Buying a new computer, tiny bit of advice needed

[ValiantKnight]

Friend who works at best buy told me that when it comes to laptops, its becoming harder to put windows XP on them, because of the wireless cards and other components not having even basic XP drivers.

That they frequently blue-screen during a Windows XP install on the newer laptops, yet go through a Vista install, just fine.

But as I don't deal much with laptops, I'm not sure how trustful this is.

If you go vista, just make sure you double your RAM from XP, or even triple.

1gb will handle most non-gaming needs on a laptop for XP. 2 or 3 is needed for vista.

[escobert]

Asus makes good stuff along with Acer. Acer has always made good products.

[edczxcvbnm]

Toshiba or Acer is good in my experience. CDW - IT Products and Services for Business has some fairly good prices depending on what you are looking for.

[o_O]

Friend who works at best buy told me that when it comes to laptops, its becoming harder to put windows XP on them, because of the wireless cards and other components not having even basic XP drivers.

That they frequently blue-screen during a Windows XP install on the newer laptops, yet go through a Vista install, just fine.

Manufacturers aren't going to stop making XP drivers any time soon.
It's no secret that Vista has been plagued by problems since the release of the Beta testing versions early last year, so hardware manufacturers would be a bit silly not to develop XP drivers.

If you go vista, just make sure you double your RAM from XP, or even triple.

1gb will handle most non-gaming needs on a laptop for XP. 2 or 3 is needed for vista.

1GB is perfectly sufficient for use on Vista. I'm able to run VMWare or Bioshock perfectly well on my PC with 1GB of RAM.

[rubah]

1gb for xp?

when it came out, 256mb for xp was more than enough xD

[ValiantKnight]

I shall "rephrase" that then

1gb for Windows XP with a real-time memory hungry internet security suite such as norton, 16 programs in the task bar, including a p2p sharing program, 3 instant messangers, 3 music players even though only one is playing music.


See similar for vista.

Vista with trimmed settings, and no internet security software, just a non memory-hog antivirus will run well at 1gb. It certainly can use 2gb though. Xp will run fine at 512, even 256 if you don't have an internet security suite loaded.

It is just better to be prepared than to come up short.


256mb is more than enough for "Windows XP"
Problem is, very few people just run windows xp.....
Sorry if I went heavy on the recommendations. When you are at a realtive's house with a 256mb windows xp machine with norton, real player, quicktime, limewire(/sigh), AIM, Yahoo Messanger, and a few other programs that they "Won't take off, because they need", and trying to show them ways to speed it up.... you want more ram.....

Also windows XP has had numerous patches, updates, and so have many other programs that run on it. Updates can increase ram usage and bloat the ram needed for the system. Virtual memory can adapt to most of this, but it is much slower

Sorry if caused any problems. I just thought its better to advice a little higher for expansion, and possibility of lots of programs running. The PC with 16 things in the taskbar, and norton internet security is "just for internet" the same as a machine with only internet explorer/firefox, avast, and nothing else loaded on it. Yet, one runs smoothly on far less ram than the other.


As far as brands go, Toshiba seems ok. However I have had friends who had lemons with them.

[Roto13]

A guy I worked with used to say that Vista is for people who have pretty good computers, but like to pretend that they don't. :P

[Baloki]

I shall "rephrase" that then

1gb for Windows XP with a real-time memory hungry internet security suite such as norton, 16 programs in the task bar, including a p2p sharing program, 3 instant messangers, 3 music players even though only one is playing music.


See similar for vista.

Vista with trimmed settings, and no internet security software, just a non memory-hog antivirus will run well at 1gb. It certainly can use 2gb though. Xp will run fine at 512, even 256 if you don't have an internet security suite loaded.

It is just better to be prepared than to come up short.


256mb is more than enough for "Windows XP"
Problem is, very few people just run windows xp.....
Sorry if I went heavy on the recommendations. When you are at a realtive's house with a 256mb windows xp machine with norton, real player, quicktime, limewire(/sigh), AIM, Yahoo Messanger, and a few other programs that they "Won't take off, because they need", and trying to show them ways to speed it up.... you want more ram.....

Also windows XP has had numerous patches, updates, and so have many other programs that run on it. Updates can increase ram usage and bloat the ram needed for the system. Virtual memory can adapt to most of this, but it is much slower

Sorry if caused any problems. I just thought its better to advice a little higher for expansion, and possibility of lots of programs running. The PC with 16 things in the taskbar, and norton internet security is "just for internet" the same as a machine with only internet explorer/firefox, avast, and nothing else loaded on it. Yet, one runs smoothly on far less ram than the other.


As far as brands go, Toshiba seems ok. However I have had friends who had lemons with them.

I can run an anti-virus, web browser, IM client and Winamp fine on 256 megs of ram on XP, however 512 adds a safety margin. So saying you cannot run a decent install of XP on 256 megs of ram is bull, pure and simple. Also if you need to run Norton to browse the internet and feel secure rather then a lighter product then you shouldn't be (a) on the internet and (b) should definatly not be using Limewire as Norton would be useless as Limewire is basically a backdoor for virii and Trojans

Edit: I'm not saying Norton isn't any good, it is a decent product when configured properly but if you're just going to install Norton and think your completely safe then you are very, very wrong.

[rubah]

512mb of ram is for when you start using firefox xD Why should you use a resource hogging antiviruses when there's a lot of others that don't require such resources? (sometimes for free!)

[Aerith's Knight]

i have acer.. and it works just fine. Just make sure that you dont take an intergrated video card. Because if you do.. you cant play FFVIII on it ; ;

[Roto13]

I just use free stuff. AVG and ZoneAlarm ftw.

[Baloki]

Roto, I recommend buying a Linux brand laptop, it'll be delivered in pieces, be complex to construct and setup, but will be completely reliable and safe from outside threats breaking it

[Aerith's Knight]

IBM laptops are impossible to break.. and are delivered contructed and all

they are made from that stuff that phones get made of nowadays.. you know that stuff that doesnt scratch

[Avarice-ness]

Well, I have my happy little Compaq laptop which is one of HP's sub-brands and I can say without a doubt in the 2 years I've had this I've knocked it over -alot-, just yesterday I knocked it off the sofa into the table then onto the floor and it still loves me!
My only issue is their power cords suck. My original one got all jacked up 3 months ago, I bought a new one and it's already starting to die, and thanks to me overusing this my battery is basically nothing.

I can say though that it's been a good computer for basically everything.

My sisters had two dells so far, one got killed by a virus my computer-illiterate bro-in-law got in it, and the other one's been doing well and she drops it alot, not to mention she has a 9 year old who plays on it and a 3 year old who tends to hit at it or try to shut the lid when people are playing on it.

Since your last one died of being knocked over you should really prolly look into one that's can handle being knocked over, like my compaq or my sisters Dell. Trust me, we don't treat our compy's with love, but they still love us!

[Roto13]

My only issue is their power cords suck. My original one got all jacked up 3 months ago, I bought a new one and it's already starting to die, and thanks to me overusing this my battery is basically nothing.

That was the most annoying thing about my laptop. I ended up having to get three different power supplies, and the third one was on it's way out at the time of the accident. Actually, the power supply is broken again, but so is the laptop.

Also, I'm solving the knocking over problem with divorce. (Kidding.)