The Goat Pen

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ssd is a solid state drive (like a flash drive). It will hold less data but as you suspected is faster and more durable as there are no moving parts to ramp up and/or break as in a standard hard drive.

Seems like 80 gigs would be plenty on a pared down machine that was mostly being used for an internet application, and you could use an external monitor for songs and videos and stuff. But hell, I haven't downloaded 5 porn videos since I discovered redtube (etc). Why bother?

I noticed now you also asked about solid state drive later. the 80 GB he offered to replace the 500GB with is also solid state drive. The RPM question closely aligns with ssd vs standard also, as RPMs are immportant because the faster a drive spins, the faster iut can read the data stored. SSD's have no moving storage disk, the computer just basically accesses the memory directly to get what it needs rather than reading it off a spinning disk so access to the drive is faster.

I suspect that the cheapest laptops available at the standard places would be fine for you performance wise (but of course durability is always in question when skimping)

I have yet buy for myself or have a family member buy a cheap Acer or whatever product that didnt have an issue with some kind of annoying physical problem like poor case design or a button failing fairly quickly, or even an occasional major hardware component problem after a couple years. (My current $300 Acer has a bullshit fucking case (designed to look totally awesome!) that I have to open up every few weeks because the power button gets stuck, and the optical drive (belt probably) is fucking up so that a disk wont eject without sticking a pin in the manual eject hole. And of course, due to the super sweet case, I also have to open the entire goddamned thing up to do that as well, because the front cover of the case covers up the pinhole on the drive).

Thats one thing about Apple products, people whine and moan because they are expensive for the performance compared to PC's, but those bitches dont have a bunch of flaws or bad engineering either and the hardware components seem to be high quality as well.

honestly I didn't read all of that but I got the jist of it from ATM 's reply.

for surfing the net, email, watching porn - online and or DVD, pretty much any basic machine will do that to your satisfaction.

The most expensive machine isn't going to play online porn any better than a cheap one provided you have a good hard wired or wireless connection. The most basic stuff on a modern $400 laptop was considered high end shit 5 years ago. For example 5 years ago a 250gb hd would have been a $200 upgrade, now its standard.

I've yet to see a compelling reason to buy a solid state hard drive unless you sit around waiting for windows to load and you get pissed about it.

I do agree that Acer is junk. Toshiba seems to make a decent low end model that is maybe $100 more than the cheapies. Dell is hit or miss but on the whole, Dell's seem to be pretty decent builds. If I did get an Acer, I'd probably buy it with an American Express card (doesn't Amex double the warranty on any item you buy or did they stop doing that?) or I'd consider buying the extended warranty as long as it wasn't more than say $80.

I can't add much to this topic except something my dad told me when I was looking at buying my first computer. "With Puters," he said, "more is always better." Don't skimp because what sounds like too much RAM or whatever now, won't be enough in 3 years.

So I always buy the best computer I can possibly afford because an obsolete puter isn't worth anything even if it works great.

About brands: I started with an HP. I used that thing for 4 years and it was still going strong 3 years after I gave it to my niece. Sadly, it was underpowered for anything at that point. I switched to Dells because they were simple to upgrade. I've never upgraded one though, so I guess that isn't as big a deal as I was told. My Dells have varied from great to just OK, none were as sturdy as my original HP though. With my first Dell, the hard drive crashed 3 years in, and the second had disk drive problems after the first year or so.

I don't use lap tops because I don't see well anymore and a big screen is important to me. Although you can connect your lap-top to a large display if you're at home.

Anyway, good luck with the whatever you get.

my experience is the opposite, I'm no pro.. but I consider myself a power user

bought a $69 PC tower in china town with no OS & loaded the bare minimums... and kept it that way

no google/yahoo/msn toolbars or any of that shyt. I run spybot & ccleaner every once in a while

Im still running xp, removed ms messenger and didnt install a tonne of shyt

when I buy peripherals, they better plug & play

if I plug in my mp3 player all I get is a usb directory to drag & drop mp3s into

any device that makes me install some BS software can getdafuqqout, lean & mean baby

so eff itunes & eff ipods & eff steve jobs

T Dot O Dot wrote:so eff itunes & eff ipods & eff steve jobs

Amen. Eff Mock Neck Stevie and his proprietary plantation.

Mac-head Stu just got called out!

the need for a high end machine is really about 2 things - longevity and apps.

A high end machine will most likely be the one that has the largest capacity for memory either installed or with empty banks, and will have a processor/video card with more horsepower to do things like video editing and playing the most recent video games.

Video games drive the high end computer market more than anything else, especially first person shooters and sim games. The sims is basically a huge CAD program and by design requires a monster machine to process at the best quality.

But if you don't plan on doing any of those things then the most basic laptop that has wireless (WiFI) - preferably "N" but "G" will do, a DVD burner (which will also make CD's), and a ATI or GeForce video card (at that isn't even required) and finally 4gb of RAM (but preferably 6gb for windows 7) will do.

Of all the things you can spend money on getting 6gb of RAM is going to be the best investment for an upgrade.

Also, while I have no preference between an AMD or Intel processor, If I had a choice between a machine that had a celeron processor or another, I'd choose anything but a Celeron. A Quad Core processor on Windows 7 will give you the ability to run any processor heavy 64 bit app that is out there (although admittedly most of mine are still 32)

if you add that all together , then a laptop with 6gb of ram, a quad core processor and a ATI or GeForce video card with Wireless "N" is going to be a mid level box going for around $550 - $600. That will be the HP/Compaq/Dell/Toshiba/Gateway level machine.

As mentioned before, the first thing I do when I buy a new box is uninstall all the anti virus bullshit and toolbars, etc which improves startup time and overall performance dramatically (I install my own anti-virus, etc after that however)

One other thing, if you buy a new laptop you should probably buy some blank DVD's. Some machines give you a chance to back up your machine or create discs of your OS the first time you run the machine - these will be invaluable to you if you ever crash your machine or get a particularly nasty virus. About every 6 months alot of people just back up their data and restore their machine to out of the box for performance reasons anyways. Think about how you are going to store your pics, videos, docs, etc to make it easy to back up later on.

I never buy computers if they are status symbols. After all, ALL computers are expactly the same. It is ridonkulous to pay more. In fact, all computers should be free. You write on computers, and writing is a form of speech and it should be FREE!

AA is back baby!!!

"But if you don't plan on doing any of those things then the most basic laptop that has wireless (WiFI) - preferably "N" but "G" will do"

What do you mean by N and G? I realize that's low-hanging fruit for a joke, but let's be civil for once...

"SSD's have no moving storage disk, the computer just basically accesses the memory directly to get what it needs rather than reading it off a spinning disk so access to the drive is faster."

Why don't they make 500GB solid state harddrives? I would guess the obvious reason is cost, but I'd also have to guess that there would at least be some market out there for geeks who want massive storage at the fastest speed who don't mind paying extra...

Thanks for all the input/advice, guys. I'm going to print all this and take it to Tiger Direct this weekend. In the meantime, check out this site. This is the type of computer that this whacky trader dude who does audio broadcasts for our broker recommends. I think they probably have some deal with him ("mention our brand, we'll send you a couple for free"), but they do look pretty nice....

"If you increase the speed of a computer by 20% then the performance of that computer will increase by 20%. That is what we do best. Cheap computers require Intel to rate their processors slower than they can safely go. Our motherboards have 12-16 voltage regulators vs. the 2-3 that is typical of cheap computers. More voltage regulators mean smoother voltage delivery and much better stability. Our motherboards are also more precise in setting the correct voltage."

http://www.tradingcomputers.com/TCdesktop.html

hedge wrote:"But if you don't plan on doing any of those things then the most basic laptop that has wireless (WiFI) - preferably "N" but "G" will do"

What do you mean by N and G? I realize that's low-hanging fruit for a joke, but let's be civil for once...

3 popular type of wireless B, G and N - the bandwidth ( download speed, streaming video quality) increases with each one - IF you have the proper equipment which usually means a matching router.

G is pretty standard. N is backwards compatible with G and B, G is backwards compatible with B.

If you are taking your laptop to a coffee shop to get their free wifi, it doesn't mean much. It will all work.

hedge wrote:Thanks for all the input/advice, guys. I'm going to print all this and take it to Tiger Direct this weekend. In the meantime, check out this site. This is the type of computer that this whacky trader dude who does audio broadcasts for our broker recommends. I think they probably have some deal with him ("mention our brand, we'll send you a couple for free"), but they do look pretty nice....

"If you increase the speed of a computer by 20% then the performance of that computer will increase by 20%. That is what we do best. Cheap computers require Intel to rate their processors slower than they can safely go. Our motherboards have 12-16 voltage regulators vs. the 2-3 that is typical of cheap computers. More voltage regulators mean smoother voltage delivery and much better stability. Our motherboards are also more precise in setting the correct voltage."

http://www.tradingcomputers.com/TCdesktop.html

I don't doubt all that horseshit - its the basic concept of overclocking but if you have no idea how you are going to apply that technology, then it is overkill.

A more stable power supply translates to a more stable machine in terms of say, your video card not melting on you but honestly, its spending money where money doesn't need to be spent.

Kinda like a guy buying a Corvette to drive thru a school zone every day.

That is basically the type of guys they are marketing to, i.e., online traders who think they are big swinging dicks b/c they made 10 grand on one trade one time. The other hallmark of those guys is they love multiple screens, the more the better (check out the screen modules link on that site, it's a big item for them). Logan is somewhat in that camp, but to his credit, he usually builds his own stuff and I don't think he's too impressed with the voltage shit, he just goes with good standard compnents..