Which Laptop would you recommend?

[heyjoe]

Hi Chris

Another vote for Acer here, got one at home, never had a problem with it. Windows 7, i3 processor.
Lovely and fast enough for me, as I keep all my photos, videos and music on various external hard drives, in different places.

Just a thought, my sister in law has windows 8 on her laptop, I agree with you, its not intuitive. Anyway, she had to change
her firewall as the one she used to use wasn't windows 8 compatible. Worth checking your firewall/anti-virus software will work
before you buy.

Hope this helps.

Joe

[suziko]

I just got a Lenovo and am pretty happy with it. It does have Windows 8 on it, but if you don't like the tile-format it has a desktop option which will look just like what you're used to with Windows 7. That is what I primarily use. However I also have Windows 8 on my phone (a Nokia Lumia) and I quite like it.

[neverfoundthetime]

Thanks Joe and Suzi... I'm no so worried about the layout of Windows 8, its the compatibility issues I'm wondering about with all these programs we TGers use for recording, videoing etc....

And while we are at it, anyone updated the iPhone to OS7.0.2 yet... I have heard of a few initial problems with it... better to wait a couple of weeks or press the button...?

[kanefsky]

neverfoundthetime wrote:

Thanks Willem, MJ, Wiley, Dermot and Steve, some useful info for me right there. Very interested to hear about the advantages of SSD Steve, thanks for that. Looked up some Laptops with SSD and it puts things in the $1,100.00 range minimum but I like the sound of that added speed... always an issue on start up and when editing audio and video.
Chris

I'm not sure where you're looking but that price is way high. You can even get a Macbook Air with an SSD for $999 and Macs are premium priced (the Mac is what I would recommend BTW, but I don't want to get into that argument )

Here's a few I found with a quick search on Amazon:







--
Steve

[neverfoundthetime]

Hi Steve, welcome to Switzerland, high-price island! I'm already quoting the cheapest possible here. I would tell you a few Taylor, Martin or Gibson guitar prices but I don't want to frighten anyone!! I will check those links, thnx!
Chris

[willem]

neverfoundthetime wrote:

Thanks Joe and Suzi... I'm no so worried about the layout of Windows 8, its the compatibility issues I'm wondering about with all these programs we TGers use for recording, videoing etc....

And while we are at it, anyone updated the iPhone to OS7.0.2 yet... I have heard of a few initial problems with it... better to wait a couple of weeks or press the button...?

I heard a few friends on FB that the upload takes a lot of time....long long loooooooooooong..

Willem

[wiley]

[neverfoundthetime]

I love Mac and was very happy with them for 10 years or so but PC are much cheaper and almost as good...

I love the iPhone too but am always in dread of updates I didn't order and when my phone tells me I need to free up another 2.9 Gigs to even be able to install it (it needs 4.5 Gigs?!!) ... I'm thinking, hmmm, don't thinks so...

Thanks for the tilt tip off Wiley!

Those prices look good Steve even if I will be paying 7.6% VAT plus customs (maybe another $70) the prices are still really good! But many of these Amazon jobs don't ship to Switzerland so I'd need to do some homework...

[neverfoundthetime]

Update

Hi guys. Well I'm check in on the new notebook so I thought I'd let you know which one I bought.
After some looking around online in CH (Switzerland) not wanting to incure import and VAT taxes and wanting to avoid warantee or up-keep problems
I zeroed in on the offers being made my the electronics dept. of the the two biggest supermarket chains, Migros and CO-OP as they provide their own warantees and services ontop of the maker's and there were sales on. In the running for under CHF 600.00 ($660.00) were Acer, Asus and HP. The final was played out by a HP Pavillion 15-e066sz and a Acer Aspire E1-571-53238G both pretty equal in what they offered: Intel i5 3230M, 2.6Ghz / 8GB DDR3 Ram / 1TB or 750 GB / Windows 8 etc. In the end, the HP won out because it had 3 xUSB 3.0 and Acer only had USB 2.0s. A SSD Hard drive would have been cool but it'll have to wait for next time.

So 4 1/2 years down the road from the Dell Inspiron 2515 I was using, this one is better and faster and half the price.

Yes, I bit the bullet on Windows 8 and am trying to make head or tale of it now hoping to be set up for a Hangout tomorrow with all those who will join Steve, Willem, JimC BobR and myself on Saturday at 12:00 PM Pacific / European 21.00 hrs.

So far, all good!

Chris

[Music Junkie]

Congrats on the purchase, Chris. I'll be eagerly awaiting your feedback on the Windows 8 experience. Glad to hear you are all up and running...

Jason