned a Dell for longer than a year before it broke.)
posted by evariste at 5:33 PM on September 3, 2006

You do not need a faster processor according to your description of requirements. You do not want a faster processor. The Intel Core Duo 2's will run extremely hot, the heat coming off a MacBook is still bearable.

I find this assertion questionable. The Core 2 Duos run cooler-and about 40% faster, clock for clock-than the Core Duos.
posted by evariste at 5:42 PM on September 3, 2006

"it's misleading to think in terms of dollar prices -- unless alby's going to fly over and buy one. "

At the price difference being talked about, the savings may exceed the airfares - in effect, getting paid to fly to the USA for a weekend vacation.

The laptop power supples are fine at 220V. The downside would be potential support complications if it breaks.
posted by -harlequin- at 5:52 PM on September 3, 2006

FWIW, my Dell laptop experiences:

I got this Dell Inspiron 8200 in 2001. Still using it now. It ran Red Hat Linux 9 until two weeks ago; it now runs Ubuntu 6.06.

It's got a 1.7 GHz Pentium IV Mobile CPU, 512MB RAM, 40GB Hitachi hard drive, inbuilt 10/100 Ethernet, Firewire, serial, parallel, audio, USB and 56K modem.

Best feature: the Ultrasharp 1600x1200 LCD screen. This was an incredibly good screen at the time, and is actually still better than most of today's laptop screens and many of today's standalone screens. It was the main reason I chose the Dell - no other manufacturer offered anything like it at the time.

The sound quality from the tiny (~20mm) inbuilt speakers is surprisingly good.

Worst features: heavy; poor battery life; crappy Sony DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive (stopped reading the second layer of dual-layer DVD's after two years); one RAM card initially faulty (an intermittent fault that first showed up two months after I bought the machine but wasn't resolved for another twelve months); fans were always noisy, but are now noisy and grindy - I think the bearings are going, but they're very hard to get to for lubrication; Ethernet port needs the cable wiggled often (I suspect a dry solder joint under the socket).

Dell support was OK for a call-centre based system. I learned early on not to mention Linux. Once I finally nailed down the faulty RAM card after ridiculous amounts of Memtest86 hours, they shipped me a new one without arguing and without making me send the old one back first, even though my first contact with them over the issue was a month after the warranty period had expired.

The keyboard does look and feel very flimsy but hasn't failed yet. The case is disturbingly flexible - much more so than the various Acer, Toshiba and IBM machines I've seen.
posted by flabdablet at 6:26 PM on September 3, 2006

I just bought a new Thinkpad T60. The hardware quality is quite good and IBM/Lenovo has a range of machines to suit whatever purpose you have. My experience with Lenovo customer service was quite poor, though. If you just order online and the order arrives fine you should be fine, but the new organization seems to be having some trouble if you need more attention.
posted by Nelson at 6:32 PM on September 3, 2006

The Samsung laptop my work gave me has been rocksolid for 3 years. If I ever buy my own, I'll seriously consider going Samsung.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:10 PM on September 3, 2006

Thinkpads were always built very, very well, but there are some reports that they may not fare quite as well under the Lenovo brand. Regardless, even if they took a 25% quality hit, they'd still be 50% more durable than any other laptop I've worked with. They're well-engineered, light, robust computers with a premium price and super-premium service. If you need it to always work, your best chance of that happening is with a Thinkpad. (of course, laptops are inherently pretty fragile, but Thinkpads are the best of a bad lot.)

I have an Inspiron 9300 I bought last year because my T20 was getting too old, and I didn't need a small laptop anymore. They're clunky big things, but FAST and quiet. I think the only part I don't like is the keyboard, which I've never been too fond of. It has been otherwise fine, and about half the cost of an equivalent Thinkpad.

There are three broad categories notebooks fit into... very small subnotebooks, meant to tuck into your standard briefcase; laptops, meant to work okay on an airplane seat, and desktop replacements, intended to be taken from place to place and not used on the go as often. The 9300 (9400 now) is in that category... big, but with a gorgeous screen, lots of RAM, and a fast hard drive. It's really almost indistinguishable from a good desktop. It's not that heavy, but it's BIG.

In the Thinkpad line, those three model categories are the X-, T-, and A- series. The bigger they get, the cheaper they are... you pay more for miniaturization. The T-series is very frequently the best tradeoff between size, power, and cost, which is why I'm pointing you at one of those.

The R-series is the cost-reduced line, and I'd suggest avoiding those. Reports back on them have not been favorable.
posted by Malor at 9:24 PM on September 3, 2006

Thinkpad or MacBook, in my opinion.

My Thinkpad was rock-solid, hardware wise. It was an A22e that I got new, back when Windows 98SE was the operating system of choice. It only died last month, and had been dropped (I know, I know), travelled many, many miles and generally abused. I cannot stress enough how good the whole package was - and had some features that I miss on my new MacBook (mainly the light from the lid that shined on the keyboard - genius!)

My new MacBook is fantastic, and I love it. However...a large incentive for me was the OS. You seem to know that you want Vista, so a MacBook/Pro may not be your best option, bang-for-buck wise (and I know I'm going to take stick for this). The quality is excellent, and yes, third party RAM is a lot cheaper than Apple RAM. Sure, you can use Parallels or Boot Camp, but it seems that you could get the same hardware spec (although not in as sexy a package) for less money.

And please, don't get a Dell. Friends and family have rued the experience.

I feel stupid now that the Core 2 Duo is coming soon...
posted by djgh at 9:28 PM on September 3, 2006

I love my Dell Latitude, FWIW.

Also, know many software engineers who use nothing but Dells.
posted by cholly at 9:29 PM on September 3, 2006

My wife bought an Acer Travelmate 8200 (in EU Acer is not an offbrand) and it's an absolute monster that puts my home-built PC to shame. The only downside I can think of is its heat output, but I think this is the case across the board with Duo Core laptops, including MacBooks.
posted by DefendBrooklyn at 11:15 PM on September 3, 2006

I've had a couple of Dell laptops in the past, all which have had problems (the biggest was when the motherboard decided to die - right in the middle of my finals week last semester). Though YMMV, I would suggest Toshiba's laptops (they've been known to be sturdy bastards) or - if you're feeling like "making the switch" - a MacBook Pro. Either way, you'll have plenty of money left over to buy accessories (cooling pads, external hard-drives, et cetera), if your heart desires.
posted by itchie at 5:39 AM on September 4, 2006

No Dell laptops. NO DELL LAPTOPS. In my university Dell laptops are the preferred brand through their laptop buying program; as a result a shitload of students go into the IT department with issues. My personal problems? Overheating (it is a well-known fact that Dell laptop heat sinks are horrifically designed), motherboard has needed replacing, memory has needed replacing (twice!), the screen has gone to shit (it has a permanent red tinge) . . . I mean, dude, when someone writes a program specifically to regulate temperature control, you know there's issues with the model.
posted by Anonymous at 7:58 AM on September 4, 2006

MacBook or MacBook Pro, maxed out with third-party RAM, and a copy of Parallels Desktop for when you need to run Windows.

I have been a Windows user since the early 1990s; I switched to one of the new Intel MacBooks as my primary work machine about three months ago and haven't looked back.
posted by enrevanche at 8:47 AM on September 4, 2006

Response by poster: Wow. Just wow. That's a butt-load of responses.

To be honest, I'd never even considered a Mac, but the more I think about it, the more I like the idea. Just how well does the whole dual-/triple-boot system work? What sort of software does a Mac come with? Where can I find the best "I'm switching from PC to Mac guide"?
posted by alby at 11:48 AM on September 4, 2006

dual-triple boot is great. Dual-booting from Windows is a breeze, Linux is a bit trickier, but in my experience not horrendous. There are a lot of UNIX fanboys out there who own MacBooks, which make the procedure a lot happier.

The Mac starts out with a full version of OS X.4 (X.5 if you buy in a month or two), built-in chat, web browsing, email, calendar, photo editor/collection, GarageBand, outlining tool, etc... For about $100 more you can get iLife (Mac Pages word editor and Keynote presentation maker) or Microsoft Office for Mac (Rosetta, a little slow but still pretty good). Go here for more information on getting a Mac.

And tell us what you ended up getting! Nerd fan-boys of every sort like drooling over a setup with the amount of cash you're spending.
posted by onalark at 12:31 PM on September 4, 2006

iLife (Mac Pages word editor and Keynote presentation maker)

You're thinking of iWork, of course. iLife is free with every Mac; it's iTunes, iPhoto, GarageBand, iDVD, iWeb, and iMovieHD.
posted by evariste at 1:06 PM on September 4, 2006

Response by poster: Truly, I love the idea of getting a Mac. I can't shake the feeling however, that the only reason I want a Mac is because it looks fucking awesome. I really can't see myself using iPhoto or GarageBand and I definitely won't be using iTunes.

If I do go for a Mac, is it worth holding out until they start shipping MacBook Pros (MacBooks Pro?) with Core 2 Duo chips? I've spent the last x hours reading up on Macs and I hear there's some big announcement coming September 12.

It kinda boils down to this: Is it worth buying a Mac if most of the time I'll be running XP on it? Plus I really love my right mouse button.

Is there anyone (Mac fans, recent 'PC to Mac'ers) out there willing to be my e-mail buddy? I'd rather not clog up MeFi if possible.
posted by alby at 2:07 PM on September 4, 2006

alby-I'm a recent PC to Mac switcher (as of April), you can email me at my profile email. I imposed on a friend who's a longtime Mac user to show me the ropes when I switched, so it's only fair to pay it forward :-) I'm a bit of a power-user on both Windows and Mac so I'll have lots of good tips for you.

While my computer looks awesome, that's just the icing on the cake. It's what's inside that counts-the software experience. The iLife stuff is nice, but it barely scratches the surface of Mac software delights.

Wait for 9/12 and the Core 2 Duos, they're much nicer chips. Since Dell et alia are already shipping them, Apple can't really afford to wait much longer to start selling them as well.
posted by evariste at 3:01 PM on September 4, 2006

The Mac starts out with a full version of OS X.4 (X.5 if you buy in a month or two)

Please stop reading rumour sites. Apple has publicly stated that Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" will be released sometime in the first half of 2007.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/index.html

"Get ready, get set, get Leopard

All these features and more are delivered to you in one universal, fully accessible, 64-bit operating system. Coming spring 2007."

Back on topic, I really like my MacBook Pro. It's fast as hell, the screen is kickass, and it doesn't weigh very much. The lower-end MacBook is also nice, but I'm addicted to the 15" screen of the Pro model.
posted by secret about box at 3:18 PM on September 4, 2006

You may end up missing that right mouse button. There are two solutions: external mouse, and a little program that allows you to use control to activate right-click. In the future, somebody will also probably program a third option, which will allow you to right-click from the trackpad with two fingers like you can do in OS X.

I'd do some research on Thermal Design Power requirements for the Core 2 Duo chips versus the regular Core Duo. As laptop processors are getting faster, the machines themselves are running a lot hotter. My MacBook is hot, but tolerable. I'd be concerned that anything with a Core 2 Duo chip in it is going to be unbearable.

Regardless of whether you decide on the MacBook Pro or a MacBook (I don't think it's worth waiting for the new Pros), I'd go for a less powerful chip. The lower clock rate will result in less heat for your laptop.

(And yes I meant iWork not iLife). I'm happy to try and answer any weird/specific sub-questions via email, it's in my profile.
posted by onalark at 3:20 PM on September 4, 2006