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There's no true answer here -- the "best" laptop is whatever fits your (current and expected) needs, is available, and fits into your budget. And that probably means trade-offs - no SSD, smaller screen, no touch/multitouch, etc. But that's dependent on your budget (and personal preferences or biases - Apple vs. MS OS, Dell vs. Lenovo vs. Toshiba if you've got brand preference, etc.)
At least the Internet is your friend in the shopping and research part now, and you're not stuck with whatever your local computer store used to bring in.
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The keyboard layout on a laptop is one of my biggest annoyances. Why do they (manufacturers) have to take something that is pretty common (almost a standard, some would say), and change it up for "their" laptop? I understand that there is limited space, but I'm talking about basic key locations. I'm looking at you, IBM/Lenovo ... why on earth do you switch the bloody Ctrl and Fn keys? A more recent one is the backslash (\) and Enter/Return key size changes. Living and working in a Linux/Unix environment, I can do without the windows key, but it is pretty useful for shortcuts.
Oh well ...
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I bought a month ago my brand new laptop, a reasonably priced, powerful ASUS PRO5-AVN. God how I hate it. The keyboard layout[^] is awful, the numeric keypad (that is completely useless to me) isn't separated from the arrow keys so I can't even try to jump around source code lines without having to look at the bloody keyboard!! Moreover, the keys seem to react only on heavy presses - the key can get down to its full depth but without "heavy" pressure it won't type. I hate it. I'm currently looking for a millimeter-thick plastic sheet to cover the numeric keypad. I wish I could replace the keyboard...
Luca
The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance. -- Wing Commander IV
En Það Besta Sem Guð Hefur Skapað, Er Nýr Dagur.
(But the best thing God has created, is a New Day.)
-- Sigur Ròs - Viðrar vel til loftárása
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I just returned a brand new DELL because I disliked the keyboard. When I'm working in SQL Server Management Studio developing stored procedures and executing queries, I'm constantly pressing Shift + [Home] or [End] in order to select the current line, and then execute it [F5]. With the DELL layout, the [Home] and [End] keys are doubled-up on the arrow keys such that you have to hold down the little blue [Fn] key while pressing the correct arrow key. So rather than a quick Shift + [Home], one must go the route of Shift + [Fn] + correct arrow key. There's no way I can live with that. It's unfortunate that they didn't show better pictures of the keyboard on their Web site.
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Agreed. I used to have a Toshiba through my old job and the keyboard drove me crazy. I have an HP now and the keyboard is perfect!
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Apart from layout, overall keyboard quality varies widely. One annoyance for me is when your fingers get caught between keys when they don't have a smooth underside. Minor things like that can get annoying since it's the main input method.
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
CP article: SmartPager - a Flickr-style pager control with go-to-page popup layer.
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Ashley van Gerven wrote: One annoyance for me is when your fingers get caught between keys when they don't have a smooth underside.
How thin are your fingers? 2mm?
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2.5 mm
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
CP article: SmartPager - a Flickr-style pager control with go-to-page popup layer.
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It's because I've got a free MSDNAA academic licence for Windows and VS. Beside these I use only freeware.
Greetings - Gajatko
Portable.NET is part of DotGNU, a project to build a complete Free Software replacement for .NET - a system that truly belongs to the developers.
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I agree with you ! I'm on linux since 1 year and i wont return on Windows. Maybe Mac OS X but not windows.
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I generally get a HP workstation class laptop with the 3 yr on-site warranty. Even covers lightning strikes
www.CADbloke.com
The Broadcast Systems Documentation SYSTEM
"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation"
-Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
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I'd like my laptop with an OS that works too
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You should still wipe it and re-install anyway.
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I so fully agree. I like my drive partitionned. Nothing so dreadful as a 300 GB C: drive and a dell logo desktop.
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we work in IT or we don't.
at least, you could still do it yourself
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If it dont work whatgoodis it?
I use an older Ibm to weigh dowd folded paper on a scanner
, it happens to be the right size and flat on the bottom. (now there are good features.}
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With a laptop, the expected life-span is very important to me. Because it is very difficult to upgrade anything else except the RAM, and even that is expensive, once the laptop is a few years old, it may not be able to handle the applications of the day. I know that with my four-year-old laptop (knock on wood), which is a Centrino 1.4, I can't open too many applications at once anymore, because they are too heavy. I have stopped most windows services that look unimportant, I only have very few icons in the system tray, etc. No heavy graphics, like screen-savers, I can't even run heavy flash (10) applications, as these will cause my CPU to overload.
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Schmuli wrote: Because it is very difficult to upgrade anything else except the RAM, and even that is expensive, once the laptop is a few years old
Not always. I spent $22 US to go from 1GB to 2GB on my Dell D820 because windows 7 thrashed a lot with only 1 GB of ram and it was impossible to use for programming even for test projects because it was always thrashing. Now with 2GB things are much better. I have to say the install was not easy being that there were no instructions and I had to figure out where the second dimm was located. Google was not much help at that because there were thousands of hits and the first 100 or so were not about swapping ram. After I found the secret (second dimm is under keyboard the install was easy..
John
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Just wondering where you found a gig of ram for $22 US.
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Okay who was the idiot who univoted voted me?
John
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Earlier this year, I bought 2 Gig of DDR2 PC8500 RAM for my Dell laptop for under $50 at Frys. RAM is not that expensive for a laptop, not any more. (Unless you buy it from the OEM.)
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Eddie Kuns wrote: RAM is not that expensive for a laptop, not any more. (Unless you buy it from the OEM
Or buy it at Best Buy. I have seen ridiculous prices at Best Buy for computer hardware. I sometimes feel sorry when I see confused individuals asking questions about products that are 3 times the price that you can buy them online. To me I feel that it's like watching someone being mugged but doing nothing..
I would have added compusa and circuit city (the other two major electronics / computer stores in my area but both closed their doors..)
John
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Disk speed + CPU + Memory are the main factors. You must have a quick disk as this makes a massive difference. I have worked on machines that boost good memory and CPU speeds but had a slow drive speed (1400 rpm). It was like walking an old woman across the road. However, Using a disk speed of 10000 rpm or more will give you a very noticeable difference with SQL server and Visual Studio
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