Neeed a new Computer: Choices, Choices, and Choices...

[perry]

Today I write from a borrowed computer. Last sunday while on Pricescope my computer journeyed to the great computerland somewhere out their. It was well aged at 5.5 years and had traveled all over the US with me and met many wonderfull computer freinds all over - including a number of them at Pricescope in the last year or so.

Since I have been working 13 hours a day, 6 days a week, and am quite exhausted I could do nothing until today.

I would like to comfort all of those who may be worried about all my data and files. Rest assured that all data files - including my entier email files are snugly on CD that I had burned just the week before. I have lost nothing of any meaning since I recieved no critical emails in the week after.

However, I might ask: How are you backing up your data and email files (and you really need to know where those pesky email files are stored in order to back them up - and then you have to paste them into a replacement computer before you retrieve other e-mails to prevent loss of emails).

How often are you backing up?

So onto computer shopping. A new laptop - which one (I have used laptops since about 198.

Choices.... In the past I have specialied on buying closeout computers and accessories. Not the latest technology - not the fanciest - but very good priced for what I need (money does not afterall grow on trees). Do I do that now - or do I jump ahead in technology to current stuff - and pay the premium?

Choices.... My esisting black/white laser printer/fax/Copier machine (about 2 years old - but a closeout) only has a 25 pin parallel connection; and I have about $160 in new toner cartridges on the shelf - about a 1.5 year supply of toner. I have medical equipment that has 9 pin serial connections so that I can monitor things and adjust settings. Do I buy a laptop that has legacy ports to directly support my existing accessories; or do I jump ahead to all USB & FireWire ports and have to buy a new printer (I can at least get a USB to 9 pin adapter for my medical equipment - and replacement medical equipment is on par with the cost of a new computer)? Buying a computer with these legacy ports really restricts what can be purchased - but it would be adequte for my needs.

Choices.... Are their other reasons to upgrade my printer. Would it make sense to upgrade to a color laser printer (I am not a fan of inkjet printers) ?

Choices.... Should I get a computer with changeable drives so that I could plug in a 3.5" floppy drive, or another hard drive? (How many people remember the 8" Floppies, and then the 5.25" Floppies?). Or should I abandon forever the ability to read a 3.5" floppy as I abandoned the 5.25" floppies 5.5 years ago; and depend on USB port thumb drives for alternate storage and file transfer?

What are the better brands out their -- From a business and reliability standard. Not from a video game and DVD player standard?

Any other thoughts?

I will say that so far I can see a business reason to upgrade the printer to a HP Lazerjet 2600n Color printer, and regulate my existing Brother mutifuntion machine to being just a fax and copyier


I''ll check back later and see what helpfull suggestions you have come up with.

Thanks in advance.

Perry

 

[VegasAngel]

You should get a Toshiba Laptop with a 15inch screen & 512mb of ram. Your existing printer should work with a new laptop. Get a color laser printer if you need things to print fast. The good thing is the ink cartridges dont dry out, but laser printers are more expensive especially color laser priinters. nobody uses floppy disks anymore lol. Get a usb pen drive with 1gb of storage instead of a floppy.

 

[MissAva]

What programs do you plan on using with your computer? Without that I do not feel comfertable saying what sort you ought to get? How much is the visual stuff imprortant to you? Diffrent brands have diffrent screen qualities... And get a few jump drives. At least one for work and one for personal. They are small enough to be kept on a key chain and come in a variety of size depending on your needs.

 

[Blue824]

I compare looking at computers to looking at cell phones...so many features and I just use mine for the basics - word processing, some photoshop and internet, so it is so hard to decide when they''re flaunting all of the bells & whistles! I sort of need to start looking for a new one, so I asked my aunt who is a VP at a pretty major computer/technology sales company, and she said Sony & Toshiba laptops are considered the best. Also said Dells are to be avoided, they get the most complaints. I''ve had a sony for the past almost 5 years, and I love it...I''ve had no problems with them, so I''ll probably stick with them. Anyway, good luck in your laptop search! Hope you find one you like soon!

And yeah, you can totally forget about the floppy drives, just get a pen drive, they''re so convenient...as long as you don''t lose them

 

[mrssalvo]

I love my mac ibookG4 but i'm like blue, it does what i need it to do..

 

[strmrdr]

if you need legacy ports then get them, the usb port emulators dont work with all devices.
serial can be real troublesome.
The converters dont put out the full voltage swing the serial spec calls for.
This is fine with some devices that change state once voltages reach the 1/2 way point and with very short cords.
They dont work with other devices or long runs.

 

[perry]

Keep the suggestions comming.

Strmrdr: Thanks for the information on the Serial port adapters. That will drive my selection then. Needless to say, I''m hooked on the AutoCPAP machine - for life (and I have tried machines from 4 companies and they all used 9 pin serial port connection). I currently should not need to purchase a new AutoCPAP for a number of years as I have a backup machine of the model that "works for me." I should also state that this medical gear also restricts me to Widows..

as the medical companies did not write any of their software to run on "minority" operating systems (I think one of them recently may have put out a version compatable with Mac''s) ; Otherwise I long ago would have switched to Linux or a Mac.

Thanks,

Perry

ps: I have to return this borrowed computer tomorrow and will probably be offline most of the time until my new computer arrives.

 

[AChiOAlumna]

I have a 15" Apple Powerbook...I love it...It does everything I need to and has a CD/DVD-readable/writable drive. As far as the old floppies, it's obsolete in most areas, but if you do work with someone who uses them, you can always but a floppy drive with a USB connection for easy plug-n-play and this way you don't have to start/restart the computer everytime you need to use it...

As for backing up. I use Apple's Backup system, which can store media to where ever I choose...which I have saved to DVD-RW media. I back up about once a week...which I lucked out because recently I backed up my computer and 2 days later the hard-drive failed on me...It was a fluke and because I had the extended warranty, Apple replaced it in 3 days at no charge to me!!!

ETA: There is software available now that allows you to use Windows applications on Apple computers...It's called "Virtual PC." I don't use it myself, but I know people who do and love it.

 

[Mara]

I got a new laptop a few months ago and adore it...it's a Dell Inspiron 6000. I wanted to get a Dell since I had always had good experiences with them (and Gateaway also but I decided to focus on Dell) and they have tons of choices. I watched the prices and sales (they have sales about once a week and one day they had a 1/2 off sale on ANYTHING that lasted for 2-3 hours but I just missed it, wah!) and narrowed it down to the Inspiron and another I can't remember now. Dell's website is great and has comparitive features etc. I ended up buying mine on a small business deal (they don't check to see if you are a real business I guess as I could buy as a consumer!) and got a great price plus extra ram and some other extra stuff I can't remember..also got the All in One printer for $59 or something, and it is a fax machine, copier, scanner and color printer, I LOVE IT. It's such a handy tool and very easy to use.

I wanted something that was desktop replacement as I don't travel alot and wanted something that would be good for wireless with a big screen etc. I do alot of work from home now and was tired of being stuck in my upstairs office for hours when the house was wired for wireless and I just had to find the right laptop to use. The Inspiron also had Centrino which I wanted. I have a savvy techy friend who was advising me on what to get, knowing what I wanted.

The cool thing is that the screen on this thing is something like 16" so it's PERFECT for me to work on it 1/2 the day downstairs on wireless and then when we travel, we can play DVD's on it on the plane (since I will bring my laptop with me for work on every trip regardless) so it's a SWEET perk that I didn't even think about while shopping. I also like the way it looks, it's sleek and gray with a white stripe so it's kind of fun. That said it's not the smallest, it's a more medium size but it's still pretty light and I can pick it up with one hand etc. I could have bought a bit more RAM (I think I got 512MB) and it runs a little slower when I have Photoshop open along with 8 other programs but for the most part it's awesome.

So I've been REALLY pleased. Oh and I think I got everything on it, loaded with MS Professional XP and Office etc, with the printer and extra RAM, DVD/CD writer, etc including shipping tax etc for something like $1100 or $1200 which was a great deal.

Oh and my experience with Toshiba's for work has always been horrible, I've had 2 or 3 in my work experience and it seems like every time something on them would break or go wrong.

ETA: For your legacy 9 pin ports...it seems like almost everything has USB now, but there are converters you can plug into the USB which have 9 pins...I have bought them before to use an old 9 pin mouse or something in a USB port. So you should be fine with focusing on USB for the ports and then getting converters. Also now they have USB hubs you can buy which have 4 or 6 or 9 so if you have alot of USB items to plug in, you don't have to be restricted to # of USB ports on the laptop. (Oh I see Strm has addressed something similar up above, I wasn't aware of the converters allowing for enough power...I would look into it more and see if you can buy specialized items that DO allow that so that you aren't restricted on purchase).

 

[Sundial]

We just bought new HP Pavilion laptops for our house and for each of kids to use at college. We have all been very pleased with them so far.

 

[MelissaSue]

Do laptops still exist with ports other than USB?! I haven''t seen any in about two years..

 

[strmrdr]

Date: 10/23/2005 8:53:47 PM
Author: MelissaSue
Do laptops still exist with ports other than USB?! I haven''t seen any in about two years..

usualy you have to look in the business/industrial line to find them.

 

[perry]

Yes. Legacy ports do exist on laptops. As Strmdr has indicated - under the "bussiness" line of notebook computers.

I was willing to dump my printer and buy a LazerJet Color one (yes the toner is expensive - but I like it a lot better than inkjet); but, monitoring of my medical equipment and problems I am having is not going to be left to the chance of an adapeter working. Someday I will replace that equipment with more modern stuff (and hope it works as well: I have machines from 4 Mfr''s and only one of them "sees" me and responds right... But, until then - I will keep it (and me) happy and kicking well. (( I may still buy that color printer))

I did decide that I should plan big because who knows what I will be doing with my computer in several years. The one that I had was cramping my style in several ways - but it was workable (I was running Windows 98 on a notebook computer with a 6 Gig hard drive (big for its day), operating at I believe 233 Mhz, with 96 MB of memory.

Thus: The final choice is Dell Latitude D510. All the legacy ports, 4 UBS ports, Firewire port(IEEE-1394), ethernet port, and a few others I may never use. 1.73 Ghz, 80 Gig hard-drive, 1 Gig of memory (in one chip so that I can plug in a second Gig in the future). Wireless technology that I will turn off initially (but it will be their for future use), 3 year on-site maintenace & acident repair/replacement, Microsoft Office for Small Business software, 8X DVD/CD RW with fancy software, and even a built in floppy for those of my freinds who still pass information that way (but this should be the last computer with that), and a few other goodies. Not cheap ($2168 including shipping and tax); but I should be set-up for another 5 years....(which I believe has been the average life of my laptops).

Here is a blast from the past: My first laptop''s word processing program could handle a simple document 8 pages long - with standard type and spacing. It was truely phenominal in its day - and served me well for years (but I did have to write a few documents as 2 or 3 separate files).

My second laptop had a feature I wish I could get today: The operating system, and key "supplied" programs (word processing, spreadsheet, data managment, etc) were on Read Only Memory Chips... Instant on. No boot time. Turn on the computer, click on the word processor and you were there. Of course, reading filed and storing files from floppies took time (3.5" which was not that bad). But I would gladly wait for the files to be read and stored if I didn''t have to sit through these blasted boot times for all the kludge they put in these "masssive" operating sytstems today.

Anyway, Thanks for all the suggestions and comments. Not sure I will manage to get back until I get my new computer (Scheduled for November 3). But, I''ll see what I can do.

Perry

Hi ho, hi ho, its off to work I go (for another long week).

 

[MissAva]

Lets see I have had two Dells, the desktop I cannot recall the model number for but I got the 8100 laptop and it lasted only two years before the thing died. No good.

Then I got a Gateway X200, which was super thin and quite useful for that but the battery time was a lot short then advertised (less the half) and even after getting a replacemnt I never got it to last longer then an hour unplugged making it useless for my needs. At the moment I have a Sony Vaio, so far so good. I have to say the image quality on this one is quite spiffy. But it has not been even a year so I would be foolish to say it is perfect just yet.
If you will not be using your computer for anything too taxing you may want to go to your local CostCo/BJs/Sams and see what sort of offers they have on their computers, sometimes they have better prices for the same features then you can find online direct. HTH.

 

[Tacori E-ring]

Date: 10/23/2005 4:49:15 PM
Author: mrssalvo
I love my mac ibookG4 but i''m like blue, it does what i need it to do..

I have the same ibook mrssalvo! I love apples, always had them growing up, and hopefully will always have one but they are expensive compared to the bargins out there today. First of all I am sure they make adapters for anything you may need, second throw those floppies away! NOW! I used to be a zip disk junkie, no more. Only CDs for me. They are cheap and easy. OR even a cheap external hard drive. They make ones the size of a pen. I use my ipod to backup or transfer files. Third try sites like mysimon.com (it checks prices for you) or macmall (or pcmall if you are going to go that route).

Good luck!