64 bit laptop ?

[NA8]

I'm thinking about a laptop for websurfing and purchases on the internet. Maybe some financial stuff. Costco has a Gateway M6880 that has 4 gig of memory and Vista home premium 64bit. Idea is a dedicated computer, kept updated, just for on line business. Will use old systems for everything else. What do you guys think ? That or a Mac laptop ? Other ?

 

[StarHalo]

Websurfing is one of the least resource-intensive computer uses - the exception being if you like to have many pages open at once, you'd then want more RAM. Aside from that, even a very basic *current*entry-level PC or Mac will more than exceed your needs, something on the order of ~$500 for a PC, slightly more for a Mac.

 

[LukeA]

Unless you want Flash sites to not drag the computer to a halt.

If you get the Mac, you don't have to install software to keep it safe from viruses/such.

 

[monkeyboy]

NA8, That looks like a good deal but Vista 64 is wasted unless you run dedicated 64-bit software. Regular 32-bit software runs through an emulator on Vista 64 which results in reduced performance.

BTW, for web surfing 1GB ram is probably more than you'll ever use.

Personally, I'd go with the Mac as the others suggest. Main reason being that Vista drives me insane with it's "user friendliness". (I'll spare you the rest of my Vista related ranting). Also the lack of viruses is good as LukeA pointed out. Virus software can really slow down your machine but is essential with Windows. If you're really keen, you could get a Linux machine.

 

[HarryN]

I use vista on a 4 gig ram laptop every day - and I like it. In our house we have win XP pro, vista 64, and 2 macs. We only have the macs because the school system here is in bed with apple - no other particular reason.

1 Gig or RAM is not enough for Vista, 4 Gig, it does a lot of multi tasking for me. (real day to day work computer)

Experience wise, I have used various mac flavors, a little linux, every version of windows there is, DOS all the way back to DOS 1.0, CPM, etc. I consider myself to be a strong user, but not an expert by any means.

Here are my general observations:
- Modern mac vs vista - not enough difference in software to worry about
- Vista is pretty virus hardened - very little difference now on which system is more virus resistant (mac / linux / vista)
- Vista more or less has virus protection built in - so it is sort of like running xp pro with a strong AV running. This does slow it down a bit, but not so bad. There are some quirky things, but I just set the viewing to be more classical than the new vista defaults.
- They all run more or less the same programs / word / excel / ppt / firefox / opera, etc. I try to pick s/w that will work with an OS - not always possible, but often is.
- The kids cannot use mac's internet software (safari I think) because it locks up on many of the site they need for homework, etc. - so they use firefox. Firefox is essentially the same for pc / mac, etc.
- I like Opera for the dual purpose web browse / email combo aspect, but I don't know anyone else that uses it.

- If you ever though PC software was restrictive, wait until you get a load of apple concepts

- Personally, I find it very frustrating to find programs and files on the macs (and always have) but that is somewhat of a taste / experience problem.



Screen size
- 13 in mac screens are fine for kids - too small for adult eyes. If you want a 15 in screen, then it is mac pro only, which is way over priced compared to a 14 or 15 in pc laptop. (think rape)

- There are a couple of brands I would never buy
- Toshiba (reliability) Sony (too focused on sony - only compatibility) , NEC (reliability)

I have had good luck with Compaq, HP, IBM.

I have heard reasonably good things about Dell.

Gateway - no experience

Given what fails on a laptop, I would suggest getting one that the parts are easily replaced - such as a business grade HP or eq.

 

[LukeA]

Screen size
- 13 in mac screens are fine for kids - too small for adult eyes. If you want a 15 in screen, then it is mac[book] pro only, which is way over priced compared to a 14 or 15 in pc laptop. (think rape)

Spec them equally and the prices match. There is no real low-end Mac laptop, but there are very low-end Windows laptops, which, yes, are inexpensive.

 

[HarryN]

Hi - not trying to take this down a mac vs pc path, but here are some reasonble examples of two computers that meet your internet experience question.

Apple Macbook
- Consumer grade laptop
- Starts at about $ 1100
- 13 in screen
- Dual core processor
- integrated graphics chip
- WiFi, Bluetooth, etc.
- Plastic case
- You still need to buy a version of office for mac if you want word / excel in addition
- Comes with nice apple adv to poke fun at pc buyers
- Made in China

It is a nice computer - I am not knocking it.

http://www.apple.com/macbook/


HP
- Business grade laptop (not consumer grade)
- Similarly equipped for $ 800
- Magnesium frame and end user replaceable parts
- Includes vista or xp
- dual core processor
- integrated graphics chip
- 15 in screen
- WiFi, Bluetooth, etc
- You can use your existing copy of office 2003 without buying another copy (legally)
- Made in China
- Comes with Microsoft's attempt at adv., which is a bit short of the apple coolness factor.

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF25a/321957-321957-64295-321838-89315-3687621.html

save $ 300, buy a flashlight

 

[matt0]

You could always run Linux. If I actually have work to be doing on the computer, I'll boot into Vista (and have had ZERO problems with it) but if I'm just listening to music and surfing the web, I use Ubuntu 8.04...

 

[elgarak]

There's very little software that makes use of 64-bit Windows. And, as others have said, 32-bit software does not run very well, if at all, I might add. In particular, 32-bit drivers do not work in 64-bit Windows. And currently, hardware manufacturers are not very busy writing 64-bit driver. IOW, expect a lot of everyday simple hardware to not work with 64-bit Windows.

And with 32-bit Windows you are limited and cannot even make use of full 4GB RAM. Macs can. All of them. And they have a sensible plan that will add full 64-bit support from the base up soon, with NO LIMITATIONS for you, as user. Essentially, you will not notice and will not need to care whether you run 32-bit, 64-bit, PowerPC or Intel software. If it says Mac, it will work.

And I'm not saying this lightly.

Do yourself a favor, and get a Mac.

(Wait until Oct 14th. That's when Apple will update their line-up. Experience tells us that the prices will be the same. Also, while Apple tries to keep a tight security on their specific updates, it's pretty sure that the basic MacBook will get an Aluminum case.)

 

[NA8]

Great info, guys, thanks !

I went by Costco and saw the Gateway last night. Not bad. Not a powerhouse at 2Ghz/667 MHz FSB/2MB L2 Cache, but at 4 Gig ram, the slow bus speed is expected. Hadn't heard of Expresscards before. Pretty cool. Looks like the intel wireless chipset supports a lot of standards.

The bad side is one website's 50 most popular laptops list doesn't even list a Gateway model. Found one review of last years model and it was ugly with the fellow moving on to a thinkpad after various trials and tribulations. The fact costco has a special on this model may not be a good sign, if it's a manufacturer's dump.

Oh, was amused to see the old urban legends of motherboard bioses that phone home on bootup have become a featured item now. It has "LoJack for Laptops Hardware Persistence Agent Enabled". While googling that one, I came across the next stage, yet another uban legend come true about Intel/Phoenix chipsets/bios with hard wired big brother "remote command and control" technologies built in. Apparently they'll be able to shut down your computer. "...a remote access solution that allows a laptop to be locked down in the event of a theft or loss." Hmm... be sure to chip your kids too

What a world :devil:

(note the title is misleading as it's not really lojack, the author messed up.)

http://www.betanews.com/article/Intel_announces_lojack_for_laptops_but_offers_few_details/1207337496

Gonna look at the Mac laptop this weekend. Got a new Applestore in the neighborhood, so although cost is high, reasonable support would be nearby. Got a mother in her 90's who's never seen a computer up close so I'm thinking of trying the Mac to see if she could handle it. Things are getting to the point where people just have to have internet access for everyday business information.

 

[HarryN]

Like I said, I am not an expert - just a user - but please, give me a break about drivers and compatibility. I use vista every day with:
- a vpn connection to one office for some work
- a link to another country sometimes
- skype
- 4 different printers (1 of them a multi user shared wifi printer) shared with 2 macs and an hp laptop on xp
- A wifi router / dsl connection
- a sprint G3 card

And this is all from home with me, just a user, not an IT guy running it all in my spare time.

I run 32 bit and 64 bit apps including
- word, excel, ppt
- adobe, act, cardscan
- 2 different digital cameras
- 5 email adresses
- Opera, firefox, IE
- A sophisticated spectrum analyser one of my clients sells that is SQL based

Many at the same time, with 4 gig of ram.

I am not sure about the newest macs, but my kids macs maxed out at 2 gig - I assume the newer ones are up to the 4 gig I have had for a year. Of course, the HP I pointed out can run 8 gig.

On my vista machine the video processor uses something like 700 meg of the shared memory (similar to macs - except the pro I think) Yes, that leaves a mere 3.X gig for everything else.

BTW, when I upgraded the memory of all of our laptops last Xmas, the mac and hp used the same DDR-2 memory modules. I tell you guys, the difference between mac and vista is - advertising.

 

[elgarak]

Here are two articles that address the differences between Windows and Mac, and their road to 64 bits.

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...bits_santa_rosa_and_the_great_pc_swindle.html

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/08/26/road_to_mac_os_x_10_6_snow_leopard_64_bits.html

The first one is very enlightening re. the problems of RAM sizes. BTW: All current Macs except the Mac Mini employ Santa Rosa architecture. (The Mac Mini has not been updated in a while, but very likely will be next month.)

Gist: 4GB and more is not a problem for currently sold and future Macs. Linux, ditto. (My own MacBook is the last generation without Santa Rosa. I have 4GB in it, but can only use 3.2 due to MMIO, but my graphics card runs a bit better with 2x2GB sticks -- plus, 3GB was not significantly cheaper when I got it. All later MacBooks can use 4GB fully. Mac OS X Leopard can use happily whatever the hardware is capable of giving.)

Your decision.

 

[NA8]

Here are two articles that address the differences between Windows and Mac, and their road to 64 bits.

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...bits_santa_rosa_and_the_great_pc_swindle.html

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/08/26/road_to_mac_os_x_10_6_snow_leopard_64_bits.html

Great links. Should sell a lot of computers.

 

[HarryN]

Hi, I wondered if you could provide a similar comparison for AMD's processors, in particular the Turion 64x2 series.

I read the articles, and while a bit biased, they point out some things which are pretty well known:

a) All modern micro processors are based on RISC. They include an on-board x86 translator section, then usually subdivide the task to 4 - 8 parallel RISK processors. After the processing is complete, the code is re-translated in a dedicated section.

In the case of dual core processors, there are essentially 2 of these "chips" in a package or on the same die, depending on the supplier.

b) In the case of AMD, I am pretty sure they run 32 bit code in the same manner as 64 bit code - but just like running IP4 in an IP6 environment, they just tack on null bits to maintain a constant word size (64 bit) for easier processing. 32 bit and 64 bit run at the same speed AFAIK. There is no specific 32 bit emulation - not sure about vista.

c) The first time AMD did this, was on its 586, and it was a pretty much a bust, as they made a mistake estimating which code translations would occur most often, and which ones could be run inefficiently. Since then, there have been several generations, each one better.

I think that the core duo was Intel's first attempt at this appoach, and they made the same mistakes AMD made on the 586 generation. At leat that is my perception.

d) Linux - My understanding is that AMD licensed code and core technology from the startup Linus Torvalds was in, and adapted the technology to run Linux as a native code without translation. AMD has worked hard on the Linux crowd.

Since mac os appears to be mostly a linux core with an apple specific cover, it seems like AMD would have given apple more performance - but Intel has the brand name.

I think eventually, AMD optimized around running Linux and Windows, and the translation to X86 is less of a factor in its performance now.

e) Core duo vs Core 2 Duo - I don't entirely understand the difference, but we have one mac laptop of each type with nominal difference in clock speed - the core 2 duo is faster.

Still, the apparent difference between the AMD turion / vista computer and the two macs is so small that it requires really side by side comparisons to see any difference. Certainly for web surfing - it would be hard to see a difference.

If mac books do have a strong wifi setup - almost as good (and I mean cutting hairs) as my Nokia Internet pad.