Technical Stuff > Computers and Computer software
Laptop advise
marshie:
Any opinion on which to get? I am torn between buying a macbook air 2016 or dell laptop inspiron 5000 2 in 1. Both are i5 and almost the same price as they are both in sale. Before tax prices are $750 for macbook air and $680 for dell. I will use it for internet surfing, downloading, work (when I am working from home - mostly excel, access, and syatems).
Any insight is appreciated. My friend has been telling me to get the mac as this is lightweight and really durable.
Lee2:
When carrying around a computer a lot, weight is a deciding factor, also the Macbook Air units that I have seen usually have a smaller hard drive, the dell units usually have 500GB, that would be a deciding issue for me only if I was intended to store a lot of photos or other downloaded items on it but external hard drives and thumb drives nowadays are not that expensive, yet then an additional cost if you do not have one already that would be compatible. The amount of ram would also be something to consider when comparing computers.
marshie:
^Both have 8Gb ram while macbook air have 128gb solid state drive and dell have 256gb. I do have an existing external hard drive. I have to check though if it is compatible with macbook air as this is via usb. :)
JoeLP:
Tina has the Mac and I have an Acer. My Acer has zero issues for what I use it for. The boys use both of our laptops. Tina's Mac does well, but, due to over use the battery swelled and now just a little too much excess use and it swells and the mousepad is worthless. The battery is located right under the mousepad.
Apart from that it is par for course as far as what we use them for when compared.
lost_in_samoa:
--- Quote from: marshie on July 29, 2017, 01:39:58 PM ---lightweight and really durable.
--- End quote ---
IMO, Hard spec to meet.
I use "off lease" Lenovo Thinkpads, ( endearingly called the Stinkpad). They are tanks. And they weigh as much. Full service manuals with step by step picture instructions are available from the support website.
You can pick them up in almost new condition by the small lot. Last lot I purchased cost me $400 something for 5. The they came with 4gb ram and no hard drive. 10 minutes of musical parts and I had two with 8gb, one with 4, and two running spares. Moved my old hard drives to the new laptops. People usually over estimate how much drive space they need. Unless they are multi-media heavy.
Loaded those with Linux, Virtualbox, and VNC. All of those are free, supported better than the paid stuff on security updates which are available 24/7 from mirror servers on UP. You can set Linux to have a Mac or Windows feel to it through the theme.
Virtualbox is a "computer within a computer" It allows you to boot up and run an operating system inside another one. For instance MacOS 10 inside Linux. Or Windows XP inside Linux. This lets me use my legacy office processor and other applications that I have become dependent on, without the learning curve of "how do I change the damn FONT!"
VNC is a application that allows you to pull a "thin" desktop to just about any other operating system. In our case I have it set up to serve up to my tablet which runs IOS.
So whenever I go on the road, which is never. I can jump onto some wifi hotspot and pull a remote desktop off of my laptop onto my tablet or the phone. I can then work using the horsepower of the laptop and not the horsepower of the phone.
Only screen geometry and change refreshes travel the line. Those are encrypted to whatever security level appeases the sense of paranoia. Anything I change or save never leaves the home laptop. Unless I specifically pull it down to the phone. Best of both worlds.
Hope this helps.
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