New laptop

[paul_oshea]

going to buy a new laptop through the company so i can expense it, and therefore not too worried about the price assuming somewhere around 2k mark. Probably 2.5 would be hte max im willing to pay. Basically im more worried about a powerful machine as oppossed to the money.

ive been looking at the dell precision M6400 decent enough specs, can be seen here:
http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/business/Laptops/workstation-precision-m6400-cov/pd.aspx?refid=workstation-precision-m6400-cov&s=bsd&cs=ukbsdt1

i want a powerful machine that can obviouslly handle IDEs and running applications which are memory/resource intensive. Just wondering what i should go for really? Also would like a top graphics card too(not necessarily into gaming but just in case). Whats out there at the moment? I want something to last a good 2.5/3 years anyway.

good battery life not a must or essential but would like a decent battery life that isn't a huge weight.

[don ramo]

my recomendation is to build 2 extremely good desktops, would add up to the same price, plus savings

i built one there with a QUAD CORE at 2.26GHz, giving you 9.40GHz processing power, (at the cost of E182)

then i added WINDOWS 7 Pro 64 bit operating system (thats E38)

seeing as you want memeory i added another 4GB or ram on top of the 4 already there, (at the cost of E421)

youll want microsift office, (added that E267)

added another battery just in case (thats another E108)

left the original drive of 250GB (you can get a 320 for an extra E8)

left in the ATI graphics card (you can get the Nvidea one for an extra E331)

thats a grand total of E2715.00, thats a ridiculus price to pay for any computer in this day and age,

the base price is E1600 theres over a E1000 of extras that i would think are essential for any computer i would want to have,

like E420 for 4gb of ram, i bought 4gb of ram for my PC for E60,

there also chargeing you extra for WINDOWS 7 that should be standard in any computer being sold now,

and at E1600 id expect there to be a QUAD CORE in it,

and im also looking at upgrading my graphics card in the next month of two, and im looking at the ATI HD 5850 that is up near the top end of graphics card ATM and that should be under E200 when i eventually get it, (but will obviously slip due to futher upgrades, youll never keep up with it)

personally if your looking for performance get a PC, if your looking for portability dont buy that one as its a ridiculus price, personally id think youd get a good laptop for E500 with the sales that will be coming up, and you could also build a high performance PC, and have money left over from the E2700 youd pay for that,

[paul_oshea]

well portability isn't essential at the moment but it could be in the future so i really need to go for a laptop.

sorry but i dont follow the above post, did you say you went on the dell site and built a pc to see the price and that you think its a rip off, and to build 2 desktops instead by myself.

[don ramo]

well portability isn't essential at the moment but it could be in the future so i really need to go for a laptop.

sorry but i dont follow the above post, did you say you went on the dell site and built a pc to see the price and that you think its a rip off, and to build 2 desktops instead by myself.

i followed the link you gave to the laptop you said you were lookin at, you said you wanted performance and a decent battery life,

so i added in a faster processor (not the best but second best) youd need a good bit of ram also for performance, and youd need a 64 bit OS as a 32 bit one would only use 3.2 Gb of ram, i added the second battery on the basis that laptop batteries arent really that great and its good to have back-up (especially for buissness purposes), also if it for business youd want OFFICE on it,

im not 100% on graphics cards, but i am look for one at the moment, and i should get a good up to date card for E200 in about a month, there are new upgrades coming out in january, so the one im look at that is currently one of the top, and is over E300, and dell want E331 extra for you to add a different card, which is ridiculus,

its up to yourself to build yourself, you could easily get someone else to do it for you, i built my own one last year, as the PC i had before it cost E1300, and that was only an average computer even at the time, so after looking at the price of parts, i thought it would be cheaper just to do it myself, got some help from a friend, but i mostly picked my own parts, and my computer is very up to date still nearly 2 years on, all it needs is a new grapichs card, which are updated every 6-7 months for the newer games that come out

[tetsujin1979]

why anyone pays for Office anymore when OpenOffice is free is beyond me

[SligoBrewer]

why anyone pays for Office anymore when OpenOffice is free is beyond me

OpenOffice Calc can't handle x error bars in a graph, which I need for college so in that regards I have to use Excel.

[tetsujin1979]

OpenOffice Calc can't handle x error bars in a graph, which I need for college so in that regards I have to use Excel.They were added to release 3.0 (current release is 3.1.1)
gets a short mention in the new features for 3.0 here: http://www.oooninja.com/2008/03/openofficeorg-30-new-features.html
more instructions: http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/office_guides/openoffice_calc_user_guide/openoffice_calc_Error_bars.html

[paul_oshea]

Don cheers for that. As i said though i need a laptop really. So its hard to build yer own laptop from scratch....

[centre mid]

Dont buy a HP one, seroius over heating problems.

[don ramo]

Don cheers for that. As i said though i need a laptop really. So its hard to build yer own laptop from scratch....

it is hard, but if you do the research it should pay off in the end, personally id stay away from dell, ive never heard good things from them,

also if you can try and get a matt screen on the laptop, the light doesnt reflect off them as much, them shiny screen are annoying

[don ramo]

Dont buy a HP one, seroius over heating problems.

depends on what model you buy, and how well you take care of it,