New laptop recommendations

I use a DELL Inspiron 15 that I bought 4 years ago and still going strong. Will likely upgrade to another DELL when the time comes to upgrade, which will be when this baby doesn't work anymore!
 
geoffw said:
That is an Acer which a few people have already suggested to avoid :(
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There are Samsung Chromebooks, which apparently are quite good.

Google also sells their own branded Chromebook, but that's a very expensive model, designed to showcase the technology - much better value in the Samsung model.
 
Richard Feynman said:
If I were in the market, I'd get a Chromebook: http://www.jbhifi.com.au/computers/chromebook/
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If you only ever use browser-based apps, a Chromebook could be very good value - especially at less than $400 for the Samsung model.

Just be aware of the limitations - you can only install apps designed for Chrome (which are mostly just online cloud-based apps that you can access from any browser on any device).

You can't even install Android apps - so the only document editing tools you have available are via Google Docs. Not that this is much of a problem if your document creation needs are modest - I run my entire business on cloud based apps, haven't had MS Office installed for years.

What's more, you are entirely tied to Google's ecosystem for backup / synchronisation / data storage / etc. You really don't get a choice.

I was researching this recently and came to the conclusion that, unless budget was your #1 priority and functionality was not as important (in which case you could possibly get away with a Chromebook) ... then an Android-based tablet paired with a good blue-tooth keyboard would be a better option.

A tablet gives you access to the massive library of Android applications - many of which are reasonable substitutes for desktop applications, there's a far larger choice of hardware available, and you get the flexibility of a touch-screen device as well.

My current laptop is reaching the end of its useful life for me, I've been looking at replacing it with a high-end custom-built workstation with support for 4 or more monitors for my day-to-day application development work.

Then for when I need to go mobile, getting a powerful tablet (I have a 2 year old Asus Transformer which is great, but starting to show its age), coupled with a nice bluetooth keyboard - much more compact, and can do pretty much anything I need while on the road, other than serious application development (even then, I can do text editing as required).

With good sync services available now (I use Dropbox + Google Drive + Evernote), plus most of my business systems working out of the cloud, I can use pretty much any device anywhere to do most of my work - the hardware effectively becomes commoditised.

For those situations where I'm not at my office, but really need access to the applications I run on my workstation because the tablet just can't handle them ... there's always remote access! I use Teamviewer, works great on a tablet, can run apps off my main computer from anywhere in the world!

It won't be long and I'll be able to simply move my main workstation to the cloud, and access it remotely from where-ever on what-ever device I happen to be sitting in front of. Commoditised workstation! The thing I sit in front of at my office then effectively becomes not much more than a thin-client giving me input and output from my remote/online workstation.

I've already moved my development server to the cloud - I got sick of fighting my local machine trying to get my software development tools running on it, so I simply set up a new VPS (in Tokyo!) for my Dev server and I access everything remotely. Any time I save a file in my editor, it automatically saves to the VPS via SSH, and I test my applications from there. I can even do remote debugging over the internet.

THIS is why I want an FTTP NBN ... I can do so much more with ubiquitous very high speed internet!
 
FMS said:
I use a DELL Inspiron 15 that I bought 4 years ago and still going strong. Will likely upgrade to another DELL when the time comes to upgrade, which will be when this baby doesn't work anymore!
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Speaking of laptop upgrades - I recently helped my sister-in-law upgrade her 5 year old R500 ThinkPad (running Vista!).

We looked at all the various options for replacing the machine - but in the end, the most attractive option was to upgrade rather than replace.

I bought an SSD drive, 8GB of RAM and a copy of Windows 7 (total cost about $450) ... copied all her data off, put the new hardware in, installed the new version of Windows, copied her data back ... and it's like a completely new machine!

Seriously, an SSD and a memory upgrade will be just like having a new laptop for most people - that machine is very fast now, boots in around 15 seconds (previously took literally 4 minutes!!).

Yes, the old computer lacks the video grunt to play high def videos, or computer games - but it's more than adequate for running MS Office and accessing the web and email and such.

When she finally does decide to upgrade, we'll just take the SSD and put it in the new machine.

Personally, I won't ever use a machine without an SSD - makes such a difference to the performance.
 
woz said:
So this has 24 gig ssd and is dual core, will that be enough to future proof it for say 3 yrs?
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Actually has a 24GB SSD + 1TB HDD ... we call that a "hybrid" drive system. Designed as a compromise between speed and storage capacity.

I've not had any experience with this combination, so I can't comment on limitations or gotchas you might face.
 
FMS said:
Have a computer guru friend who speaks highly of the SSD so that will be part of the tick list!
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Yes! My "nerdy" brother built a PC for me recently. He talked up the SSD and he was absolutely right. It makes such a massive difference.

Cheers

Jamie
 
Toshiba, Lenovo or HP as they have great after sales support if you do have an issues.

I would be looking for atleast an I5, 4gb memory, SSD.

Cant recommend anything as i dont really like to much at the moment. I would wait a couple of months for the sales and new releases coming into christmas if you can.
 
willb said:
Toshiba, Lenovo or HP as they have great after sales support if you do have an issues.

I would be looking for atleast an I5, 4gb memory, SSD.

Cant recommend anything as i dont really like to much at the moment. I would wait a couple of months for the sales and new releases coming into christmas if you can.
Click to expand...
Wish I could willb, pc decided to go on strike and doesnt want to play anymore.
 
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