buying a new laptop...
Moderator: General Moderators
buying a new laptop...
This HP has <span style='color:blue' title='I'm naughty, are you naughty?'>smurf</span> me off for the last time.
anyone have any good suggestions of a solid machine (one that won't keep giving me nvlddmkm.sys driver failed issues)?
I'm thinking of going with alienware (I want something that I can game with for sure).
anyone have any good suggestions of a solid machine (one that won't keep giving me nvlddmkm.sys driver failed issues)?
I'm thinking of going with alienware (I want something that I can game with for sure).
Re: buying a new laptop...
Dell Vostro. Absolutely rock solid, cheap, and very powerful for the money.
Re: buying a new laptop...
My Toshiba has done very well. It also came with recovery CD's.
- volomike
- Forum Regular
- Posts: 633
- Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:04 am
- Location: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA
Re: buying a new laptop...
I snatched up a BestBuy special -- $499 for an Acer Extensa 4420. It's got 2GB of RAM, a fantastic 3D video card with 256MB of RAM (a decent amount), and a 160GB hard drive. The thing is zippy fast. The battery life looks to be about 2 hours on full speed with full brightness, and you can probably get more time if you use power saving measures.
Downsides:
- A bluetooth on/off switch is on the system, but it's not connected. Evidently it's cheaper for Acer to use one case and different options depending on model, and charge more for systems with Bluetooth.
- The LED for wireless is orange when it's supposed to be green. It works well, however.
- The BIOS is limited as far as options. I've never seen a more limited BIOS than this.
- There's no dial volume switch. Instead, you have to do Fn + Up and Down arrows.
- The touchpad left and right click buttons are fairly audible. You may prefer something more quiet.
- The Fn+F7 key works, even with any OS you install on it, but darn if that's not like the loudest system beep I've ever heard for something I may need to push often while I work.
Downsides in the latest Ubuntu (Hardy Heron):
- Had to install Envy and switch to the latest ATI driver in order to remove video issues on the laptop, especially when attaching a separate display. I also had to remove the bootsplash out of grub because for some reason it was preventing me from logging out cleanly without lockup.
- The Euro and $ keys near the arrow keys would be nice if I could program them so that they work in X Windows. I'd like the $ key there to be a British Pound. I couldn't figure that out, so I just use Right Alt + 5 to get the Euro symbol, and Right Alt + Shift + 4 to get the British Pound.
- Some of the Combo system function keys Fn + F4, F5, F6 don't work. So you have to use the control panel and applet settings in Ubuntu to get around that. I'd like to see how to program those to do what I want, but I just don't know how to do that yet.
- You can change the brightness with Fn + Left and Right Arrow, but unfortunately if you let the system go idle for a minute and come back, it goes to full brightness again. This is aggravating when your eyes are tired and you're in complete darkness, not able to see because your LED screen is blinding you.
- I had to create one xorg.conf file for when I have an attached display, and one without. Then, in my grub boot menu, I add another option on the kernel command line and then trap that in a boot script in /etc/init.d. This permits me to swap out the appropriate xorg.conf file in /etc/X11 for when I have an attached display or not. I like Xinerama and the most optimal resolution in each screen when I attach a display, and then no Xinerama when without an attached display.
- The touchpad was a bit too sensitive. I had to add a line to my xorg.conf file and then install gsynaptics in order to remove some of the sensitivity.
But other than this, it's a good laptop for the price.
Downsides:
- A bluetooth on/off switch is on the system, but it's not connected. Evidently it's cheaper for Acer to use one case and different options depending on model, and charge more for systems with Bluetooth.
- The LED for wireless is orange when it's supposed to be green. It works well, however.
- The BIOS is limited as far as options. I've never seen a more limited BIOS than this.
- There's no dial volume switch. Instead, you have to do Fn + Up and Down arrows.
- The touchpad left and right click buttons are fairly audible. You may prefer something more quiet.
- The Fn+F7 key works, even with any OS you install on it, but darn if that's not like the loudest system beep I've ever heard for something I may need to push often while I work.
Downsides in the latest Ubuntu (Hardy Heron):
- Had to install Envy and switch to the latest ATI driver in order to remove video issues on the laptop, especially when attaching a separate display. I also had to remove the bootsplash out of grub because for some reason it was preventing me from logging out cleanly without lockup.
- The Euro and $ keys near the arrow keys would be nice if I could program them so that they work in X Windows. I'd like the $ key there to be a British Pound. I couldn't figure that out, so I just use Right Alt + 5 to get the Euro symbol, and Right Alt + Shift + 4 to get the British Pound.
- Some of the Combo system function keys Fn + F4, F5, F6 don't work. So you have to use the control panel and applet settings in Ubuntu to get around that. I'd like to see how to program those to do what I want, but I just don't know how to do that yet.
- You can change the brightness with Fn + Left and Right Arrow, but unfortunately if you let the system go idle for a minute and come back, it goes to full brightness again. This is aggravating when your eyes are tired and you're in complete darkness, not able to see because your LED screen is blinding you.
- I had to create one xorg.conf file for when I have an attached display, and one without. Then, in my grub boot menu, I add another option on the kernel command line and then trap that in a boot script in /etc/init.d. This permits me to swap out the appropriate xorg.conf file in /etc/X11 for when I have an attached display or not. I like Xinerama and the most optimal resolution in each screen when I attach a display, and then no Xinerama when without an attached display.
- The touchpad was a bit too sensitive. I had to add a line to my xorg.conf file and then install gsynaptics in order to remove some of the sensitivity.
But other than this, it's a good laptop for the price.
- Christopher
- Site Administrator
- Posts: 13596
- Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2004 7:54 pm
- Location: New York, NY, US
Re: buying a new laptop...
I have been thinking about getting a Dell Inspiron with Ubuntu. I have a HP with Vista right now that has been fine, but my wife wants a laptop. I hate developing on Windows and thought I would upgrade to more memory and a faster processor/disk. Has anyone bought one of the OpenSource Dells?
(#10850)
Re: buying a new laptop...
I just bought a new laptop. I'm going to university this fall so my parents paid for the majority of it as a graduation gift. It's an HP(wait for the rest!) with a 17" monitor, 256 mb dedicated video card, 4 gigs of ram, core2 duo @ 2.0, bluetooth, etc. Price: 999 CDN
If you're a student you can go to dreamspark and sign up there. Then go to microsofts website and download the windows server 2008 demo. Good for 240 days. This fall dreamspark members will be getting free key's for windows server 2008. If you haven't heard windows server is an entirely stripped down version of vista. It's way faster, way more stable, and it can be converted to be exactly like vista. Everything works on it and you get the new hypervision or whatever it is that lets you emulate other OS's. Haven't tried that yet but so far its the deadliest setup I've ever had.
This laptop meets all of my expectations. The only bad thing I've found so far is that the headphone output on the front of the laptop gets a bit of static from the HD.
If you're a student you can go to dreamspark and sign up there. Then go to microsofts website and download the windows server 2008 demo. Good for 240 days. This fall dreamspark members will be getting free key's for windows server 2008. If you haven't heard windows server is an entirely stripped down version of vista. It's way faster, way more stable, and it can be converted to be exactly like vista. Everything works on it and you get the new hypervision or whatever it is that lets you emulate other OS's. Haven't tried that yet but so far its the deadliest setup I've ever had.
This laptop meets all of my expectations. The only bad thing I've found so far is that the headphone output on the front of the laptop gets a bit of static from the HD.
- volomike
- Forum Regular
- Posts: 633
- Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:04 am
- Location: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA
Re: buying a new laptop...
Yeah, I read about the W2K8S 240 day thing. I'm running it now inside my Ubuntu inside Sun VirtualBox. It's nice for now. Wonder what I'll do in 240 days. 
Most laptops these days have issues for the following reasons:
* They overheat.
* They can't stick to a consistent keyboard scheme.
* The keyboards are cheap (HP's and Compaq's especially). If you want to do daily pounding on them, you could end up shortening their life. So, that's why when I get into my home office (about 10 feet from my bed), I attach a USB keyboard.
* They come with tons of addon goo on them. In fact, Microsoft has publicly come out and spoken against this and claim that Vista has most of what people need and that one doesn't need the addon goo from the OEMs. However, that's one more reason why I put on Ubuntu. I have less menu items and clicks to dig through to get to things, and I don't have extra OEM addon goo.
* Few offer a keyboard light and none except Apple provide keyboard indiglo lighting. That's a pretty important problem when using the laptop in complete darkness.
* The LCD screens are too bright and it's hard to dim them down and keep them dim, no matter what OS you're using. In Ubuntu, I dim my screen brightness and then when I come back after having it idle, it goes to full blast again.
* Some idiot decided that all laptops should be made with these shiny screens instead of the matte finish, making it 95% impossible to use outside during the day.
* The newer ones only look good from the top. Flip most of them over and they look like the access panel to some electrical equipment or something. (But not on a Mac.)
* The touchpad usually has buttons next to it. These are often super loud when you click them. Imagine being on an airplane where a guy is next to you, clicking like crazy all the time with these loud clicks.
* Some of the older model ones didn't come with enough USB ports.
* All these years with laptops and we still haven't figured out how to make a cheap 6 hour battery, or reduce the size of the power pack used to charge the laptop.
Most laptops these days have issues for the following reasons:
* They overheat.
* They can't stick to a consistent keyboard scheme.
* The keyboards are cheap (HP's and Compaq's especially). If you want to do daily pounding on them, you could end up shortening their life. So, that's why when I get into my home office (about 10 feet from my bed), I attach a USB keyboard.
* They come with tons of addon goo on them. In fact, Microsoft has publicly come out and spoken against this and claim that Vista has most of what people need and that one doesn't need the addon goo from the OEMs. However, that's one more reason why I put on Ubuntu. I have less menu items and clicks to dig through to get to things, and I don't have extra OEM addon goo.
* Few offer a keyboard light and none except Apple provide keyboard indiglo lighting. That's a pretty important problem when using the laptop in complete darkness.
* The LCD screens are too bright and it's hard to dim them down and keep them dim, no matter what OS you're using. In Ubuntu, I dim my screen brightness and then when I come back after having it idle, it goes to full blast again.
* Some idiot decided that all laptops should be made with these shiny screens instead of the matte finish, making it 95% impossible to use outside during the day.
* The newer ones only look good from the top. Flip most of them over and they look like the access panel to some electrical equipment or something. (But not on a Mac.)
* The touchpad usually has buttons next to it. These are often super loud when you click them. Imagine being on an airplane where a guy is next to you, clicking like crazy all the time with these loud clicks.
* Some of the older model ones didn't come with enough USB ports.
* All these years with laptops and we still haven't figured out how to make a cheap 6 hour battery, or reduce the size of the power pack used to charge the laptop.
Re: buying a new laptop...
Then get a Macbook (pro) (for most of the reasons you mention). My girlfriends Macbooks' battery lasts almost 6/7 hours (normal/light usage).volomike wrote: .....
* All these years with laptops and we still haven't figured out how to make a cheap 6 hour battery, or reduce the size of the power pack used to charge the laptop.
- RobertGonzalez
- Site Administrator
- Posts: 14293
- Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2003 6:04 pm
- Location: Fremont, CA, USA
Re: buying a new laptop...
For something that works/looks great/works/performs/is reliable/works... get a mac.
Otherwise go with Ubuntu linux on any PC after blowing Vista face off with a bazooka.
Otherwise go with Ubuntu linux on any PC after blowing Vista face off with a bazooka.
- JAB Creations
- DevNet Resident
- Posts: 2341
- Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2005 6:44 pm
- Location: Sarasota Florida
- Contact:
Re: buying a new laptop...
Don't buy a Dell or any Asus products PERIOD! Crappy warranties, and Asus RMAs new products with used/broken junk replacements.
Also you really want to avoid any 8xxx series card 8700 and lower from nVidia as these parts have a very high failure rate due to a heat cycling bug. It affects laptops quicker...all cards are effected. It's a huge mess and nVidia could seriously bite the dust if they don't contain the issue...though that goes against consumers. They should have thought the issue out before rushing to support a crap OS.
Also you really want to avoid any 8xxx series card 8700 and lower from nVidia as these parts have a very high failure rate due to a heat cycling bug. It affects laptops quicker...all cards are effected. It's a huge mess and nVidia could seriously bite the dust if they don't contain the issue...though that goes against consumers. They should have thought the issue out before rushing to support a crap OS.
- volomike
- Forum Regular
- Posts: 633
- Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:04 am
- Location: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA
Re: buying a new laptop...
I mean no offense, Matthijs. We are friends, after all. But who has cash for a decent Macbook Pro? That's expensive. I paid $499 for my Acer laptop. In that I received a super fast processor, 160GB hard drive, 2GB of RAM, and a DVD burner that can practically do everything but play BluRay discs. The only thing I wish it had was a longer battery life, less of a reflective screen, glowing keys, and less heat. However, it has a fairly decent battery life of 2.5 hours, the screen is not as glossy as, say, HP screens, I'm thinking of purchasing glow-in-the-dark keyboard stickon labels from LatKey.com (they emailed me and said go with the Spanish set even in the USA because it includes the Euro symbol, the F1-F12 keys, and the Fn label), and the laptop heat is not extremely bad.matthijs wrote:Then get a Macbook (pro) (for most of the reasons you mention). My girlfriends Macbooks' battery lasts almost 6/7 hours (normal/light usage).
However, this said, if I could afford a Macbook Pro with all this disk space and RAM like my Acer laptop, I would purchase it in a skinny minute!
(BTW, don't go with myglowkeys.com. Unfortunately these key labels do not glow in the dark, but their advertising leads one to believe this unless you read very carefully on their site. Only latkey.com seems to have glow-in-the-dark stick on keyboard labels.)
- volomike
- Forum Regular
- Posts: 633
- Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:04 am
- Location: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA
Re: buying a new laptop...
The laptop I purchased as an Acer. Did you mean Asus or Acer?JAB Creations wrote:Don't buy a Dell or any Asus products PERIOD! Crappy warranties, and Asus RMAs new products with used/broken junk replacements.
Also you really want to avoid any 8xxx series card 8700 and lower from nVidia as these parts have a very high failure rate due to a heat cycling bug. It affects laptops quicker...all cards are effected. It's a huge mess and nVidia could seriously bite the dust if they don't contain the issue...though that goes against consumers. They should have thought the issue out before rushing to support a crap OS.
The video card is an ATI brand, not nVidia. I had some trouble with the Ubuntu fglrx driver at first, but installed Envy and the latest ATI drivers, and then filed an Ubuntu bug report on some of the problems I had. Someone on the bug reports told me to disable bootsplash in Grub on Ubuntu and that seemed to fix all my issues with the Envy ATI driver. (On the previous driver, the default from Ubuntu Hardy Heron, it would flash a white screen every so many seconds when doing Saurbraten and other video games, would lock up once the screensaver engaged or the video went into power saving mode, and would not permit Xinerama mode with optimal resolution in attached displays. But by moving to Envy and the latest ATI driver, plus removing bootsplash, all those problems went away.)
- JAB Creations
- DevNet Resident
- Posts: 2341
- Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2005 6:44 pm
- Location: Sarasota Florida
- Contact:
Re: buying a new laptop...
Asus != Acer 
I like Acer systems...they're not too bad and very few people call me with problems with their systems.
I like Acer systems...they're not too bad and very few people call me with problems with their systems.
Re: buying a new laptop...
No worries, no offense!volomike wrote:I mean no offense, Matthijs. We are friends, after all. But who has cash for a decent Macbook Pro? That's expensive. I paid $499 for my Acer laptop.matthijs wrote:Then get a Macbook (pro) (for most of the reasons you mention). My girlfriends Macbooks' battery lasts almost 6/7 hours (normal/light usage).
Of course I don't know the financial situation of other people. You are right that a Macbook pro costs around $2000 or more, a macbook at $1100. Indeed you can save some money, at least initially, by buying a cheaper laptop.
But what people often forget is that in the end it's about total cost of ownership. It's the same as with cars. If you buy a car that's 2 times as expensive, but lasts 2 times as long, needs less repairs and uses 40% less gas, in the end that car is cheaper then the other car which had a lower initial cost.
So that macbook might actually save you a lot of money in the end. It might last much longer (look at second-hand prices of macs, still quite steep), no money waisted on virusscanners, no expensive time ($80/hr?) waisted solving problems or reinstalling your OS, etc etc.
And then I haven't even looked at other factors as productivity, comfort, pleasure, etc.
So if you're a student or not using your laptop professionally: just go for a cheap dell. But if you're a professional making money with web development, you cut yourself in the fingers if you only look at the initial price to buy your most important tool. In the end, we're talking about a few hundred dollars. That's nothing compared to what you spend monthly on your house, office, car, gas, etc
Re: buying a new laptop...
I dare to disagree, I've had both Dell and Asus laptops (recently bought a new Asus again) and have very good experience with both.JAB Creations wrote:Don't buy a Dell or any Asus products PERIOD! Crappy warranties, and Asus RMAs new products with used/broken junk replacements.
The Asus machines were just rock solid great value-for-money notebooks. Same for Dell, and although I had to be in touch with Dell support in the past (for some minor problems), they took care of that very well. Can't tell for sure about Asus support, as I never had the need to call them.
If my current laptop (a Dell XPS) dies, I'll buy a Dell or Asus again.