laptop recommendation [Archive] - ValueMD Medical Schools Forum

jaywalk81

07-30-2005, 06:06 PM

For those on the Island, what do you recommend I get in a laptop:

1. Windows Home or Professional?
2. 40GB or more?
3. Memory: 256MB/512MB/more...?
4. Processor: Pentium IV or Intel Centrino?
5. Wireless router?
6. Sony/HP?

thanks
all those specs. are up to u and depending what will u be using ur cpu on. if u are a heavy gamer...then u would need more memory and better graphic cards. heavy dl-er then more gb will be better.
u dont need a wireless router unless u are planning to get ur own internet and not use the school's.

the only thing i can suggest is get a light and portable one. unless u really want that 17 inch screen. i like my 12 inch. its like a oversive PDA, carry around everywhere i go and it only weighs 4.7 lbs

theplatypusman

07-30-2005, 10:32 PM

For those on the Island, what do you recommend I get in a laptop:

1. Windows Home or Professional?
2. 40GB or more?
3. Memory: 256MB/512MB/more...?
4. Processor: Pentium IV or Intel Centrino?
5. Wireless router?
6. Sony/HP?

thanks

Windows Pro offers better network protection than home, if its not pricy might as well get it (usually a 20 buck upgrade). Xp is designed to run of at least 512 from what I understand, this is usually the minimum on most laptops nowadays. Intel Centrino is the way to go for a laptop because it runs cooler and draws less power than the P4. I know from experience. My toshiba was fantastic and the P4 ran well, but it sucked the battery dry pretty quick. I now have an HP and with a centrino and it runs much longer and cooler. As for Sony or HP. Sony is great (my gf got one a few months ago), they offer many light options. Toshiba is also good but expensive (customers tend to be very loyal to them). Sony was the first to offer the true bright screens but now almost all brands offer them. I am not sure the money Sony asks for is worth it. If money is not factor, get a vaio. HP offers an academic purchase program online, customizable laptops, at a variable discount (mine was 20 percent). What made me buy online was the customization, free shipping, no tax (in most states), and student discounts. With what I saved I was able to upgrade several features as well get my warranty and save easily 500 bucks off the Best Buy price.

Oh, as for your hard drive. That depends on what you plan to install on it. If you use an external hard drive to hold music. movies, pictures, and stuff you shoud be fine with the 40 for school use. I have found the use of the external harddrive has helped me and others I know computer's running more smoothly.

Oh, now HP offers this quick play feature. I like this a lot as it comes useful on flights. It allows you to play movies without turning on the the OS which saves the battery.

Good luck.

teratos

07-31-2005, 08:21 AM

Keep in mind that a Centrino and P4-M will benchmark comparable to a processor with 2X its' effective clock speed. Example: Centrino 1.5 will perform on par with a P4 3.0 GHz. 40GB should be good for your HDD, unless you plan on saving a lot of music or videos on your HDD. Look at www.gotapex.com. They often post good deals on Dell Laptops. G

microphage

07-31-2005, 11:14 AM

teratos

07-31-2005, 12:03 PM

yeah but the centrino doesn't have hyperthreading while the P4 3.06 GHz probably does. :)

I looked it up and I was wrong on the speed adjustment. I had read double the speed of the P4-M to get the comparable desktop speed, that is incorrect. Add about 4-500MHz. I think HT is overrated. Look at the Athlon architecture vs. the P4. They do a lot with less megahertz. Gaming is better on Athlon64s then P4s if you compare a lot of the processors. I have an Athlon64 3400+ (1GB RAM) that I sometimes game on, and a dual Xeon 3.0 Ghz (800Mhz FSB, 2 GB RAM), that I game on as well. Both are using ATI X800 Pro video cards. Both running Windows x64 Professional (in 64-bit) The Athlon gives me better framerates, and it has only 1 non-HT processor vs. 2 physical (HT= 4 virtual processors). Of course, the Xeon can encoded DVD/DV video on about 90% real time. The Athlon64....not so much.

Also when dealing with laptops, heat is going to be an issue, as is power consumption. The P4 runs HOT. I think the best mobile processor is the Athlon64. When 64-bit software hits the mainstream, performance is going to be much better. The Centrino (I have a centrino laptop) is a great processor for what it is designed for. Low power consumption, low heat, networking and good performance. G

stateofequilibrium

07-31-2005, 12:08 PM

Yo G. Say I DO do a rotation through St. Agnes. What type of laptop would I have to bring so we could have a lan party? :-D

Flounder

07-31-2005, 02:19 PM

Yo G. Say I DO do a rotation through St. Agnes. What type of laptop would I have to bring so we could have a lan party? :-D
I would say get a Macintosh but thats just me... heck a 12" iBook runs 1G +tax and your golden

RussianJoo

07-31-2005, 03:05 PM

most importantly get a computer that works!

RussianJoo

07-31-2005, 03:10 PM

I heart my 700M. But if I had a choice I would get a laptop that has a 13inch xbrite screen, a 2.2Gig centrino processor, a 100gig seagagte 7200rpm drive, cd-r/dvd burner, an 8 hour battery, 2gigs of ram ddr2. ohh and a top of the line video card/graphocs card what ever is most expensive thats what i recommend! Alienware or Sony or maybe IBM would be the company that made it. or I would just make it myself.

Ahh my dream machine !!!!!

RussianJoo

07-31-2005, 03:16 PM

ohh and all of it weigh under 4lbs!

JokerABC

07-31-2005, 06:29 PM

u want a reliable, lightweight laptop that can take a lot of island abuse.

get an IBM Thinkpad T42 or T43 with a 14 inch screen

teratos

07-31-2005, 07:09 PM

Yo G. Say I DO do a rotation through St. Agnes. What type of laptop would I have to bring so we could have a lan party? :-D
You don't need a laptop, you can use one of my systems. You will be stuck on the Athlon64, I am kinda attached to my Xeon. You will be pleased to know that my Athlon64 runs on a 100" screen (it is my Home Theater PC- I use it to upscale DVD video- but it is a good gamer.). My Xeon is my baby. G

Groove

07-31-2005, 08:51 PM

For those on the Island, what do you recommend I get in a laptop:

1. Windows Home or Professional?
2. 40GB or more?
3. Memory: 256MB/512MB/more...?
4. Processor: Pentium IV or Intel Centrino?
5. Wireless router?
6. Sony/HP?

thanks

1. Professional. On the other hand, unless you're a power user, you could probably get away with either. I have an ipsec vpn set up to a network back home, and you can't do stuff like that with Windows Home edition.

2. Get more. You'd be amazed at how fast secondary storage fills up. You'll probably download some songs now and then, maybe copy a few mac daddy cd's to your hd, etc.. It fills up fast.

3. Depends on what you're doing on your laptop. Encoding? Gaming? ?? Get at least 512, but I would recommend 1 gig.

4. There is no "Centrino" processor per say. It's Pentium Mobile. The combination of P-M with intel approved chipset and wlan adaptor allows you to describe your configuration as "Centrino" which is nothing more than a cheap marketing campaign. I'd whole heartedly recommend a Pentium Mobile processor over anything else. Less power consumption, excellent performance, dual core motherboards due out soon. You can take a Pentium M processor, slap it in a motherboard with i865 or i875 chipsets and run circles around Athlon 64 FX and P4 Extreme Edition processors. It's an amazing architecture and is based on the old p3 design. P4 architecture is a dead end. Way too power hungry and inefficient to scale properly. Hyperthreading is overhyped. You won't see a difference unless you do some major multitasking. Most of your individual apps aren't even going to be able to thread for HT in the first place so they can't even take advantage of the dual "logical" processors.

5. Nah, you can buy one on the island if you need one.

6. Up to you. I had a Dell 700m and sold it for a Dell 9300. Go check out various screen sizes and see if the dimensions are something you'd be happy with. I thought the 700m (12 inch widescreen) was too small, and sold mine. RussianJoo on the other hand sold his Toshiba so he could get a Dell 700m and loves it. It depends on your preference. There are a good many $750 off coupons floating around the net, allowing you to get Dell comps for dirt cheap. I think they have a 40% off coupon active at the moment. Check out www.notebookreview.com (http://www.notebookreview.com) for latest Dell coupons.

Oh, and 64 bit computing is such a long way off for home users. Don't even worry about it. You're laptop will be very obsolete by the time you need to worry about 64 bit. I don't know or see on the horizon very many home apps that require 4+ gigs of memory allocation. It will take years to saturate the market with the necessary architecure, and then convince developers for the need to code for 64 bit.

jonasp

07-31-2005, 09:11 PM

For those on the Island, what do you recommend I get in a laptop:

1. Windows Home or Professional?
2. 40GB or more?
3. Memory: 256MB/512MB/more...?
4. Processor: Pentium IV or Intel Centrino?
5. Wireless router?
6. Sony/HP?

thanks

Something that sends and receives email perhaps some microsoft office too in case you need to type something :D

teratos

08-01-2005, 05:32 AM

Oh, and 64 bit computing is such a long way off for home users. Don't even worry about it.

No, it isn't that far off. By next year we should have a fair number of 64-bit apps. Almost all AMD, and many Intel processors are 64-bit capable. You should always look for forward compatability, even if you don't think you will need it now. It doesn't cost any more, and the Athlon64 runs native 32-bit quite well. 64-bit is more than addressing 4GB of RAM. It lets the processor crunch twice the data per clock cycle in native 64-bit apps. G

Groove

08-01-2005, 07:47 AM

No, it isn't that far off. By next year we should have a fair number of 64-bit apps. Almost all AMD, and many Intel processors are 64-bit capable. You should always look for forward compatability, even if you don't think you will need it now. It doesn't cost any more, and the Athlon64 runs native 32-bit quite well. 64-bit is more than addressing 4GB of RAM. It lets the processor crunch twice the data per clock cycle in native 64-bit apps. G

I respectfully disagree. How many years has the Athlon 64 architecture been available? Can you pick up many 64 bit software apps at your local software store? No, you can't. Windows XP x64 is still in beta, and all the preliminary benchmarks show a virtually identical performance in AMD64/x86-64 software when compared to 32 bit versions. For instance, in games, Chronicles of Riddick has a 64 bit executable, and various benchmarking apps such as Sisoft have 64 bit software available. There's no major difference, and none even expected.

You're comment about the processor being able to crunch twice the amount of data per clock cycle is very misleading at best. A more accurate description would be "64-bit processors can process numbers that are 4.3 billion times as large as those processed by their 32-bit counterparts."

The only major differences are going to be the ability to address greater than 4 gigs of memory without any of the current 32 bit tricks that database apps use along with the presence of general purpose registers and cleaner architecture. Only complex software can even take advantages of the extra registers. You'd need lots of nested loops and things like that. Linear algorithms aren't going to show much improvement. If you're expecting some sort of huge speed boost, you're going to be very disappointed.

Anyway, like I said, there's just no major performance improvement for today's applications other than business or enterprise class database apps, etc.. You simply don't need the extra GPR's and memory allocation for today's home apps. Now...... 64 bit is definitely the proper evolution for modern processing, but it's still a few years off. You need to firmly entrench the 64 bit OS's first and convince developers to jump ship and start coding 64 bit apps. Hell, you need hardware drivers first, and you can't even get those for 20% of your hardware if you're using a beta Windows x64.This whole process will take years to complete. It just shouldn't be a major worry for people trying to decide on an architecure for a computer they are purchasing right now because chances are they will upgrade or be buying a completely new computer once 64 bit is mainstream.

Flounder

08-01-2005, 07:49 AM

...Chronicles of RidRichard...

I'm trolling now but its funny how they changed a perfectly legal title into this...

Groove

08-01-2005, 07:54 AM

I'm trolling now but its funny how they changed a perfectly legal title into this...

lol, oops........ ok it's fixed now :D

Rico

08-01-2005, 09:21 AM

hmm..................hmm

teratos

08-01-2005, 09:32 AM

Groove, we can agree to disagree on 64-bit. I don't really push people to get it, but I do think there will be a nice selection of 64-bit software soon. For the record, Windows x64 is now retail. It has been out for a few months. I traded in my XP Pro licence in on a free x64 upgrade. It cost me nothing.

In terms of drivers, this is still a problem with a lot of hardware. I had to reompile the driver for my soundcard for it to work. Wasn't too hard. Just had to add some 64-bit extensions to some of the lines of code. Works fine.

I don't think 64-bit is really a consideration when picking out a laptop. I do think the Athlon64 is a good 32-bit chip, and is often cheaper than many of Intel's offerings. I wasn't suggesting that one should get a laptop with a 64-bit chip because of 64-bit capability. It won't be long before 64-bit stuff is available. Forward compatability is nice. Windows Vista (currently code-named Longhorn) is going to be available in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. So no worries there either. G

Groove

08-01-2005, 06:57 PM

Fair enough ;) I think x64 will be a catalyst in some regards for ushering in the 64 bit apps(even though linux has had 64 bit support for awhile now), and 64 bit is indeed the logical progression of computing. I think the biggest immediate benefits though will be for business enterprise database apps who are using 32 bit addressing tricks to allocate the needed memory at an overhead processing cost. Developers for home and creative applications... Who knows. Developers are usually pretty skittish about coding for a new "platform" without a firm market saturation of the needed hardware. We'll definitely see. It should be interesting.

AMD Athlon 64 FX is a solid design and performs well. I also can't wait to see the Turions. The X2 dual core architecture is nice also. Personally, I also can't wait for the dual core P-M offering due out soon. I had pretty much written off Intel until P-M was released. They basically threw the old P3 and existing P4 blueprints to an Israeli design team and said "here, see what you can make us..." and voila. I think AMD has had the right idea the entire time. It's all about IPC (instructions per clock cycle) not ramping up core frequency with massive power requirements. P-M is such a cool chip. High IPC, chunks of P3 architecture, pieces of P4 architecture and some very cool power saving and throttling features. Ok, I'll shut off my geek mode now.

teratos

08-01-2005, 07:11 PM

I think the market will be there before a lot of people realize. Just look at the number of 64-bit processors out there. All of the AMDs are. Athlon46, Opteron, and Sempron...all 64-bit capable. The Intel Pentiums, Xeons, and now Celerons have EMT-64. Of course Intel won't really say much about it, since they are using basically the AMD instruction set.

OS is a big deal. Linux has been out in a 64-bit flavor for a while. Too difficult for the average joe to use. Up until relatively recently you had to use a command line, and you have to recompile sofware. Windows has a large market share for a few reasons. 1. It has a large market share, and many people/companies have tons of cash invested in Windows compatible software. Too expensive to move over to something else. 2. Windows is a good OS. I know a lot of people hate MS, but the product is good. People cite the security flaws, but everyone has them. You don't hear about them with Macs because who wants to hack a mac? Not enough of them out there to make a high yeild attack. Even companies like Cisco have problems. A big security flaw was just found in Cisco equipment. 60-70% of the internet is run on Cisco equipment. Could be big trouble.

Here is where it gets good. MS is going to release Vista Q1 2006. People will buy it. 64-bit will be the same price as 32-bit. Why not get it? People with 64-bit processors may buy the 64-bit version. Then you have lots of people out there who have a 64-bit CPU and now a 64-bit OS. Bingo...instant market. Just my humble opinion.

stateofequilibrium

08-01-2005, 10:46 PM

You don't need a laptop, you can use one of my systems. You will be stuck on the Athlon64, I am kinda attached to my Xeon. You will be pleased to know that my Athlon64 runs on a 100" screen (it is my Home Theater PC- I use it to upscale DVD video- but it is a good gamer.). My Xeon is my baby. G

Athalon.. oh sure, as soon as I'm fraggin your behind, it'll burn out. =(

Flounder

08-02-2005, 08:46 AM

muthea

08-02-2005, 09:14 AM

dvp95

08-02-2005, 09:36 AM

Another feat of remarkable engineering done by the Apple team in Cupertino, Ca. Yes, yes it is long over due but apple has released a new and beatuiful mouse check it out here and drool... Mighty Mouse (http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/index.html)

Why is it so difficult for them to make a 2 button mouse? Really, why is it so difficult? There is nothing cool about a single button mouse.....

Flounder

08-02-2005, 10:04 AM

Why is it so difficult for them to make a 2 button mouse? Really, why is it so difficult? There is nothing cool about a single button mouse.....
it is a two buttom mouse in a one button desgin... it keeps to their desgin tradition but still moving it forward to a four button mouse.

teratos

08-02-2005, 10:56 AM

I'm not well-versed in computer specs, so I'm having a hard time customizing my laptop. I want to be able to download songs and short online videos quickly, and I'd like to be able to get into digital photography. The computer I have now is very slow when downloading anything. I don't know if I need better memory, better processor, or bigger hard drive?

Does the computer run slow when not doing internet stuff? What connection do you have? How fast is the processor? How much memory do you have? How big is the HDD? How full is the HDD? Do you have/want a laptop or desktop?

You need at least 10% of your hard drive empty. Memory can speed up a system tremendously, but it depends on how much you have already. One quick/easy way to speed up a system is to defragment the harddrive. Many people don't do that very often. G

Jeg_TDOT

03-07-2006, 02:17 PM

jaywalk81

03-07-2006, 02:27 PM

both pc or mac or will be fine for sgu. it comes down to your own preference

Belgiandoc

03-07-2006, 03:28 PM

the only correct answer to this question is not 64 bit blahblah blah as my path lab partner Groove has pointed out. in fact the only thing you need is a computer that allows you to totally be the r00kzorz and pwn n00bs in WOW. in fact i believe that it should be a requirement for admission, and that 3rd term should be designated WOW playing term. in fact you can ask Groove I was uberl33t in WOW with my ibook 12 inch.

honestly though go light and fast. Buy the most memory intensive lightest laptop you can find. my personal opinion. You could also buy one of those panasonic toughbooks and take it to the beach with you.
GL

Saora1

03-07-2006, 03:37 PM

allows you to totally be the r00kzorz and pwn n00bs in WOW.
You should write that on a prescription.

Flounder

03-07-2006, 03:47 PM

Here is where it gets good. MS is going to release Vista Q1 2006. People will buy it. 64-bit will be the same price as 32-bit. Why not get it? People with 64-bit processors may buy the 64-bit version. Then you have lots of people out there who have a 64-bit CPU and now a 64-bit OS. Bingo...instant market. Just my humble opinion.

Hey what happened to Vista being released in Q1 06? Looks like it'll be Q4 06 if not 07.... HA

Saora1

03-07-2006, 03:51 PM

Flounder

03-07-2006, 04:30 PM

It's no big deal. They do keep pushing it back but I'm happy with XP so don't really care. I'd rather they delayed it and had it done properly rather than rushing out an unfinished product.

However, more importantly, check out my sig. :D

So the question you ask is...

"Whats an intel chip doing in a mac?"

and the answer is

"A whole lot more than it's ever done in a PC"

Saora1

03-07-2006, 05:02 PM

If Macs had one-tenth the software that PCs do, that might actually be worth a reply. :)

rokshana

03-07-2006, 05:30 PM

If Macs had one-tenth the software that PCs do, that might actually be worth a reply. :)

ok, i just have to say the "attack baby" has got to be one of the cutest pictures i've seen in awhile!!

Flounder

03-07-2006, 06:48 PM

If Macs had one-tenth the software that PCs do, that might actually be worth a reply. :)
OH that line is a bunch of crap, if there was more available software.

Now most major companies have solutions on both platforms so thats not a problem. Now regarding the huge number of software titles available for windows and not OS X, I laugh. What do you do on your laptop that requires a specific windows purpose? For enterprise and business customers and I dare say some highly specialized fields there is limited choices in the platform since the software is extremely specialized.

Now for the gameboys out there yes windows is better but a computer is not a dedicated gaming platform and games play better on a dedicated box. For everyone else the vast majority of consumers what do they mostly do with their box? Internet, music, web-surfing, email, IM, etc. Activities that don't require limited software that isn't available on OS X. Oh and strike out all the spyware and antivirus software since we don't have any of that on the OS X Platform (well there are a few anti virus programs out there for OS X but I've never had one on my laptop.) The next thing you'll say is that there has been "security flaws" and "viruses" released for OS X in the recent weeks and that security is a concern. Actually these were proof of concept that required the user to implement the program that would compromise their machine (can't factor in for human stupidity.) It doesn't matter anyway security patches have all ready been released for the issues.

Oh and talking about multimedia there is nothing like iLife on the windows camp for the consumer that is free with a new computer. and if I find it there is an article out there that says the total cost of ownership for a mac is lower than a PC.

So my question to you is what software do you use that is so specific to the wintel platform that isn't available for the mac?

sgu2006

03-07-2006, 07:08 PM

flounder, why dont you spend more time studying for your histo exam rather then worrying about mac vs pcs...

Flounder

03-07-2006, 07:32 PM

flounder, why dont you spend more time studying for your histo exam rather then worrying about mac vs pcs...
SGU2006,

um I've been studying histo for 6 hours a day for the last 2 months so if I don't know it by now then I probably don't know it.

In additon not that you care, but that post is a cut and paste job with minor changes because the argument never changes so I have it saved and I just copy and paste, that being said. Yes I am a big computer geek.

drturtle

03-07-2006, 07:39 PM

I didn't want to start a new thread for this since it is a laptop question.

I'm considering getting a 15inch powerbook (weighs about 5.5lbs). The 15inch is selling for dirt cheap with the new mac book pro out. I find the 12 inch screen way to small, but the 15 inch seems way to heavy.

What would you guys/girls recommend. They pretty much cost the same, and with the 15inch u get free apple care. What would you recommend, and would you suggest I get a pc/sony/dell/etc instead of a mac with respect to SGU?

thanks,

Jeg Either Mac or PC will work fine. Just have some software that'll open/edit Word, Powerpoint, and Excel documents. The most common answer to that is Microsoft Office but there are a few quite legit competitors so use whatever you're comfortable with. The reason for this is that lecture slides are in powerpoints, some assignments/documents/etc that the school gives out for us are Word documents, and on occassion Excel documents will be used (e.g., for schedules).

I would highly suggest a laptop that you'd be comfortable carrying a lot. This is largely insignificant in 1st-3rd term as people carry their laptop around those terms to the library or other places to study or to class only to surf the net during class... I mean take notes. ;) Once 4th term comes around, it's useful to have a laptop light enough to carry to Path lab as it allows you to look at the slides (which are in Powerpoint format) and, if your group puts up slide explanations as digital documents, allows you to follow along with what your group has written about the slides.

Light enough is relative. I find the ideal weight for me to carry around is a laptop (inc battery) around 4 lbs or less (largely relegated to screens about 13.3" or less). Advertising considers thin-and-light at 5 lbs or so (screens from 14" to 15"). Stronger folks can manage with heavier laptops.

Dell is useful to have on the island because there is a Dell customer service on the island. Otherwise, go with a brand that you trust will be most likely to survive your journey through Grenada and St. Vincent's. It's a pain to come down here and have your laptop break on you.

Saora1

03-07-2006, 08:12 PM

Don't get your panties in a knot or the angry baby will get you. Why do people take it as such a personal affront when someone says something about their beloved Macintosh platform? Did you code it?

Personally, I could care less about what you use. You're happy with your Mac and I'm happy with my PC. I just thought it was hilarious that you love your Mac so much more than a PC that you have it in your sig and I put my little line in there for fun. I'm certainly not going to lose any sleep over the fact that you prefer Macs.

As far as anti-spyware software, I don't use any since ever since using Firefox and Opera every time I ran Spybot or Adaware it didn't turn up anything. I re-installed my OS 2 months ago (for no reason other than "spring cleaning") and didn't bother putting them back on. Antivirus is not necessary for Macs since no one bothers to write anything for them because lack of recognition for affecting such a tiny corner of the market. If they get a larger user base, I'm sure the virus writers will have a field day. It's like Firefox - when no one used it, no one looked for flaws and exploits. As it became more popular, well you know the rest. I actually didn't run any antivirus program for 4 years (only put one on recently because of my parents) without getting a single virus *knocks on wood* because I don't just download things and click on links indiscrimately (this is with visiting lots of dirty porn sites and the darker side of the web). Like you said earlier, a lot of it is user error.

As far as software, three that I can think of off the top of my head (that I use) are -

http://www.hyperionics.com/ Which is just great for making automatic screenshots (named according to an incremental scheme) of all the lovely lecture notes that SGU doesn't let us download. I press a button on my mouse that's mapped to the F11 key and it saves the files as Path Lecture 001, Path Lecture 002, etc. each time I click. No need to do tedious copy-paste jobs like I see people doing in lecture.

www.phoneconnector.com (http://www.phoneconnector.com) Let's me use a cordless phone with various VoIP programs.

http://www.avisynth.org/ Frameserving filter used for video-editing. No, it's not just a video editor. It's like a pre-filter you use before entering video into an editor. Very powerful.

I don't know if there are Mac versions for any of these things, but I've actually looked for something like the PhoneConnector without any luck for my sister who uses a Mac.

There is a lot of software out there for the PC platform that doesn't exist for Macs. Much more freeware as well, some of which is really helpful. Of course, the "major players" like Office, burning tools, Photoshop, etc. exist for both platforms, but there's so much more variety in the PC world from what I've seen.

I've said my piece. If you want to take it personally, that's your business. In the end, all that matters is that the user is happy with whatever they choose and it doesn't make a difference if you use a Mac or PC at SGU.

Good advice from drturtle above.

Finally, I didn't mean to turn this into a Mac vs. PC debate once again. There are enough zealots on the web to do that. I was kidding, but I guess this is a topic like pro-life debates where people get all worked up. I'll keep my chuckles to myself next time and let Flounder's BP stay at normal levels.

taare

03-07-2006, 08:18 PM

Laptop Vs. Tablet pc?

Which one is better...Do you guyz recommend any in particular. :)

drturtle

03-07-2006, 08:39 PM

Laptop Vs. Tablet pc?

Which one is better...Do you guyz recommend any in particular. :)
In theory, a tablet pc would be more practical than a laptop because you could take notes on the digital copies of the notes that we get. However, most people do just fine with regular laptops. Only a handful have a tablet pc and I have yet to see someone use a tablet pc to take notes.

I think that getting a laptop that you like and are comfortable to use is the first priority. If a laptop fits that and happens to be a tablet pc, then so be it. Please note that for the most part, tablet pc's cost more relatively speaking compared to a regular laptop. In other words, you would get more bang for your buck if you get a laptop and forgo the tablet.

Saora1

03-07-2006, 08:41 PM

Several guys in my class have tablets. They look like they could be useful but I think I'd still prefer a traditional laptop right now.

Tablets are too expensive in my opinion for what they offer and don't meet my needs elsewhere in terms of power. But, I guess it's cool that you can take notes or more importantly - draw images - since I can type notes faster than I can write them, right on some downloadable lecture material.

In the end, it's up to you. Like the Mac vs PC debate, it's perfectly fine and works. It's just individual choice.

taare

03-07-2006, 09:15 PM

drturtle

03-07-2006, 09:47 PM

Thanks for quick reply guyz...I think I'd go with laptop since i can type faster than writing as well...However, one more concern

There are diagrams and pictures in some slides of anatomy/bio etc. Is there a software where i could type directly on to the slides. I wouldnt like to type in MS word and flip back and forth...Can someone suggest a software for this??

Thanks guyz...Helpful thread!!!
Slides of all classes are in Powerpoint format, with some in Word format. Powerpoint has a feature where you can type "notes" for each slide. Not very fancy but it may be sufficient for your needs? Take a gander around the web for better solutions or maybe someone else has something better to add. :)

Saora1

03-07-2006, 10:19 PM

Most of those Powerpoints are not editable. They're actually often in PDF format and those are sometimes locked so you can't even copy the text hence my use of screenshot software above.

I also don't really know of anything to use to write on such slides other than copying them into an image editor and using its text-editor feature which won't be very elegant.

That is one area where the tablet boys have a regular notebook beat. I've seen one individual in particular who downloads the notes and "writes" on them with his tablet. Pretty sure that's some kind of third-party software.

Actually, I also have a pocket PC and remembered this software

http://www.phatware.com/phatpad/index.html

I wasn't sure if it was only for the PPC but I vaguely remembered a desktop version. Looked at it briefly and it seems like it might be able to do what you want. And, if this particular option does not meet your needs, it looks like there is this type of software out there so something else might.