Goodbye faithful retainer

[HairyArsedBloke]

My laptop has finally died. It been with me through three women and has travelled with me across the Atlantic many dozens of times. It will be sadly missed even though it was only just about capable of running office and explorer and not a lot else these days.

What is the congregation’s current favourite dog’s dangler’s laptop? Technical requirements are that it be pokey enough VS2005/2008, SQL Server, MS Office, Matlab, S+, and the like. It’s going to travel a lot so wireless, good size, weight and battery life. Off duty stuff like watching a DVD, and researching for stuff that should go in “One-A-Day”, but no interest in games.

[NickFitz]

MacBook or MacBook Pro. Use BootCamp to install Windows on a separate partition, and use OS X for the fun stuff

People will try to con you into believing that it's overpriced, but it isn't - when you compare the actual quality of the machine with equivalent builds from other manufacturers, you'll find that if you want quality hardware, Apple are competitive, even if you only run Windows on it.

Although you'll also find that, for non-work related purposes, OS X and the supplied apps are vastly superior to Windows.

FWIW when I have to do Windows-related stuff like ASP.NET I work in a Parallels VM - I've never yet found the need to have a separate Windows partition using BootCamp. But if you're heavy on developing for the Windows platform, you'll probably want to run it natively, rather than in a VM.

YMMV and so forth

Oh, and sorry about your machine dying - I had a similar experience with a kitchen appliance recently. The nitty-gritty is over in TPD, although there's no reason to actually find and read it

[HairyArsedBloke]

A MacBook, now there is a good idea; I’d forgotten about them. On of my gay friends told me a year or so that he looks for guys on their own with laptops and if they are Mac’s he goes over and has a chat. He reckons that he has pulled loads of times.

Thanks Nick

[VectraMan]

I was using a Mac Book last week, and it was driving me mad because of not having the right click button.Also IIRC it was missing some of the commonly used keys like "home" and "end" that I use all the time - have I got that right? I couldn't believe it. They may have all but sold out and turned it into a PC, but it's still not quite there and I think you'd suffer if what you need to use it for is Windows software.

But if you want to attract gay men on the train, or you're generally a style over substance type, go for it.

I've just ordered one of those poor quality Dells for half the price of a Mac Book of similar spec (and it does have a right click button). I know some might disagree, but I've had lots of Dell kit and it's always been very reliable and well built. The new laptop needs to run VS2005 all day, but I'm sure it will as it's roughly the same spec as my desktop. Just make sure you get at least 2GB of RAM, as quite a few still only come with 1GB as standard.

I am slightly worried that against my better judgement I've decided to risk Vista on this one.

[Clippy]

I was using a Mac Book last week, and it was driving me mad because of not having the right click button.Also IIRC it was missing some of the commonly used keys like "home" and "end" that I use all the time - have I got that right? I couldn't believe it. They may have all but sold out and turned it into a PC, but it's still not quite there and I think you'd suffer if what you need to use it for is Windows software.

But if you want to attract gay men on the train, or you're generally a style over substance type, go for it.

I've just ordered one of those poor quality Dells for half the price of a Mac Book of similar spec (and it does have a right click button). I know some might disagree, but I've had lots of Dell kit and it's always been very reliable and well built. The new laptop needs to run VS2005 all day, but I'm sure it will as it's roughly the same spec as my desktop. Just make sure you get at least 2GB of RAM, as quite a few still only come with 1GB as standard.

I am slightly worried that against my better judgement I've decided to risk Vista on this one.

Have to agree with regarding your comments about Dell VectraMan.

Have heard a lot of negativity about Dell over the last few years. I initially thought it was to do with the fact that their support had been off shored to the injuns but a fair amount of flak was aimed at the kit.

I must also be one of the lucky ones who has only ever had Dell kit which has been consistently reliable.

[Spacecadet]

I must also be one of the lucky ones who has only ever had Dell kit which has been consistently reliable.

Not just you, i've worked with countless Dell servers, PC's, monitors, laptops even PDA's.
Apart from a couple of hard drive failures (Hard drives not manufactured by Dell) the only failure of Dell equipment I've seen is of SCSI controllers on a raid array.
I've never had to return Dell kit cause its faulty.

I just took delivery of 2 new latitude laptops, 3 22" monitors and docking stations. The quality is fantastic, The laptops feel solid and well put together. The monitor display did look a little "warm" but that was easily adjusted.
Only complaint is that the supplied mice feel a little light weight compared to my wireless.

[NickFitz]

Apart from a couple of hard drive failures (Hard drives not manufactured by Dell) the only failure of Dell equipment I've seen is of SCSI controllers on a raid array.

I've only used Dell kit on client sites, but it's always been OK apart from a hard drive that failed one afternoon - it filled the room with a lovely high-pitched noise similar to a dentist's drill on speed

It did encourage the client to accelerate their plans to get a revision control system in place, which you would imagine was a good thing, but they used SourceSafe instead of addressing the issue

[daviejones]

IMO, Dell laptops are just cheap tat...but like I say, just my opinion...

[Moscow Mule]

I was using a Mac Book last week, and it was driving me mad because of not having the right click button.Also IIRC it was missing some of the commonly used keys like "home" and "end" that I use all the time - have I got that right? I couldn't believe it. They may have all but sold out and turned it into a PC, but it's still not quite there and I think you'd suffer if what you need to use it for is Windows software.
:

<rant>
Why is it that people can't read instructions FFS - if you want to right click, just put two fingers on the pad and click away. I actually miss this function on futurewife's laptop.
</rant>

As for Home & End keys, it's less of a rant, but you can mirror the windows behavior by remapping what ever key you want.

[kevlong]

Another vote for MacBook Pro.
Fully populated with 4GB memory and running OSX, plus VMWare and Vista. A superb all round machine that still looks cool.

Kevlong