Laptop necessary in med school?

[Trekkie963]

Originally posted by SpiffyJWC
Dell's tech support used to be top notch, but I'm afraid they've lost some ground in that department as of late.

I haven't had to call Dell Tech support in probably a good three years, but the fact that I had such great experiences with them in the past has been the main reason I keep on buying Dell computers. It's really too bad to hear that Dell's tech support has gone so far downhill.

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[terpgirl]

Be careful when buying a Dell--make sure you get the longest warranty you possibly can. Within the first 3 weeks of having mine, the motherboard blew up (I mean with smoke, sparks and popping noises). The card for wireless doesn't work--even though they've put in 2 new ones (I bought a card that slides into the machine to bypass their internal card and it works wonders!!), the montior went as well as the video card--that happened within the first 7 months of having it... It would be expensive to fix this stuff out of pocket!

 

[Tas]

I can't say wether or not Dell's Tech support has gone downhill, but I will say not ALL of it has gone to India -

a buddy of mine actually works for dell desktop phone support in Nashville, TN.

 

[terpgirl]

Oh, and I am not fond of Dell tech support. I don't care what nationality you are, but if your accent is so thick I cannot understand a word you say... this probably isn't the best position for you to fill. I don't care as long as people can help me fix my computer, but please, put people there I can understand.

I had the same thing happenm one time I called AOL, and lets just say I didn't figure out what they did untilmy billing statement came!

 

[Gleevec]

Originally posted by SpiffyJWC
wow, that was longer than I thought it would be.
i just wanted to include a little experience I've had (and others that I know) dealing with Dell's customer service. It seems like they outsource their tech support to India, as everybody that has tried to call in has gotten someone with a huge accent that is hard to understand. Many of these people are the typical script-readers that don't know anything about computers. I once spent 2 hours on hold and being transferred to different departments before finally landing some guy that didn't know how to plug his phone in, because he couldn't hear me at all and thus, hung up on me.
Dell's tech support used to be top notch, but I'm afraid they've lost some ground in that department as of late. On the plus hand, of the times I've had to send my computer in, I've gotten it back fairly quickly.

Everyone outsources their support to India now, so I dont see the problem there. Ive actually called Dell tech support for my parent's computers, and they've been great, so Im not sure where you're coming from.

Like any tech support sessions, sometimes you will randomly get someone who can help you out, and other times you can't. Ive had the same problem with incompetent cellular carriers recently and even with computer vendors in the early-mid 90s. Its just random luck with tech support.

 

[musiclink213]

i've had to call dell tech support a couple of time's for my friend, and let me just say... it was not fun. the guy couldn't understand me, i couldn't understand him. My friend on the other hand, got a really good tech helper. The first week she got her computer, she wanted to delete microsoft money because she wasn't going to use it, and it ended up deleting her games and word and all that other stuff. She called and got htsi really good guy who said waht to do, and said he would call back in 3 hours when it was done downloading, and he actually did.

oh, another thing you may want to consider when getting a laptop. The weight. it kinda goes without saying, but if you're going to be lugging it around with all your other books and stuff, you don't want something that weighs around 15, 20 pounds like my friend's laptop. you want something lightweight.

 

[CalBeE]

I heard that when some companies outsource their customer service dept to India, they also train the employees to speak with less accent. I guess Dell was probably still in the early stage of this process and the employees are not trained well enough yet.

 

[JulianCrane]

Anyone content with their good ol' desktop?

 

[Trekkie963]

Originally posted by JulianCrane
Anyone content with their good ol' desktop?

I'd think I would be. Never used a laptop during college. And I hate the various so-called "mice" they have. Oh yeah, and their tiny little screens (I need my 19" monitor).

 

[Gleevec]

Originally posted by JulianCrane
Anyone content with their good ol' desktop?

I have a cheap laptop I bought a while back (15" Celeron) which Ill use if I have to.

But Im definitely buying a desktop with a nice 18" LCD for home. Laptops are kinda overrated if you're not required to use them, at least ot me.

 

[funkless]

Originally posted by courtyard
i think it's better if u get it well before school starts b/c u wanna...

...y would u pay hundreds more just to find out time and time again that ur computer is incompatible.

Who the hell are you? Prince? Ahem, excuse me..." O(--> "?


Y wood U not want 2 yooz ur entire alfabet lik tha rest of us?


And by the way, Macs rule.

--Funkless

 

[funkless]

So, for all you tech heads out there:

I'm getting ready to buy a laptop for MS-I. I want a desktop replacement so that my wife can fill my desktop with her own stuff.

My main interest is in storage space (I have 40 GB of mp3s alone) but battery life, durability and a nice (huge) display are also important. Expense isn't a major concern, but I do agree that laptops aren't exactly mutual funds.

Oh, and is it possible to get a laptop that takes 5 1/4" floppies? I'm dyin' to rule on my Karateka, Frogger, and Oregon Trail. Just kidding, y'all.

Thanks,

--Funkless

 

[Gleevec]

Originally posted by funkless
So, for all you tech heads out there:

I'm getting ready to buy a laptop for MS-I. I want a desktop replacement so that my wife can fill my desktop with her own stuff.

My main interest is in storage space (I have 40 GB of mp3s alone) but battery life, durability and a nice (huge) display are also important. Expense isn't a major concern, but I do agree that laptops aren't exactly mutual funds.

Oh, and is it possible to get a laptop that takes 5 1/4" floppies? I'm dyin' to rule on my Karateka, Frogger, and Oregon Trail. Just kidding, y'all.

Thanks,

--Funkless

If you go to Best Buy or CompUSA they generally have good deals every now and again on desktop replacement type laptops, much moreso than online.

One thing you might want to consider if you have 40 GB of MP3s is getting an iPod or equivalent. The computer views the iPod as a USB hard drive, so your iPod could serve as an mp3 storage device (to free hard drive space) AND as your portable mp3 players. You can also store documents on it for transport, so thats kinda cool.

If you want a desktop replacement, you probably want at least a 14" LCD if not a 15.1" (I have a 15.1 and its quite nice). In terms of memory, even though there has been some dispute on this thread, I would definitely recomment 512MB Ram and a Pentium 4-M or Centrino processor. I have a Celeron and 256MB Ram right now, and its kinda slow when I have multiple things open.

For any desktop replacement, it will probably eat up batteries pretty quickly. Some laptops have double-battery functionality, which makes the laptop heavier, but doubles the battery life, which is useful.

Of course, as is true of all desktop replacements, they will be heavier and consume more power than a smaller laptop.

Good brands for desktop replacements Ive heard are generally: Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Compaq

 

[finnpipette]

If you want a desktop replacement, you probably want at least a 14" LCD if not a 15.1" (I have a 15.1 and its quite nice). In terms of memory, even though there has been some dispute on this thread, I would definitely recomment 512MB Ram and a Pentium 4-M or Centrino processor. I have a Celeron and 256MB Ram right now, and its kinda slow when I have multiple things open.

For any desktop replacement, it will probably eat up batteries pretty quickly. Some laptops have double-battery functionality, which makes the laptop heavier, but doubles the battery life, which is useful.

Of course, as is true of all desktop replacements, they will be heavier and consume more power than a smaller laptop.

Good brands for desktop replacements Ive heard are generally: Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Compaq

If you want a true desktop replacement, then you can skip the double battery. For a processor, i wouldn't get the 4m or centrino, because you don't really need the energy saving cuts for a desktop replacement. Just get a buff regular pentium 4. It'll drain power, but it's ok because you'll be working off of A/C most of the time. Centrino is really for people on the go and bump the price up quite a bit.

 

[ESPNdeportes]

I don't think anyone MUST have a laptop (unless, of course the school requires it), but it is probably nice, especially with all this new wireless stuff going up. Most schools probably have enough computers that it wouldn't be a big issue, I would assume. Still, having a laptop is more convenient.

As for the whole PC vs. Mac thing, I had a PC laptop for the first 3.5 years of undergrad. The hardware was alright (although the HD had to be replaced once, but it is still a consumer electronic), the problem was in Windows. It came with Windows ME, which was pretty bad, but it still ran decent. Then, I upgraded to XP, and it was alright, but then it started to have problems. I got all kinds of spyware on my computer. I didn't use kazaa, only internet explorer. Things would install on my computer without me knowing. Weird. My sisters tech wizard boyfriend spent like two hours getting that stuff fixed. In the mean time, anytime I tried to use my MP3 player, it made me reinstall the drivers (talk about a pain) and it had a bunch of other problems. XP wouldn't communicate with my CD drive, so I couldn't install anyting new after a while. Then, the harddrive failed again......so I decided to get something new.

Given all the recent viruses and stuff for Windows, I looked into Apple. I really liked their powerbook series, so I got a 12" one. I had never used a Mac before, so it was a new experience. Its worked very well.....I have never had a crash or an incompatability problem with Windows (I transfer files daily between the two). The computer is real fast and gets real good battery life.

One of the cool things that I did not know about when I bought my computer is a feature on OS X.3 called expose. Basically, it allows you to view all the screens you have open at once and switch between them. So, if you have 10 different windows open, you press a button (which I have mapped to my mouse) and you can see mini versions of the windows and quickly switch between them. Its so much faster for switching betweens windows its amazing- its actually made me faster on the computer. When I use a PC, it feels to clunky to me to have to switch windows by clicking on the task bar or using alt+tab. You can check it out here, because its kinda hard to explain.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/expose/#

Anyways, I was a little nervious about switching to Mac, but in all honestly, its not that much different. Took me about 3 days to get used to. OS X is definitely more stable than XP. To me, it also feels much smoother and easier to use.

 

[Gleevec]

Originally posted by finnpipette
If you want a true desktop replacement, then you can skip the double battery. For a processor, i wouldn't get the 4m or centrino, because you don't really need the energy saving cuts for a desktop replacement. Just get a buff regular pentium 4. It'll drain power, but it's ok because you'll be working off of A/C most of the time. Centrino is really for people on the go and bump the price up quite a bit.

He said battery life was important though. The only way I can see someone having a desktop replacement AND battery life is with extra batteries.

Will be huge though.

 

[Alexander99]

I couldn't resist the deal they were having. I found an online coupon code for Dell.com that gave me $150 off any laptop $1500 or more so I ended up getting close to 10% off. This is what I got:

Dell Inspiron 9100
Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz
512MB DDR 400MHz 2 DIMMs
64MB DDR ATI's MOBILITY? RADEON? 9700 AGP 8X Graphics
60GB Hard Drive at 7200RPM
24X CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive with Sonic RecordNow

It cost me $1730 including shipping and tax.

I figure I was going to get one no matter what and I might as well start enjoying having a laptop now. I get a cheap digital camera (2 megapixels) and printer for free. I know I can buy much better ones but the point is, unless I'm getting it for free, I'll never spend money buying one.

I think with this laptop, I should be able to play The Sims 2 without much slowdown. Does anyone know whether the wireless hot spots on college campuses allow you to use internet applications like AIM, online games, etc or does it only allow you to surf the web?

It's a good thing I recently got a job at Kaplan.

 

[funkless]

Originally posted by ESPNdeportes

I got all kinds of spyware on my computer. I didn't use kazaa, only internet explorer. Things would install on my computer without me knowing. Weird.

That happens to me all the time. "I don't know where all this hardcore porn came from, honey! I swear!"






--Funkless

 

[JulianCrane]

I'm just gonna stick with my nice Dell desktop.

 

[SaltySqueegee]

tablet laptops for taking notes??? ultimate in mobile computing for the student???

It's like a paper notepad, only electronic, and 2200 times more expensive. Yeah, and I want one bad...

 

[funkless]

I went to Best Buy a few weeks ago to demo a Toshiba tablet PC. I absolutely COULD NOT write for crap on that thing. It tracked so poorly, it was like writing with a big fat crayon in the wrong hand.

--Funkless

 

[BubbleBobble]

Originally posted by funkless
So, for all you tech heads out there:

I'm getting ready to buy a laptop for MS-I. I want a desktop replacement so that my wife can fill my desktop with her own stuff.

My main interest is in storage space (I have 40 GB of mp3s alone) but battery life, durability and a nice (huge) display are also important. Expense isn't a major concern, but I do agree that laptops aren't exactly mutual funds.

Oh, and is it possible to get a laptop that takes 5 1/4" floppies? I'm dyin' to rule on my Karateka, Frogger, and Oregon Trail. Just kidding, y'all.

Thanks,

--Funkless

For storage space, I think your best bet is probably an external USB(2) hard drive. That, or a DVD/R. Then, you can get whatever laptop you like.

If you're not (at all) concerned about weight, a good choice is the HP Pavilion zd7000: HP Pavilion zd7000
If you're not (at all) concerned about price, I would suggest the 17" Apple PowerBook: Apple PowerBook

 

[Yogi Bear]

got this deal from slickdeals.

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?CS=19&kc=6F878&oc=D80409D



For $602.... (after $250 rebate)
dell inspiron 1100 (about 7-8 lbs laptop)


-2.4 ghz celeron
-14.1" xga
-24x cdrw/dvd
-256 mb ram
-65 kwh battery
-1 year warranty

no tax in most states (except where dell has business...i.e. cali, texas, tennessee, etc.)

I'd suggest adding:
-802.11b/g pcmcia wireless card for $50
-upgrading battery for $30 to the 95kwh version (gives u an extra hour of battery life...i.e. 30kwh ~ 1 hr usage)
-get 3 yr warranty for $70 more.

-celeron is a desktop chip, not mobile chip so it's pretty fast. so be sure to spend $30 extra to upgrade the battery. it should last u about 3 hrs on single charge.

-don't worry about upgrading ram. 256 mb is more than enough for typical usage.

this is a great deal if u're not a gamer. deals like this usually last only a day, so get it while it's still available. it might take 1-2 wks for delivery though.

 

[funkless]

That looks okay.

I'd rather pay more for a nicer display and more storage, but that's a pretty sweet deal.

Thanks a ton, everyone.

--Funkless