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I'm thinking of buying a new laptop - Opinions?

Jessica Lares

Jessica Lares

macrumors G3
Original poster
Oct 31, 2009
9,612
1,064
Near Dallas, Texas, USA
I want a Windows based laptop to replace my aging MacBook Pro and refuse to buy another until Apple comes up with a new design (I don't go well with the aluminum), what are some good laptops I could get that are around $400-600 and can take RAM/hard drive upgrades?

I like DELL, Sony, and Toshiba the most.

And I'd like to have color options. :p.
 
Will you be using windows or OSX on this non-apple laptop. IF you decide to turn it into a hackintosh, you want to be careful of the hardware you choose.

Personally, I'd look at apple again. I built a desktop and ran windows for a while with OSX within vmware. I got so tired of the hassles windows gives, in that I went completely to the hackintosh route. There's something to be said with the ease of use and polish of OSX. You could get a macbook (non-pro) since that's not aluminum.

Anyways, take a look at toshiba, I've heard good things from them.
 
I want Windows 7, want to run CS5, and ProTools on it. Don't care if it's a bit slow, but that it runs them decently.

I have Macs, so am not looking to throw together a Hackintosh. This will simply be a machine I sit in the living room or outside with and edit my web design, film, and audio.
 
What abou the standard MacBook it's plastic not alu and its cheaper and you could buy second hand to fit your buget Or sell old MVP and buy new really spec'd up mb
 
Matty-p said:
What abou the standard MacBook it's plastic not alu and its cheaper and you could buy second hand to fit your buget Or sell old MVP and buy new really spec'd up mb
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Because it is not $400 - $500. :cool:

I'd go with the Dell series.
 
I doubt you can find a laptop ~$500 that will run the apps mentioned by the OP. You need serious power and ram to run CS5. Even slowly. And who wants to run PhotoShop slowly?

I'm not slamming PCs here, just that you can't do what you want on a slim budget.

Dale
 
Jessica Lares said:
Shut up, honestly.

I'm looking at either a DELL Mini, HP Mini, or an Acer Aspire One. I just want a little machine that can run Windows 7 and run those programs DECENTLY. They don't have to be mega fast or do backflips.
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Gosh, I thought the little laugh smiley made it plain I was joking. :)

In my experience, I'd avoid Sony. I've had them and they were unreliable, hardware-wise. Dell has recently really taken a nosedive in terms of hardware and customer service.

I'd recommend a Toshiba, Lenovo, or Fujitsu. I can't say about Acer since I haven't used them, but they seem good.

There. All serious, honestly. :p
 
Re: laptop

I would stay away from brand name since they put so much OEM junk on them. Including the bias/EFI. Brand name PC's are basically bargon hunters that put together parts that look good on paper. This is where I give Apple some credit. They put together parts that sort of work well with one another.

consider Asus, I ve had good experience with them.
 
Melrose said:
Gosh, I thought the little laugh smiley made it plain I was joking. :)

In my experience, I'd avoid Sony. I've had them and they were unreliable, hardware-wise. Dell has recently really taken a nosedive in terms of hardware and customer service.

I'd recommend a Toshiba, Lenovo, or Fujitsu. I can't say about Acer since I haven't used them, but they seem good.

There. All serious, honestly. :p
Click to expand...

I had a Vaio, it was probably my favorite that had. I looked at the P and the next size series but thought it wasn't worth it at all. Not for the colors anyway.

I talked to a DELL person today who was helping me narrow stuff down, was really helpful. I've had at least 3 laptops and haven't had any issues.

I didn't really care for the Toshibas, don't really like the Acer keyboard either. The fact that some of these have the Num Pad on the side really put me off.

So it's either the DELL or HP mini.
 
Jessica Lares said:
Shut up, honestly.

I'm looking at either a DELL Mini, HP Mini, or an Acer Aspire One. I just want a little machine that can run Windows 7 and run those programs DECENTLY. They don't have to be mega fast or do backflips.
Click to expand...

You are looking for these types of computers and want to be able to run Pro Tools?

Good luck lol
 
You may also want to consider an Asus. Their laptops come with a 2-year global warranty that includes spills, drops, etc. I had a couple of their laptops and I was reasonably pleased with them. I wouldn't venture out as far as stating that they come close to an MBP (which they don't, in my humble opinion), but you made your preference clear.
 
Xavier said:
You are looking for these types of computers and want to be able to run Pro Tools?

Good luck lol
Click to expand...

Yes, I'm pretty sure I could get the M version to run. It only needs 1GB min. But that was just an example.

And I only have 1GB to run CS5 and have no issues at all, so I'm staying at that.

And thanks for the heads up about the warranty that ASUS has.
 
From my experience Sony and Dell are the weakest out of them all. When I bought a Sony laptop in 08 I was loaded with tons of bloatware. Dell's customer service was terrible to imo when I called about a broken pixel on the screen. Try Toshiba or Asus. I actually don't know much about Asus, but my sister has a Toshiba laptop for college and it works really well.
 
Jessica Lares said:
Yes, I'm pretty sure I could get the M version to run. It only needs 1GB min. But that was just an example.

And I only have 1GB to run CS5 and have no issues at all, so I'm staying at that.

And thanks for the heads up about the warranty that ASUS has.
Click to expand...

I can just about run Pro Tools 7 LE (latest version is 8) on my Macbook of a year old, with 4GB of RAM, and even then sometimes the program has to stop mid-recording because it's not getting enough power, which can be quite irritating.
 
You want one of those mini laptops, and you want to run ProTools?


Have you considered a Lenovo X100?? It's cheap, tiny, and would be better than a Dell Mini or Acer Aspire One.

And I don't really know American prices for things, so forgive me if my suggestion went over budget.
 
Abstract said:
You want one of those mini laptops, and you want to run ProTools?


Have you considered a Lenovo X100?? It's cheap, tiny, and would be better than a Dell Mini or Acer Aspire One.

And I don't really know American prices for things, so forgive me if my suggestion went over budget.
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LOL, ok, ok. Maybe not ProTools, but a cheaper alternative. Although it worked fine on my MacBook Pro and these all have the same Ghz and RAM specs.

It's looking like I'll be getting that HP Mini, it's the cheapest and the minimum specs I absolutely want. I'm apparently getting another computer anyway, so this will be used on the side.
 
what ever you buy, I'd suggest it has an i5/c2d cpu. Anything slower will hamper your efforts in running the software you delineated, i.e., too slow.
 
tristangage said:
Uhm, whut? Why get multiple machines?
Click to expand...

You think I could lug a Power Mac G5 around then? :D Still need the netbook.

I don't care about the power, If I need to run CS 4 or anything before, that's okay. I just want something that's new, is small to carry in my hands (or purse), and that has the typical built in.

I can always do remote desktop, put another few GB of memory or use that boost thing that Vista onwards has. Or, I could take my work into the cloud.

It's just that my MacBook Pro has a broken keyboard and while I love OS X, I need Windows 7 which my model can't run (the drivers won't work). There's no point in fixing my Mac when the same thing will happen anyway. I don't want to drop another $2,000 on a new Apple machine that has the same problems. I've had enough of the SuperDrive failing 3 times, the fan almost getting destroyed because of the fact that the Genius who worked on it accidentally let part of the clip chip off, and I've had to reinstall OS X a few times because of a kernel panic.

So, I'm trying to get something that's cheap, just to last me until Apple decides on a change. I have seen so many people struggle with their MacBooks because of the plastic, which really makes them unappealing to me. I had mine in a bag and like a month passed and then I noticed that my screen had bent for some reason... I don't want to have to deal with that again.

But yeah, I think I've settled on that HP, I'll probably go to Best Buy and have a look around though.
 
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