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Looking for laptop
as some of you know I have been wanting to post for months but have had nothing but (expensive) problems trying to get my camera and comp. to work togther https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_evil.gif I am now offically on the market for a laptop that is user friendly ( i am no good w technology) and under $600 doesnt have to be anything fancy only requirments would be that it can burn cds, and connect by usb cable to camcorder thats it i am basically buying it for cd making (as my drive is unfiable) and posting vids ( i have atleast 6 uncut dances and all sorts of practice clips to put up) any suggestions would be helpful thanks! https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_sunny.gif https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_flower.gif
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11 Replies
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In my opinion your best bet would be to hunt down a good condition MacBook with Leopard on it, on Craigs list. They usually go for about $500 used and are worth every penny. The built in webcam and iMovie will make your life wonderful when it comes to making video and chatting.
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someone else said i should check out craigslist but i am so nervous about dropping 500+ on something and not having a warranty or some guarentee that a 6mos or a year from now if something goes wrong i’m just stuck with it 500-600 is alot for me esp right now as have lost some hrs at work (good ol economy) my friend said i should go to best buy but i have had nothing but problems w them as far as trying to get somewhere posting vids (they keep selling me things that dont work for either my cam or comp even though i bring in all the info) well thanks for the idea i will def take it into consideration https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_thumleft.gif
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I second the Mac purchase. They are slightly more pricy, but hold their value.
I’m currently using a 2.5 year old 17" MacBookPro with Leopard 10.5.6, it’s better than many laptops out there now and the IT geeks I used to work with loved to play on it – these are hard core Windows boys too.Wonderfully easy to use, drag and drop is the theory.
And you’ll get iMovie, which is a really good domestic product. Beats Windows Movie Maker.I am biased towards Macs as we have 2 at home and one at the studio. Yes, we have higher spec machines, but that’s because they’re used at professional levels.
A Mac Book should do you fine for what you want to do.
Get a DVD burner as the disks hold more data and you can get better compression rates. -
my old laptop ($600 acer) broke over a yr ago when a nurse at work spilt coffee on it https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_surprised.gif
so i went on ebay and bought a simple used dell. companys sell them as they want new ones, and i got this one for $300. they have a 1 year warranty i believe. ive had mine for over a yr now with no problems.if you look in fliers or go to walmart or somewhere, you can find brand new really good laptops for 500. my boyfriend has a really good one he bought 2 years ago for like $800, and they sell the same one with a bigger harddrive for like 500-600.
personally, i’m not a fan of the mac. my sister has one, and if somethin goes wrong you have to send it to the company specifically since its different than a general computer, and its pricey to fix. you have to buy apple laptops, mouses, scanners….etc. you cant just buy a cheaper generic printer or anything else, you have to buy and apple one, which are more expensive.
the good thing is that you dont get viruses (since there are none made for macs yet, but sure to be in time…)the only reason i dont like them is b/c they are expensive, and end up being more expensive if something goes wrong of if you need something else (printer, etc)
but you can find brand new really good computers at a low price. (my b/f has an HP, i really like it) -
Had to chime in on the mac recomendation https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif It is my platform of choice, and I have worked for a company with over 400 in active circulation. Here is why you buy a mac:
1) High quality – When I ran a geek squad store it was far and away the most durable computer we fixed. The only one that ever came in for hardware problems was 13 years old (others came in because people wanted extra hard-drive, new vid cards etc…). PCs don’t make it that long. Additionally the components are higher quality (anyone ever see Veena in chat, thats the built in cam on a macbook).
2) Ease of use – iMovie just works. You plug a video camera into it or drop in a recorded DVD and it says "Did you wanna put this in iMovie?" No drivers to install, no compatibility issues nada. Everything else just works (the commercials were right)
3) Price – a new MacBook (the plain one not the pro) costs 1000, and a PC laptop costs about 600 for an inexpensive one. The PC will last 2 to 3 years on average while the mac will last 5 to 6. So the cost per year of ownership is actually slightly higher $200/yr on the PC and $170/yr on the mac.
4) You can plug anything into it and it just works. Mice, keyboards, printers, cameras, etc… rarely do you have to deal with the dreaded driver disk unlike windows. The myth that you have to buy accessories just for the mac is an old one dating back to the late 80s and early 90s. We have a linksys wireless router, logitech keyboard and mouse, epson printer and scanner, canon camera, nikon camera, Western Digital backup drives and a Sony Camcorder all which play nice without any extra drivers or configuration.
5) Service Availability – There are thousands of AppleCare certified techs around. If you live in a small town in the middle of nowhere you might have difficulty finding someone but even when we lived in Bismarck, ND (also known as the middle of nowhere) there were technicians.
6) Viruses – There aren’t many (there are some) and the number isn’t likely to grow significantly. Macs are based on a UNIX type core specifically BSD. It is much harder to infect a mac because of this.
I want to say I am a bit of a Mac Fanboy but it is not without reason. What I like is that they build a better product.
A PC might be more in your price range however. Beware of the cheap PC laptops some are better than others, if you go that route read the reviews online. Some will last for years while others will break quickly.
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All Personal computers, no matter what OS they use are PC: the difference is the OS*: Mac, Windows, Linux, Unix or other operating system.
The "have to take the whole thing in if the Mac needs repair" also applies to windows laptops.
When our Windows Laptop needed repair, we had to take that to the repairer in it’s entirety. No pulling out the bits, as the case does not allow easy access. (HP Machine)
Conversely, when our MacBook Pro Battery went BANG! and warped, they got us a new battery (FREE!!!!! Thanks Mr Jobs et al) and the machine kept going.We have 5 computers all up (2 humans, 4 cats, a lizard and 5 computers. That’s normal, isn’t it?? https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_ugeek.gif ): (warning geeky bit) a Windows tower that is a door stop, a Windows laptop that I only use for my security cameras, a MacBook Pro which I love, our ex-editing machine which is a G5 quad tower which we run our studio system on (excluding security cameras because they were Windows only) and a very sexy Mac Tower (quad core, seriously nice) that we got last year to run Maya and Final Cut on. When we need to replace anything, it’ll be for another Mac. We have them because they work and are easy to use.
We have not had to install anything or purchase a "Mac" specific piece of hardware for any of our Macs. everything works first time. Conversely, we had about 3 – 4 hours of fiddling, playing and cursing when we had to reformat a hard-drive for a Windows machine – and that was just after we’d purchased it from the shop!
Another big consideration for a Mac lappie is that the newer ones (at least 2.5 years old) have a magnetic power supply, which means if you trip over the cable, it pulls out of the machine. rather than having a machine suddenly land on the floor and go Bang. Poof, big puff of smoke.
I run all my business applications on a Mac OS and have no problems opening XL / Microsoft files or even sending said files to Windows machines. Huge spreadsheets just work.
Even other apps like Photoshop and final cut have transferred nicely between OS.
My way of switching between he OS is to have the mouse r/h for one and l/h for the other.My husband is writing all his Film Diploma essays on a Mac and there are no issues with his tutor opening them – the tutor uses a Windows machine (I think). Anyway, the webmail is an Outlook derivative and there’s no problems with that on the Macs.
I use both OS on a regular basis and do prefer the Mac OS. That’s not being biased, that’s using Windows machines at work for many years and being grateful to come home to a Mac. My work has involved hard drive / speed demanding files and I’ve worked in IT projects where I had pretty fast and high specced machines.
Great, the Windows v Mac debate is now on this forum… https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/alien.gif
*OS= Operating system.
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ok so i finally got to the root of the problem as far as getting a usb cable that will fit camera i went to sony.com and ordered the 1 for my cam should be here in 5 5-6 days https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_bounce.gif so as far as mac i dont want to have to mess around w buying specfic mac items as far as printer ect but you say thats not the case? https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_question.gif
ok basically what i need ( im sorry if i am repeating myself but am just nervous about dropping soo much money on something I am not sure about https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_shaking.gif https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_pale.gif https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_scratch.gif ) ok my biggest concerns/proritys for laptop
1)quality I am willing to spend a little more than planned for a good quality/long lasting computor
2) user friendly I am not good (as we all know https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif ) w computors ect so I need something easy to understand and that is basically user friendly with uploading videos/editing pictures
3) I need something i can connect an mp3 player to for downloading music and cd burned/dvd player
4) customer care/ supportI appreciate all adcice given https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_flower.gif thnx so much everyone for taking the time to respond https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_thumleft.gif great to have my own tech team https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_ugeek.gif https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_salut.gif
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Anyone who tells you that you need to purchase Mac specific equipment probably has no idea what they’re on about. Some equipment will only run on PC, but most hardware runs completely fine on a Mac. Just check the specs and ask the shop people. Ensure you can return the product if they’re dunderheads (insert naughty word of choice here, mine usually start with F and end in wit) and only after a sale.
We got a new printer at the studio, plugged it in and it worked first time. All camera’s I’ve used work fine too.
2 external harddrives worked like a dream and our printers at home were fine.As we use a Mac for commercial video editing, it needs to be able to take any hardware we throw at it. So far, no problems with Sony, Canon, JVC etc. We’ve had a couple of issues with a harddrive camera to Final Cut, however, that’s more a software problem.
If you’re really concerned at price and only wanted to get a base unit, a Mac Mini is a great option.
Mac OS Leopard 10.5 was $129 USD when it was last released (about 12 – 15 months ago maybe).
What I like about Mac is everything is labelled nicely and the "drag and drop" mentality is great for moving files.If you choose to use iWeb, it’s a great basic product, we use it here http://www.filibuterfilmsnz.co.nz and here http://www.polefitness.net.nz. The only downside is that you have to edit the site on the relevant machine, if you’ve only got the one, then it’s fine.
Mail is good too. Can also divert hotmail etc to the mail application.
On top of all of this, they hold their resale value exceptionally well.
golly, I am a geek….. https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_ugeek.gif
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and you have both the webmaster and myself if you need a hand with Mac OS, so support is pretty close.
My uncle and aunt are in their mid 70’s and they’ve recently got a Mac. They had no problems using it.
mind you, he used to fly 747 as a captain…. -
So the only piece of hardware you are going to need to be careful about is mp3 players. But the best MP3 player out there is the iPod and they are competitive on price and features to other MP3 players, and all iPods work perfectly (they are Apple, of course they do).
Here is a link for you
http://store.apple.com/us/product/FB403LL/A?mco=MjE0NDk5MwThis is a link to a refurbished 2GB MacBook. It will save you $200, on a very powerful machine. You get the same warranty as you would on a brand-new one. You can buy an extended warranty, and since its refurbished it actually goes through more tests than a new laptop. I’m helped several people buy refurbished and they’ve been very happy.
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wow thanks so muc https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_e_biggrin.gif https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_salut.gif https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_sunny.gif h for going out of your way to help and send link thnx!!
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