Laptop replacement

[Tan]

My wifes laptop recently got damaged at home and the insurance company have decided that is beyond economical repair. They have offered us a Fujitsu Siemens as that is what the old machine was.

However, I am not that keen on Fujitsu Siemens since I have one from work and it has not been that great.

I am quite a fan of Sony and Toshiba and have narrowed choices down to Sony CW 14" Toshiba T130 13.3", but am not sure which is better, spec wise they are both more or less the same spec, and both available in Red, which is the colour of choice.

The choice of processor is confusing me, what is the difference between a Pentium and a Core 2 Duo?

Many thanks

Tan

 

[adm]

See if they'll just give you money and go and get a Macbook or Macbook Pro instead.....

(I know its a thread about PC laptops, but i just feel it's my duty in life to convince people to switch to Macs at every opportunity as they are just.....better. Nobody ever switches back again....)

 

[Tan]

See if they'll just give you money and go and get a Macbook or Macbook Pro instead.....

(I know its a thread about PC laptops, but i just feel it's my duty in life to convince people to switch to Macs at every opportunity as they are just.....better. Nobody ever switches back again....)

That thought has crossed my mind, however the value of the machine they are offering is about £450 so for the use that it will get, its not really worth putting in another £400 to get the Macbook.

But, you will be happy to herar that my next machine will be a MAC, either Macbook Pro or Mac Air

 

[johny5_uk]

+1 on the Mac support, I switched about 5 years back and havent looked back. I have a few Mac's in my house now

 

[rees_A]

Or you could just throw your money down the drain....MAC = Garbage.

I hate MACs they are overpriced overhyped rubbish. The only people who recommend them are people who have already thrown their money away and mac salesman. Recently went to PC world, mac guy there trying to pursuade me to get a mac..Made me laugh when he said 'It boots up in 10 seconds' I said ok proove it.....30 seconds later still waiting the the welcome screen to appear lol

You can get a laptop for half the price of a mac and it will be twice as fast and you will be able to do twice as much on it. My favourite conversation with mac users is how they run a virtual windows environment on it????? Whats the point??

Just get a PROPER laptop with Windows 7. I, out of personal choice, would pick a Sony over a Toshiba.... Please don't get sucked in by the 'MAC Brigade'

 

[johny5_uk]

Lol, I am not a mac salesman, I manage 160 engineers throughout the UK that maintain and repair computers but each to their own, if you like your windows 7 then thats great

 

[rees_A]

Which company do u work for Johny, we have outsourced lots of Pc repair work to external companies(We have various field service contracts with BT, Argos, etc) We also have contracts for TV installations etc

You may have done some work on our behalf...

 

[Dryce]

The only people who recommend them are people who have already thrown their money away and mac salesman

That kind of makes sense as the people who have never owned one wouldn't actually realise that they should be recommended.

I've got six active machines at present, 2 each of mac, linux, and Windows.

The machine I *choose* to use is a Mac.

The machine I *choose* to take into situations where I may end up with a tricky technical problem - is a Mac.

And yes. They are overpriced. But in some ways they are actually underhyped.

 

[johny5_uk]

Which company do u work for Johny, we have outsourced lots of Pc repair work to external companies(We have various field service contracts with BT, Argos, etc) We also have contracts for TV installations etc

You may have done some work on our behalf...

Hey Rees, will pm you when I hit 30 posts

I am ducking out of the Mac/Pc debate, I genuinely think if someone were *thinking* about getting a Mac to try one, if it works for them and they can afford one then go for it. If they prefer another OS same reason as above then thats just fine also

 

[grober]

My wifes laptop recently got damaged at home and the insurance company have decided that is beyond economical repair. They have offered us a Fujitsu Siemens as that is what the old machine was.
However, I am not that keen on Fujitsu Siemens since I have one from work and it has not been that great.
The choice of processor is confusing me, what is the difference between a Pentium and a Core 2 Duo?
Tan

Some info on Intel processors here Intel Microprocessor Quick Reference Guide - Product Family

If your insurance cover is new for old I would be asking for the money since the insurance company may well have a "deal" with a Fujitsu Siemens supplier meaning you might end up with an end of line product. Whatever you get make sure it has the latest software onboard or a free upgrade option--- to Windows 7 and enough memory to cope.

 

[Tan]

The insurenace company have offered the following two machines, the second one they want £50 contribution towards but I can't decide which is better to go for.

Toshiba Satellite T13011J:
Intel Pentium Dual-Core processor SU4100
(1.3Ghz, 800Mhz, 2MB Cache)
Genuine Windows (R) 7 Home Premium
4GB Memory
250GB Hard drive

or

Toshiba Satellite Pro T130-14Q
ProcessorIntel® Core™2 Solo Processor SU3500 | clock speed : 1.40 GHz | Front Side Bus : 800 MHz | 2nd level cache : 3 MB
Genuine Windows Pro 64 bit
4GB Memory
250GB Hard drive

 

[renault12ts]

( Hijack) I was in PC World to-day. All the laptops on display ( bar one by HP) had those glossy highly reflective screens. Are they really an advance??

 

[Sp!ke]

The reflective screens are a backward step imho unless you work in a darkened room.

They seem to be a it in vogue for laptops at the moment for some reason but I suspect that will change in time.

 

[grober]

The only comment I would make is that neither seem to come with an onboard dvd/cd drive which I personally would find a nuisance!

 

[Tan]

The only comment I would make is that neither seem to come with an onboard dvd/cd drive which I personally would find a nuisance!

The main feature that we wanted from this laptop was that it is thin and light, so we can live with out a DVD drive as hardly ever use one.

 

[adm]

Or you could just throw your money down the drain....MAC = Garbage.

I hate MACs they are overpriced overhyped rubbish. The only people who recommend them are people who have already thrown their money away and mac salesman. Recently went to PC world, mac guy there trying to pursuade me to get a mac..Made me laugh when he said 'It boots up in 10 seconds' I said ok proove it.....30 seconds later still waiting the the welcome screen to appear lol

You can get a laptop for half the price of a mac and it will be twice as fast and you will be able to do twice as much on it. My favourite conversation with mac users is how they run a virtual windows environment on it????? Whats the point??

Just get a PROPER laptop with Windows 7. I, out of personal choice, would pick a Sony over a Toshiba.... Please don't get sucked in by the 'MAC Brigade'

Sheesh Rees....that sounds like sour grapes. I suggest if you haven't got past the welcome screen on a Mac, that you should take one out for a long test drive.... on the other hand, stick with your cobbled together software on your plastic computer if it makes you feel better.

I'd call Macs the Mercedes of computers. They are superbly engineered (take for example the body on the MacBook Pros which is milled from a solid aluminium billet, the 7 hour internal battery or the high quality ultrabright LED displays), they do exactly what they say on the tin reliably. For years and without complaint. Yes, they are more expensive than most. Yes, you can buy faster.

But the quality, reliability, ease of use and ownership experience speaks for itself and owners tend to keep coming back for more. That speaks volumes.

One interesting factoid is that I work for a company with over 160,000 employees, and not one of the Mac users has needed help or fixes from our IT department. It's a different story for the PC users where IT fight a running battle.

As for running windows on the Mac....it's a "because we can" thing. This machine I'm using has OSX, Ubuntu, Unix, Win XP and Win 7 installed on it and I can use any of them or even all of them at the same time should I wish to. But I don't wish to or need to and there's a good reason for that!