I need a laptop

[Walowiz]

My iMac is currently with the geniuses at my local Apple store.

My Dell laptop has finally given up after many many good years of service and I'm learning quickly that I cannot survive just using the iPad.

I don't fancy buying a new laptop at the moment so I'm looking after either a secondhand lenovo thinkpad, or apple MacBook Pro.

Question for the collective Ukgser techies is a 4-6 year old MBP a sensible buy, over a roughly equivalent spec wise 2-3 year old thinkpad ?

 

[Gigsy]

Yes. I'm still using my 6 year old MacBook and much as I want a nice shiny new one, it still works perfectly so there's no point just yet.

 

[Myke Rocks]

Go on ebay

and buy a Dell D520 Latitude.
Anywhere between £80 & £150
They are fairly bulletproof.
They come with either XP professional or 7 professional.
For my work they are superb. (Industrial programming - XP preferred)
A business laptop with 4 usb ports and a serial port. No camera.
Dirt cheap for what they are.
Myke

 

[Walowiz]

thanks Myke

I've had more than a few Latitudes through work and some have been ok, but most have failed early on. My last with work had a known wifi issue, where the laptop would lock up completely every 15 minutes if the wifi switch was switched on at the same time as the Ethernet cable was plugged in, with no known solution. All of this is ok when I don't have to pay for it.

Whilst the ones you mention are good value, I just cannot bring myself to get a Latitude for home.

 

[littleredrooster]

I've just bought one of these - couldn't resist it at the price. Should be delivered today, hopefully.

Laptop

 

[stolzy]

Question for the collective Ukgser techies is a 4-6 year old MBP a sensible buy, over a roughly equivalent spec wise 2-3 year old thinkpad ?

Question is do you really want windows?

Personally, I think a world of frustration and dissatisfaction is likely to be in your future if you go from Mac OS to windows.

 

[flatdog]

I've just bought one of these - couldn't resist it at the price. Should be delivered today, hopefully.

Laptop

Good price but what about the faulty touch screen ?

 

[Walowiz]

OSX vs Windows

I have no preference to OSX or Windows 7.

Windows 7 has been as reliable and easy to use as OSX for me. I mainly use OSX (on an iMac) for movie editing and photo stuff, which it is rather good at, even for a 5 year old machine.

I'm leaning towards Windows, as this will probably become my daughters laptop in 6-9 months time and I've been advised that most school software is windows based ?

Unless anyone here knows different.

 

[Walowiz]

Anyone bought a laptop from the US ?

been looking at laptops in the US (Lenovo etc) in the US and they are priced pretty well against here, especially on the Lenovo outlet store.

Has anyone any experience of buying laptops form the US and having them delivered here at all ?

 

[littleredrooster]

Good price but what about the faulty touch screen ?

Doesn't bother me - it's got a perfectly good touch-pad-mouse-thingy. Those 'in the know' reckon the touchscreen can be made to work by installing the new drivers in the correct sequence; I'll try it sometime.