Are two laptops better than one?
Which laptop should I buy? I get this question a lot, from CNET readers, friends, neighbors, friends of friends, and assorted relatives. Makes sense, since a large chunk of my workday is spent reviewing laptops.
I typically respond to this inquiry by first asking about one's intended purposes for a new laptop. Gaming? Serious design work? Heavy travel? Just getting on the Web at home? Then my follow-up question: how much do you want to spend? My line of questioning undoubtedly frustrates the questioner, who is looking for a single laptop recommendation from me.
Since there is no one answer to this question, I thought it might be helpful to tell you which laptop(s) I would buy should I be in the market today for a new laptop.
If I were buying a laptop today, I'd grab the HP Mini 1000 for travel and...
The last laptop I bought was my first Apple product outside of an iPod when I bought a white MacBook on Black Friday last year. I bought it because I wanted to dive into the Mac OS to gain a deeper understanding than what I got from the brief periods I spent on Apple's platform when a Mac passed through CNET Labs. And I liked the idea of using iLife to manage and edit my photos and videos.
I've been pretty pleased with it so far, other than the fact that I have had to send it in for repair--broken mouse button (thankfully, I called a few days before the warranty expired).
But if I were do it again and had roughly $1,350 to spend on a laptop (I bought my MacBook last year for $1,348), I might buy two. Instead of one, general-purpose 13-inch laptop like the MacBook (or the $1,099 HP Pavilion dv3510nr, which I may have selected over the MacBook had I been given the choice last year), I'd split my purchase into home and away models. I'd want a 10-inch Netbook for travel, whether it's around the corner to the coffee shop or across the country for business.
Then I'd want a roomy desktop replacement for home entertainment, a system I could use to store, manage, and enjoy my multitude of media: music, movies, photos, and home videos.
Disclaimer: there are plenty of good budget laptops that would do the trick for mainstream buyers for half of my proposed budget, of course. The above argument presupposes you have $1,350 to throw at a laptop.
For $649, the Gateway T-6330U is a good budget pick, for instance. And slightly more expensive recommendations still in the sub-$1,000 range, I'd say you take a look at the Dell Studio S1535, the HP Pavilion dv4-1125nr, and the Sony Vaio NS140.
OK, back to the two-instead-of-one plan.
For a Netbook, I'd select HP's 10-inch Mini 1000. A basic configuration costs $440 and features the roomiest keyboard of any Netbook I've used. With Netbooks, finding a keyboard that's usable for more than a single-line e-mail response is key. And the Mini 1000's broad keys are far and away best in class. HP actually sells two versions of its Mini 1000, a 8.9-inch model and a 10.2-inch model. It charges $50 to jump for the larger screen size, which I think is worth it even though the resolution is the same regardless. I'd also spend the $30 to upgrade to the 16GB SSD.
... the 16-inch Gateway MC7801u for home.
I would then pair the Mini 1000 with Gateway's 16-inch MC7801u. It currently sells for $850 at Best Buy and serves up a movie- and HD-friendly 16:9 aspect ratio. Two drawbacks: it relies on integrated Intel graphics and doesn't include a Blu-ray drive.
Though its HDMI port would make outputting Blu-ray movies to my HDTV a snap, I wouldn't list a Blu-ray drive as a must-have on my next laptop. I'm relatively pleased with Comcast's slowly expanding HD offerings for my living room hi-def movie needs. And for movie watching on the Gateway MC780u itself, I personally don't see much of a difference between Blu-ray and DVD image quality on a small, 16-inch screen. Plus, the screen resolution falls short of 1080p anyway. And since my gaming needs are met by an Xbox 360, the integrated graphics aren't too great a disappointment, especially given the price.
So, there you have it. Go big. And go small.
What do you think of my two-laptops-under-one-roof idea? And if someone were to ask you this very question--which laptop should I buy?--what would you tell them?
That said, I use Adobe Bridge because it is faster and better suited for my personal needs.
Thats, iphoto, idvd, garageband, iweb, imovie. For $80 its not bad when you look at what you get. You get a decent photo viewer and editor, a good dvd movie creator (better than windows dvd maker for sure), a decent website creator, an amazing (for the value) audio editor. If you were to go pro on that it would cost $140 for photoshop elements, $1,300 for final cut studio 2, about $50-$100 for the dvd creation software, $600 for cakewalk (a audio editor), and a $150 or so for the website designer. $2350 total. 1. I know adobes implementation of photo organizing is better than apples, but in my opinion not much after you learn all the advanced features in iphoto. 2. Final Cut Studio is a lot better than imovie HD and imovie 7 combined. At least 3 times better, end of story. I movie is like Final Cut Lite lite edition, but it does still have some of the useful features. 3. Garage Band, however is an excellent program, just by its plain versatility, I know more than one person that says that the $80 price tag would be great for just garage band and all the others are extras. 4. iweb is pretty great as well it allows you to create professional looking websites quickly.
I will not argue that any of the ilife software is better than the pro but it is an amazing deal for $80 and fulfils the purpose well, that being to create profesional looking things in a very short time without much skill.
This isn't to say that there are direct equivalents to all of iLife, or that it helps less savvy users at all that there exists freeware that they must find on the internet - but I think that it is fair to say that for a more proficient user like those posting on a CNET column that the existence of iLife is not much of a reason to favor OSX over Windows.
As for iLife, I rarely ever use it.
Oh sure, I will play around with Garageband from time to time, but mostly edit my videos on Final Cut Express and Soundtrack is good enough for my needs.
But seriously, not having to worry about Windows viruses and spyware are worth it for me as a consumer to chose a Macbook.
My most expensive computer is about $700, play Crysis with medium to high settings
for $700 I can get an ultra slow Mac Mini
I agree with you that iLife is very well done on OS X but alas, it only runs on OS X. When is apple going to release it for Windows? Until they do, I will use Picasa to manage my photos and GIMP to edit them.
different processors, different video cards, different os. That was back in the 80s. Since then all their inhouse made crap has failed and they had to replace it with regular stuff that everybody uses:
their processors are now regural intel x86 ones, so are their video cards ati or nvidia or intel onboard. They magical OS is now no more than a free BSD with a different look. They even gave up their one button mouse for the regular 2 buttons one, cause that was a moronic thing too.
And yet, what I find astounding is that the more apple gets closer and closer to the main stream stuff, the more they send out their snooty message about how smart and inovative and magical they are, and how stupid all people who don't use their products are. I mean boys, if you're gonna make fun of the rival OS and call it complete crap, then you'd better NOT pay a good few tens of thounsands of dollars for a way to make that "crappy" OS work on your machines, that's just going right through "ironic" and into "purpose defeating idiocy".
When in my room I have the laptop shut, plugged into a Targus dock (why cant Dell make a real dock for this machine?). Plugged in is a 20" Dell UltraSharp; keyboard; mouse, speakers; the whole nine yards.
In THEORY when I bought all this stuff it seemed like a good idea. And it does in fact work pretty well, same desktop, same files everywhere, since it's the same computer. The only issue I have is that I bought the M1330 hoping to use it as a desktop replacement, which it really cant be. The machine with the integrated graphics card runs the fans like crazy when I play a flash video (Watching ABC.com causes the fans to run on high).
If I were to do it again, I would get a high end desktop and a inexpensive laptop (M1330 or other, the M1330 does have a really nice design). With remote desktop I can login to my main computer from anywhere and still get everything I need accomplished.
To be honest, most the business students buy a whole lot more laptop than they need. They buy $2500 Thinkpads when a $700 Dell would work just fine.
ex. I am a developer who uses Microsoft .NET and needs special requirements.
Ex. I am a student in videography and I need a high performance portable that runs macintosh for final cut pro...
See, I cant say these things, I am a developer yes, but I program in languages that are cross platform.
-randomtruth
randomtruthsblog.synthasite.com
I work with very large excel spreadsheets and very large powerpoint documents on a regular basis. I also am impatient, and hate it when I'm scrolling through an excel sheet and it gets stalled and can't keep up. I also use the computer at home, at two different campuses, and at work, connecting wirelessly at each place. Vista Business has better networking capabilities than Vista Home (though not much better than XP Pro).
Finally, my schedule means I must occassionally work from home or even from school. For this, I need RDP, which is only available in the business version of Vista. I think that XP was different in this respect? Every XP system I ever owned had RDP. I think I was buying the pro version, but I'm not sure. One benefit of Vista is that the built-in VPN client is compatible with our VPN at work. One less client to install on my personal machine! Hooray!
My wife has a Lenovo S (little red netbook) with an Atom processor. She loves it, but it is too slow for me, even when using a browser. Again, I'm impatient.
I really don?t need much in the ways of gaming but I do need 3-5 hour battery life, portable enough to take with me and multimedia options. Granted, I am looking for the perfect computer that doesn?t exist but any suggestions would be helpful?
I would highly recommend a tablet PC (you'd probably prefer a convertible rather than a slate model). They are usually 12", have the battery life you desire (especially if you get a spare or slice battery. Basically you can do everything a laptop can, and then rotate the screen down on top of the keyboard and take hand written notes with a digitizer pen. Your lecture notes can be kept as scribbles or converted into text. Downsides: Usually no dedicated GPU, more costly then standard laptops and usually business-centric - durable but utilizes lower powered CPUs. You can also get a docking station expansion base.
I recommend the Lenovo Thinkpad x200t or x61t, HP elitebook 2730p or 2710p, HP TX 2z or HP TX2500 series
Take a look the following blogs:
www.studenttabletpc.com
www.gottabemobile.com
www.tabletpcreview.com <-- ask tablet forum what you need, they will help
Best of luck on your decision.
The comments about iLife are quite true. A real bargain for what you get.
So now I have the macbook for home and travel. An XP laptop at work to run some great special programs (Opanda - photo Tag editing <tricks the computer into believing that scanned photos came from a camera>, and TAG-N-RENAME - MP3 - Tag editor). PDAs are now a thing of the past but I just bought an Ipod Touch for checking my email, the weather and web on the go (it happens to play music pretty well too). In fact in the morning I check my email on the Touch because it is quicker than turning on a computer.
My mackbook never leaves the house. it is like a rock and not worth taking places. The other two units are for tavel or portability. I am using a Fujitsu UMPC and a Asus Netbook (EEE PC 101). All three NBs are positive, but each have positive uses that can fit in my acitvie and moving lifestyle. Granted, not everyone needs to spend money like this, but for me it is essential.
If someone were to ask me which size to go for, I would say for basic needs go for netbook!!!
P.S. Spell check on Macs tells you that Microsoft is spelled Microsoft, properly. It does not say Microshill, M$, etc. That is just people being ****.
- So getting a Sony Z540 laptop is the compromise between the 2 extremes (netbook and laptop) for me. The Sony is about 3.3 lbs which is as light as the netbook however it has a Centrino 2 cpu which is better than Atom processor and its battery life is better than the regular laptop.
With FIVE computers that actually work, I am in pretty good shape, PLUS a WORK laptop (that's SIX), a work Blackberry, and an LG enV; I'd say that I am reasonably overconnected. I DO shut many of them OFF! ;-) They are not all new, in fact, none are screaming technology, but they work just fine for my purposes and they did not break my bank account in the process.
HP's support sucks.
the netbook is used for travelling. the notebook is used at home. i have a regular desktop at work.
so your recommendation make a lot of sense to me.
It's funny to listen to people try to figure out the netbook. Hint: It's a small notebook that does just about everything a regular notebook does except without an internal cd/dvd drive. I just watched an interview on ZDNET with their editor in chief and he couldn't figure out why the netbook is useful or where a netbook fits in to the market. Netbooks found a niche because they are cheap, light weight, have long battery life (mine gets 7 hrs), and can do just about everything most people want in a computer (Surf Internet, organize and edit photos, organize and listen to music, watch movies, run office apps, video/audio/text chat ) Netbooks are keeping the computer market going and are doing a great deal to evolve notebook technology. Once you use a good 10 inch netbook like the Samsung NC10, other laptops feel like archaic technology (ie. heavy, hot, clunky). Sure you might not be able to game on a netbook or watch HD Movies, but for most things it works fine. That said, I do think a Netbook should be 10 inches, have a large keyboard, awesome battery life, bright display, and a lot of space( mine has160 gigs) to be worth getting, which is why I went with the Sammy.
- by intermedio December 10, 2008 11:11 AM PST
- I've followed a similar solution. I'm a media artist and educator. At home we don't have a desktop. I use a MacBook for my media work and carry around an Asus Eee to meetings and class to do powerpoint stuff. My wife uses an old iBook for her photo albums and carries an Acer Aspire One to keep track of emails and accounting of her small business.
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