Hi Andy and Johnny, I agree with all you said Andy, but I wanted to add a couple of points:
one is that sometimes portability doesn't mean easily carrying it around with you all day; it often means being able to move it to the bedroom, or the living room easy-chair, or where-ever suits you at the moment. that's actually how almost everyone I know uses their laptop, and why they bought a laptop. oh we sometimes put it in the car to go somewhere else, but you're right; if you're going to want to use this on the bus every day, you should look at netbooks, and the ultra small laptops that weigh under 3 pounds, but which are definitely laptops and not netbooks. myself, I've seen too many complaints about the speed of netbook processors, especially trying to deal with synthetic speech, screen readers, and some large program like MS Word, to ever think of a netbook as anything but a secondary computer, bought after I bought my main computer. Johnny I know you want brand names, and I have a Dell, and before that a Thinkpad, and my next one is likely to be a Thinkpad again, but it's because they have the features I want, and perhaps at the price I think is good, but it's not really because of their brand name. so, I'd spend time thinking of features, after you make the broader decision of netbook, laptop, or desktop. my own prejudices: I'd say you should buy a laptop not a netbook or a desktop, and you should get wifi and bluetooth and a dvd burner. you'll pay more for less weight, but do so if you have to carry it a lot, and put one of the extended life batteries in it and at least 4 gb of ram, even if you end up with a 32 bit system you'll be able to use mostly all of the ram. that's a big decision point: do you want to avoid the 64 bit systems (maybe buy 32 bit windows 7 even if you get a 64 bit processor)? some people think that's better because it will certainly run more software right now, and the extra speed of 64 bits (for the same dollar value) is hardly noticable. I don't know how I feel about this; some of the answer depends on if you have very specific hardware or software you just have to be able to use; if so, you'll need to check out if they will work under 64 bit. hth, Chip -----Original Message----- From: Andy Baracco [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2009 5:19 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Laptop recommendations Well, this is a difficult one, without more info about what your needs are, and what is important to you. How do you plan to use the laptop? why a laptop and not a desktop. The main advantage of a laptop is portability. But if you want a large screen and a full keyboard, you will have a machine that is so heavy and bulky that you won't find it to be very portable. True portability and light weight will mean a smaller screen and a keyboard that has fewer keys, and smaller keys. So it's really a tradeoff. 3 years ago, I bought a Dell laptop with a 14 inch screen. it weighs about 5.5 pounds. i purchased a USB numpad so I would have basically a full keyboard. It didn't turn out to be as portable as I liked, so I bought an Asus netbook. it has a 10 inch display and weighs about 3 pounds. The keys are smaller, and i have never felt really comfortable with the keyboard. But it is portable, and will fit nicely into my briefcase. So my best advice would be to go to a computer store and put your fingers on some machines and see what feels good to you. Remember that it will be wasted money if you don't like the feel, and thus don't use the machine. Andy At 12:41 PM 12/31/2009, you wrote: >Hello list, > >What works best with WE? > >Please be so kind as to let me know what you have decided on in a >laptop. Please! I am not wishing to start any kind of debate, I'm >mearly wanting to know what folks are personally settleing on in a >laptop, not a netbook. Give me brand name and model number if you can. >Specific additional specs like which processor, or how big of a hard >drive you got is not important at this time. If you wish to tell me >more, please save the list and write to me personally. > >Thanks so much, > >Happy New Year 2010 to one and all! > >Blessings, > >Johnny Chilelli >Piano Tuner/Technician since 1977 >Making Pianos Smile Everywhere! > >If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original >sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your >message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your >message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. > >All GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo, and >can be searched through and sorted using the search form at the bottom >of the page. >If you wish to unsubscribe from this list, send a message to >[email protected] and include leave gw-info in the body of the message. > If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. All GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo, and can be searched through and sorted using the search form at the bottom of the page. If you wish to unsubscribe from this list, send a message to [email protected] and include leave gw-info in the body of the message. If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. All GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo, and can be searched through and sorted using the search form at the bottom of the page. If you wish to unsubscribe from this list, send a message to [email protected] and include leave gw-info in the body of the message.
