Hmmm. . .

Haven't looked at what's been happening in computers for 5 years, and well, wife dropped the old PIII laptop recently, and I need to replace it with something. After looking at things online 'til my eyes bugged out, I've narrowed it down to some options to consider. Primary use would be internet/music/wordprocessing/powerpoint/digital audio editing . . . secondary use would be gaming.

I'm researching student pricing on the iBook,
a fellow lister has made the Powerbook available,
and the gamer in me would like to get the Athlon 64 machine.


opinion away!!

Get a Shuttle... Check out the Shuttle website to see the different models. I've been building and selling them for awhile and have never had an issue. In fact my home machine has been up 2 years without any issues. If your looking for a laptop I'm partial to the Thinkpads.

Opinions are like a$$holes, everyones got one.....



My best,
Mike D.

get the A64 if you aren't stuck with on-board video... most emachines have on-board video and only PCI slots available for upgrades(red: no good video cards can run on standard PCI anymore)... you can build a nice A64 cheap though... I can help you pick the parts, if you like... and a trained monkey can assemble a PC

I built computers to fund my way through college and I still build them for people here at work, who want a gaming machine for home...

I dunno about the *new* shuttle parts... I used shuttle MBs a few years ago though(very cheap with features that are nice) but I won't use them again... 1/2 of those boards were CRAP...and had to be RMA'd (so I spent more time repairing the computers I just built, than building new ones)... this was a few years back, things easily could have changed... if you want a cheap board though: get an ECS... the company has been around a long time, and I've never had a bad board... I use them in my personal PC... just don't plan on overclocking it...

I don't like MACs, but that's just me... the best part about them is the OS: it's UNIX... not linux, UNIX... they *are* user friendly

i'd go with a mac, but then it's like a religion and i've got it bad

I'd pay a little extra and get something with a Warranty & Support. I like Macs - I think they are better designed (on the whole), but that comes down to your preference.

You can get the education discount from Apple by going to a special area on their website. I would go for any of the current line of Powerbooks - but I might wait until Tiger comes out (should be April 15th, but that's a rumour).

Fiid.

A Powerbook or a Mac Mini, depending on whether or you have a working monitor, and need it to be portable.

I've not owned a Mac since I had a 512K Mac 20 years ago (egads, I can't believe it was that long ago), but the next machine I buy will probably be one my second Mac (and I've owned dozens of boxes since). IMHO, no need for a Windows box unless you absolutely NEED to run some bit of software. If what you need is the usual "office" stuff and a browser, a Mac will give you all of those, and it's a better package right now. All of the Unix weenies like me are also now buying Macs, since that's what it basically is underneath.

QUOTE (lapuwali @ Apr 7 2005, 03:23 PM)

A Powerbook or a Mac Mini, depending on whether or you have a working monitor, and need it to be portable. I've not owned a Mac since I had a 512K Mac 20 years ago (egads, I can't believe it was that long ago), but the next machine I buy will probably be one my second Mac (and I've owned dozens of boxes since). IMHO, no need for a Windows box unless you absolutely NEED to run some bit of software. If what you need is the usual "office" stuff and a browser, a Mac will give you all of those, and it's a better package right now. All of the Unix weenies like me are also now buying Macs, since that's what it basically is underneath.

he mentioned playing games... which is why I recommended the PC...


unless he plays "marathon"

yes, MAC ARE running UNIX with a gui, plain and simple, I love the MAC OS X++

but if you want to play games, a PC is the only way to FLY...

Ideally, you could get a (used maybe) mac laptop and build a cheap gaming PC ... best of all worlds... but I'm the guy with the parts to 5+ computers at home

Thanks for the input. . .

I'm heavily leaning towards the mac laptop side because a generous 914club member has offered to help me out with the powerbook.

Computers and I generally get along well, and they typically live unproblematic lives with me, so i'm not as terribly concerned about the tech support side. I'm easy either way with mac or PC, but my wife really likes PC's. . . so, I think my plan will be to get the powerbook, and then get a desktop PC later as the need arises.

The only game I play is Urban Terror. . . a Quake III mod since counterstrike never ported to Mac. This machine will run that adequately. . . not admirably, but adequately I've never had a fast gaming system so I wouldn't know the difference.

-'Chung