On 16 Apr 2005 at 6:11, dhbailey wrote: > Eden - Lawrence D. wrote: > > I need some advise regarding the purchase of a PC laptop for my > > daughter who will be a college freshman in the fall. I know nothing > > of the Dark Side...so I need specific names and models to consider. > > Thanks...and I hope my fellow MacMavens will not hold this against > > me...:-) > > Our family (my wife and mother-in-law) has had 3 Toshibas which seem > to be really rugged. My wife had a Pentium-100 (it still works and I > use it some in my business, after 8 years) and my mother-in-law had a > Pentium-125 for 6 years before upgrading to a newer Toshiba, a > Pentium4, 8 months ago.
Toshiba is a perfect example of a laptop vendor where you have to be careful. They have a long history of manufacturing them -- I remember 1986-vintage machines with no hard drive that lasted their owners for years before they tired of swapping floppy disks! Toshiba was a champagne-level laptop manufacture in the 90s, and then in the late 90s they started introducing their first budget lines (the Satellite line). These turned out to be disastrously unreliable in terms of hardware (they had a whole run of defective mouse pointers, the little eraser thingy, copied from IBM). Then around 2002 or so, they revamped their entire product line and started producing really good machines at great value. Now they've fallen behind the current standard, and their machines are poor performers in terms of price, and quality is uneven (though still higher than average). The machines in many of the product lines are beautiful and have excellent fit and finish, though (however, I've still avoided the budget Satellite line because of all the problems clients had with them in the late 90s -- they also tend to be heavy machines, as well). > Models don't really matter, but in my opinion it should be a Pentium > processor, it should have WindowsXPPro if possible, it should have a > DVD-recorder (these devices also handle cd-r and cd-rw media easily), > and it should have 512MB ram at a minimum and if possible boost it to > 1GB ram. It should also have at least a 60GB hard drive, and many > models come with 80GB and nowadays even 100GB drives. It should have > a 15" screen at a minimum. It should have built-in wireless > networking. . . Be careful to check what standard of WiFi it has built in vs. what standard the university uses. The de facto standard is 802.11b, but more and more, you're seeing 802.11g as the standard, and even 802.11a and even WiMax coming down the pike, a completely different (and incompatible) standard. 802.11g is backwardly compatible with 802.11b (i.e., it can connect to 802.11b), 802.11a is a non- compatible standard (if I'm remembering correctly, it uses a different radio frequency). I'd go for a minimum of 802.11g (it's got quite a bit more potential bandwidth than 802.11b), and a combined 802.11g/a model if you can get it. I'm seeing that kind of support in wireless network access points (even the cheap Linksys wireless routers have both b and g, and for a little more money, a), so my guess would be that this will be appearing more and more in the chipsets onboard laptops. But, the most important thing is to make sure you buy something that's compatible with the university's network. This may involve more than just the WiFi standard, and may extend to issues with exactly what kind of encryptiong/security your card supports (the industry-standard though easily-cracked WEP may not be enough). > . . . and should also have a 10/100 networking port for those > places where she'll need to be tethered to the network. The USB ports > should be USB2. It most likely won't have a floppy drive, so consider > buying her a USB thumb-drive for transporting files when she doesn't > need her notebook with her or she can't bring it. > > Buy the extended warranty plan and be sure to list it on your > homeowner's insurance policy, paying extra if you need a specific > computer floater added, since college kids and pranks seem to go hand > in hand, to say nothing of the rough handling it might receive while > traveling between the dorm and the classrooms or the library. > > Buy her a small digital camera as well, so she can take pictures of > pages from reference works when she needs, rather than paying > 25-cents-a-page to make a photocopy. I don't see that as very practical. Anyone who has worked in archives knows that a digital camera (or any camera, for that matter) without a light stand is virtually useless for getting usable photos. On all your other advice, I heartily second everything you've said. Also, the lesson I learned with my first two laptops: They actually aren't designed to be carried around all over the place all the time. If you use them that way, they are likely to completely fall apart in 2 years or less. It's too bad, but it appears to be the nature of the beast. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
