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Laptop Buying Tips

 
Old 08-26-2009 at 02:33 PM   #195
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pdpd View Post
What do you guys think of this laptop?

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/pro...25 185&catid=
Seems fine as long as you don't plan on using it for heavy gaming. I personally try to stay away from HP's though.
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Old 08-26-2009 at 02:44 PM   #196
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pdpd View Post
What do you guys think of this laptop?

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/pro...25 185&catid=
From what I can tell its a good laptop except for its integrated WiFi it has 802.11 b/g you want 802.11 b/g/n which has longer ranger and is better.
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Old 08-26-2009 at 02:49 PM   #197
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An HP is usually a safe bet. It's normally powerful enough to handle most programs that you may need. The Pavillion's are pretty good with the movie and music stuff as well. If you don't plan on doing anything that requires a lot of power from the notebook, you may want to consider getting another laptop simply because you may not necessarily need the features the HP has to offer, and get it at a better price.

As for the WiFi thing above, it's not a huge difference... usually. I'm assuming the WiFi at mac is decent and a few metres won't cause too much of a discrepancy... but i don't know first hand...

EDIT: I'd also like to say, if you're like me and break laptops easily, get the extended warranty from Future Shop... It is really worth it (in my experience anyways).
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Old 08-26-2009 at 02:52 PM   #198
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mellye View Post
An HP is usually a safe bet. It's normally powerful enough to handle most programs that you may need. The Pavillion's are pretty good with the movie and music stuff as well. If you don't plan on doing anything that requires a lot of power from the notebook, you may want to consider getting another laptop simply because you may not necessarily need the features the HP has to offer, and get it at a better price.

As for the WiFi thing above, it's not a huge difference... usually. I'm assuming the WiFi at mac is decent and a few metres won't cause too much of a discrepancy... but i don't know first hand...

EDIT: I'd also like to say, if you're like me and break laptops easily, get the extended warranty from Future Shop... It is really worth it (in my experience anyways).
Well it won't be just for mac, its a lot better to have if your at other places. Plus its not like it costs much more I've seen laptops with that feature at the same price.
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Old 08-26-2009 at 02:55 PM   #199
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Well it won't be just for mac, its a lot better to have if your at other places. Plus its not like it costs much more I've seen laptops with that feature at the same price.
The WiFi won't make much of a difference. The main issue here is usability. This computer is usable, but won't be capable of gaming or running high-end graphics-related programs (ie photoshop, 3D rendering, etc).
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Old 08-26-2009 at 02:58 PM   #200
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Well... I've tested this out before. It can run photoshop... as long as nothing else it running and the quality is only mediocre.

Just depends on what pdpd wants to do with it.
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Old 08-26-2009 at 03:10 PM   #201
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I'd be using it for word processing, surfing the net, etc. However, I do use photoshop quite a lot
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Old 08-26-2009 at 03:11 PM   #202
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Quote:
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I'd be using it for word processing, surfing the net, etc. However, I do use photoshop quite a lot
If you're a serious photoshop user, then you want more processing power and a better graphics processor.
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Old 08-26-2009 at 03:12 PM   #203
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Quote:
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I'd be using it for word processing, surfing the net, etc. However, I do use photoshop quite a lot
Then you might want to look for something that doesn't have an on-board gpu.
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Old 08-26-2009 at 03:17 PM   #204
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wat's an on-board gpu?
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Old 08-26-2009 at 03:18 PM   #205
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wat's an on-board gpu?
Graphics Processing Unit aka. the video card

Edit: damn that sounded nerdy. Oh and what I meant by on-board was the video card being part of the motherboard as apposed to a dedicated one.
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Old 08-26-2009 at 03:22 PM   #206
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Graphics Processing Unit aka. the video card

Edit: damn that sounded nerdy. Oh and what I meant by on-board was the video card being part of the motherboard as apposed to a dedicated one.
it's okay! you're among friends
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Old 08-26-2009 at 03:32 PM   #207
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Quote:
Originally Posted by u.yousaf View Post
Graphics Processing Unit aka. the video card

Edit: damn that sounded nerdy. Oh and what I meant by on-board was the video card being part of the motherboard as apposed to a dedicated one.
Btw how can you tell where in the specifications does it say something?
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Old 08-26-2009 at 03:34 PM   #208
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Also, I'm kind of confused... this is more out of interest though:

If the laptop doesn't have discrete video memory OR integrated video memory, then what does it have?
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Old 08-26-2009 at 03:35 PM   #209
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Btw how can you tell where in the specifications does it say something?
Well it says Intel graphics media accelerator and as far as I know, Intel does not make dedicated graphics cards like say Nvidea or AMD do.
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