I'm thinking of finally biting the bullet and getting a laptop, but I'm really not sure what type to get. I love the idea of Macs, but one major thing I'd be using the laptop for is digital scrapbooking & the program I'll use is PC only (unless I'm mistaken).

Are there any brands or models I should avoid like the plague?

I'm not looking to do anything for which I'd need a super-powerful top-of-the-line type computer. I don't plan to do any major gaming on the computer (we have various game consoles at home & I'm perfectly happy with those). I'll want to do basic photo editing, but nothing super high-tech. I'll probably record some music onto the computer, but again nothing high tech. I know music & photos are memory-intensive, so I know I'll want to get as much memory as possible/reasonable.

I can find my way around a computer, but I'm not an expert.

Any guidance anyone can provide will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Shayna

I have a Dell Inspiron 600m which has been a champ through three and a half years of pretty rough handling. I couldn't say whether Dell's current line matches this performance. My plan is that when this machine finally gives up the ghost, I will buy the current high-end but medium-screen MacBook Pro; the Intel-based Macs can run Windows via Parallels and/or BootCamp.

I'm not running a PC but I'm running a laptop with digital scrapbooking software on it. ;) ;)

I have a MacBookPro running Parallels with Windoze XP.

The good part about having a laptop is the portability. The problem with digital scrapbooking and laptop is hard-drive space. I have two partitions on this laptop - the Mac side is about 100 gigs and the PC side is about 10 gigs - I'm running out of space. :eek:

I store my digital images and digital scrapbooks on an external hard-drive which somewhat limits my portability but it solves my space issues. I'm still glad I have a laptop, but it's definitely not as simple and eloquent as I'd like. The hard drive is formated for PC format (so Parallels can play nice with it,) and if I unplug it for whatever reason, I have to reboot the entire computer so Parallels/Windoze can see it again.

But. I can have my Mac and Digital Scrapbook, too, so I'm happy with it, LOL. ;)

Adrienne

Thank you both for your replies!

I was already eye-balling the Dell Inspirons. Mom has a Dell desktop computer & has been happy with it, so it's nice to hear that the laptops hold up. It's a totally silly but nifty bonus that they come in different colors. :p

Adrienne -- I'm especially glad to hear from you since you know exactly what software I'll be running. ;) I should be able to keep a lot of pictures on DH's desktop (especially since he has two hard drives). I'm not necessarily looking for mega-portability in that I don't plan to take my laptop with me wherever I go. It will be so nice though to be able to scrapbook in the living room without involving six cats and an ever-increasingly curious 3 1/2 year old (I'm sure she'll be intrigued with the computer, but at least I won't have to worry about her taking a cutting system blade & injuring herself, cats, or furniture) -- and I'll be able to sit in a comfortable chair.

Of course, now I'll have to look a little more seriously at Macs.... $$$

I love my toshiba. I wouldn't go any other brand for laptop, YMMV. It's held up being dropped several times (once in the dirt. ouch!), had coke spilled on it, survived living in the backseat of my car during a southern california summer and is still running like nothing happened. Loves it.

I use a G4 Mac and love it. If you must get a PC, get a Sony. It's the only PC vendor that holds to the top of the line components that Apple uses. You may pay more, but the quality shows. For the best of both worlds ( IMO ) the Macbook Pro is the best of both worlds.

I definitely don't think that Apple is a bad option, although you really do need to take a close look at whether or not you really need it. If you mainly use Windows, buying an Apple computer generally means paying a premium price for features that you don't need. Their product line also tends to be less broad than many other laptop/PC manufacturers, so you need to look closely at what features and accessories really fit your needs and then decide which brand has the best bang for the buck. For example, I personally can't see ever purchasing another laptop that doesn't have Tablet PC capabilities (touchscreen or pen-based digitizer) as that has proven to be an absolutely indispensable capability of the one I have currently. That does limit available brands, though, including currently leaving Apple out of the running for me.

Generally speaking, you wouldn't likely go wrong with laptops from any of the top manufacturers. Right now, the top brands generally are Dell, HP/Compaq, Lenovo, Toshiba, Apple, and Sony. With pretty much any of those brands, you should get pretty decent quality equipment. Honestly, systems from most of those companies have a pretty good shot at actually coming out of the same small number of factories. Pretty much all of those companies (yes, including Apple) come up with the basic design specifications and then subcontract out the actual manufacture to Asian companies.

-Jeff

If you don't need the newest and the fastest, I would be looking for some deals on Black Friday, you more than likely will find some really good deals on Laptops that are current, but maybe the step below the current top of the line. I would look for Windows Vista if you are looking at a PC versus a Mac.


www.black-friday.net (http://www.black-friday.net) is a good source of advance warning on prices for the Friday Morning after Thanksgiving.

O/T, Lisa and I stopped by the Lake Elisnore Outler Mall today, they are advertising the stores will open at Midnight on Friday for the special sales....:eek:

I would look for Windows Vista

Ew.

Unless you specifically request XP, pretty much any new Windows-based laptop is going to come with Windows Vista. Do look closely to make sure it comes with either Vista Home Premium, Vista Business, or Vista Ultimate. The lowest level version of Vista is "Vista Home" and is nearly useless as it omits a pretty large percentage of important features for the OS. Vista Home is really just a stripped down version that is mainly intended to save money for the system manufacturers. Most customers that end up with it will soon end up paying for an upgrade.

I know that Vista is somewhat controversial, but I've been running it on my systems since it first came out and have had few problems with it. Unless you are buying bottom of the line hardware or are running some fairly old software that hasn't been updated, it should work fine. One caveat, though, is that you should definitely stick with XP if you are purchasing a system with less than 1GB of memory, but that would really only be the lowest-end models. If possible, I would really recommend going for at least 2GB of memory, though.

-Jeff