my new laptop
 

I'm not the best versed computer guy in the world, and my wife needed a laptop for her work, so i went out and bought one...

I started looking around the 700 dollar range, and wound up doubling the price by the time I was done...

I want some opinions and feedback about what i bought, and wonder if its a good system or I just got sold...
I got an HP DV9000 series with a Core 2 Duo 5500, 2G ram, and dual 100G HDs @ 5000+- rpm.

They kept talking about the front end something... and it seems fast, but I'm not really doing anything with it.

I was disappointed that I couldn't really find any machines with any free decent software... you can build them, but you pay the same as if you just bought the software seperately (MS office, etc...)

its has a 17 inch screen, which I like, but its a little glossy and reflective in high light situations...

Anyway, I bought it for 1300 bucks... Could I have done alot better? The speakers are nice and it has a built in cam/mic combo... and I'm excited about the lightscribe feature... that sounds pretty cool...


Besides the feedback, are there any good sources for free software that I might enjoy? vista comp?

Re: my new laptop
 

The truth is, you could have done much better. If she just needs a laptop for work, you definitely have some overkill. That's a pretty high end machine, while you could probably have gone cheaper and gotten similar results, that's a pretty nice one.

Re: my new laptop
 

The cool thing about the Core Duo is that you get some great battery life, usually like 5-6 hours depending on what cell batter you have. It's not only Vista compatible, it's "Vista Premium" compatible. However, if you have Windows XP, I would go ahead and use that until SP1 for Vista comes out.

Microsoft has been doing a good job of convincing everyone they "need" Vista, when it reality it's just a pretty interface that's no different from XP (not really anyway). Already, there have been quite a few security flaws found in Vista, plus they don't support a lot of legacy devices within the operating system.

Re: my new laptop
 

It just seems like everytime I buy something Its outdated in a matter of months....

What I want to know is if the processor is good, and if I overpaid for all the crap I got...

If I did, how could I have done better?

Re: my new laptop
 

People say it's outdated, but that's only if you want to be on the bleeding edge of gaming really. Really, all it comes down to is whether or not your machine meets your needs for what you want to do.

I built a machine from scratch my sophomore year of college. I still have it today, and it still runs great for what I need it to do. I play some games, use the internet and use Word, and it works perfectly fine and fast.

That machine, if you keep up with it, is going to be fine for years to come. Sure, next week a game will come out that will need the best video card on the market, but really, that's the only reason people say computers get "outdated". That processor is a really good one and should be very fast. There's also a few optimizations you can do to Windows to speed it up substantially.

Re: my new laptop
 

Overkill maybe, but I think you did okay. There is definitely a school of thought about buying more than you need, so that it doesn't become obsolete sooner.

2GB of RAM is a lot for normal users, and it should suffice for more than the practical life of the laptop. Also, the RAM is arguably the most important thing regarding performance, so you generally don't want to skimp there. I'd say that 200GB of disk space is probably much more than you need, so you could have probably saved some money there.

Re: my new laptop
 

[quote=canthetuna;275415]They kept talking about the front end something... and it seems fast, but I'm not really doing anything with it.
[/quote]

Front Side Bus. :)

It's what connects your CPU (the brain) to the RAM (memory) and the rest of the internal parts. The higher the FSB speed, the faster your computer can work.

That's higher of a price than I would ever pay for any computer, but then again I build my own and for laptops, I buy broken ones and refurbish them to save money. :D

Your computer is going to be super fast for a long time. That's a ton of memory, more than any software will require for at least a decade most likely. I like HP for laptops, they're good, realiable machines. The hard drives hold a lot, but they're a little on the slow side (most PCs now have 7200 rpm drives, but then again, that's the speed for desktop drives, laptop specs are always a little behind).

If you already have Windows XP...STAY WITH IT for at least 6 months or maybe even a year. Never get a newly-released Windows, especially if you're not connected to the internet with that machine. Microsoft loves to release an operating system and let the first buyers do the testing and debugging, which usually takes about 6 months for the most important updates and fixes to be released.

Overall, you should be very happy with this laptop for a long time. It's no where near being "outdated" unless you're planning on being one of the geeks who sit and play the newest games all day and night. :)

Re: my new laptop
 

[quote=Buster;275451]That's higher of a price than I would ever pay for any computer, but then again I build my own [B][I]and for laptops, I buy broken ones and refurbish them to save money.[/I][/B] :D[/quote]

That's SO the way to go too. You can control the type of hard drive (I usually use Samsung) amount of RAM and quality, even upgrade stuff and oftentimes sell it for far more than you bought it for.

Re: my new laptop
 

[quote=TheMalcolmConnection;275454]That's SO the way to go too. You can control the type of hard drive (I usually use Samsung) amount of RAM and quality, even upgrade stuff and oftentimes sell it for far more than you bought it for.[/quote]


Yeah, my wife had a Dell laptop that's good enough for her uses and it cost me a TOTAL of about $120 to buy it and replace/install the parts it needed.

Most people will sell "broken" laptops for next to nothing because they don't know how easy it will be to fix it. :D

Re: my new laptop
 

A lot of people sell them because they think it's something hardware, when really just the OS needs a reinstall. A lot of times I can buy them for about a hundred bucks, install XP, resell for three-hundred.

Re: my new laptop
 

Malcolm -- Get used to lack of support for Legacy items. Rumor has it MS is going the way of Mac and saying screw Legacy stuff. It's hard to update the drivers for a new OS and there are lots of security problems. We had a pretty long discussion about this in class, pretty interesting stuff.

Re: my new laptop
 

the thing about battery life is the bigger screens murder it, if you have a super fast gfx card (for a laptop), that hurts, and the processor is next.

for ~800 (rebate sale) you could have gotten dual core amd 64... worse battery life, but at 17", it's not going to be amazing to begin with. at the same price range you could probably get a lower end dual core 15" of either brand too.

honestly, unless you're using it for gaming or video editing, the speed difference isn't going to be noticed, and for gaming, the gfx card is the bottleneck for laptops (which usually use low end pieces).

anyways, it's not outrageous for what you got, but its probably a good bit more than you actually need. I mean, 2g ram and 200gb HD space on a laptop is really a lot ;).

Re: my new laptop
 

[quote=That Guy;275662]the thing about battery life is the bigger screens murder it, if you have a super fast gfx card (for a laptop), that hurts, and the processor is next.

for ~800 (rebate sale) you could have gotten dual core amd 64... worse battery life, but at 17", it's not going to be amazing to begin with. at the same price range you could probably get a lower end dual core 15" of either brand too.

honestly, unless you're using it for gaming or video editing, the speed difference isn't going to be noticed, and for gaming, the gfx card is the bottleneck for laptops (which usually use low end pieces).

anyways, it's not outrageous for what you got, but its probably a good bit more than you actually need. I mean, 2g ram and 200gb HD space on a laptop is really a lot ;).[/quote]


hey, I'm cool with that... I cant build a laptop, and I dont mind having more than I need...

I had a desktop built for me a couple of years ago that is still nice, and its about the same paramiters as the laptop...

I thought this one would be nice on trips for movies and such, and we like to edit home movies with our digital video camera, so its handy for that... tha lightscribe thing excites me and I really want to try it out...

the last time I spent this kind of money on a computer was when I upgraded from my moms 386 to my own 486 DX... and then the DX II came out followed by the pentium within a year... and I was left in the dust...

much rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it...

without doing upgrades yourself, upgrading can be much more expensive than just getting a machine with all the crap on it.

Re: my new laptop
 

If I were looking for a good "work laptop", any of you guys have anything good? PM me if interested

Re: my new laptop
 

Your average user should be paying more than a grand for a laptop. Seriously, what are you going to do with computer except browse Internet, check email, and create documents?


BTW, laptops are more likely to break before they are outdated so you are better off spending extra money on service plan than some extra feature you don't need.

Re: my new laptop
 

[quote=saden1;275708]Your average user should be paying more than a grand for a laptop. Seriously, what are you going to do with computer except browse Internet, check email, and create documents?


BTW, laptops are more likely to break before they are outdated so you are better off spending extra money on service plan then some extra feature you don't need.[/quote]


Not all laptops. The IBM Thinkpads and older Dells last a long time as long as you don't drop it down the stairs. My wife's is a Pentium 2 Dell Latitude (366 mhz is all she needs for solitaire and writing with no internet) and it's still solid as a rock. I just had to put it's 3rd hard drive in it, but it still has years left. If the mobo ever craps out, I'll replace it with a Thinkpad I think.