Netbooks
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But then it costs the same or even more as a laptop ? What's the point ?Y wrote:You can buy an external disk drive for the occasions you need to use a disk.
I agree re a Mac - lovely to look at, would be great to have one, but they are so expensive. We can get 5 laptops for the price of 1 Mac, sadly for my children
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Nope, after 3 years you have a laptop which is still alive if you have looked after it properly. Nearer £750 than £1250. Average life of average (non-Mac) laptop 18 months. Average price of netbook, what, £300-£400? The maths is pretty similar, but just look at what you are getting! No way is it all about looks - though of course they are indeed prettier - the whole deal is just better, imho.mike1880 wrote:A Mac laptop will be sooooo much cooler, but after three years you've got a dead £1250 (or similar) laptop instead of a dead £250 laptop. If that £1000 matters less to you than looking good then go for a Mac.
Mike
Are there no other Mac users out there to support me?!
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Macs in this house Amber. I have had mine for over three years and the only problem was when the charger packed up and I had to buy a new one.
Actually it is the adults who have Macs and the children have ordinary lap tops, which seem to need constant attention. You never get a virus on a Mac so do not need to buy that Norton thingy and no pop up adverts, so I have never seen those enlargement adverts people always joke about.
I keep it on the kitchen table so it is filthy and covered with flour and cake mixture as I am always looking up a recipe half way through cooking but I still love it almost more than my children.
My husband's is definitely the " third person " in our marriage.
Actually it is the adults who have Macs and the children have ordinary lap tops, which seem to need constant attention. You never get a virus on a Mac so do not need to buy that Norton thingy and no pop up adverts, so I have never seen those enlargement adverts people always joke about.
I keep it on the kitchen table so it is filthy and covered with flour and cake mixture as I am always looking up a recipe half way through cooking but I still love it almost more than my children.
My husband's is definitely the " third person " in our marriage.
'Mine' technically does belong to my children. It is also on the kitchen table and often similarly mucky. It was the no virus thing which swayed me most, as we had a nasty one (a worm!) on our old PC; and yes, no pop-ups is good too. I love the magnetic charger connection as some child or cat is always tripping over the lead.
Best of all I like the almost regal 'bong' of an email coming in and that little red number over the mail icon when, as now, I am trying/pretending to work on it!
Best of all I like the almost regal 'bong' of an email coming in and that little red number over the mail icon when, as now, I am trying/pretending to work on it!
Sorry, can't offer any views on Macs. But the external drive I got was only about £30, and is shared (very rarely) between two netbooks. The only advantage the netbook has over the laptop, is also its disadvantage (size). I don't know what the cost comparisons are now.Looking for help wrote:But then it costs the same or even more as a laptop ? What's the point ?Y wrote:You can buy an external disk drive for the occasions you need to use a disk.
I agree re a Mac - lovely to look at, would be great to have one, but they are so expensive. We can get 5 laptops for the price of 1 Mac, sadly for my children :roll:
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Compromise
Economically superior solution is illustrated by dd1's IBM laptop with Xubuntu 10.04 (Free) OS installed - cost C. £500. It was second hand when bought for A levels and has kept her going through Uni so far. The Unix based OS is amazingly quick and easy to install and similarly slick in operation to OS X. We installed it (does the job itself after you chose language, keyboard, and time zone) because Windows XP Pro came up with Blue Screen of Death too often!
Anyone interested in trying it can do so by burning an iso-image to CD and running it from the CD/DVD drive (it will run and even connect to the internet without installing on the hard drive or altering any software.) Just set the Computer Bios to boot from the CD/DVD ROM as 1st preference, insert the iso-image disk and you are away, Simples! You can also do lovely things like syncing multiple ipods with gtkipod manager or songbird! I have Google Earth, Picasa and Chrome working very happily. Open Office Suite (also free) is a great substitute for Microsoft Office.
http://www.xubuntu.org/get
Anyone interested in trying it can do so by burning an iso-image to CD and running it from the CD/DVD drive (it will run and even connect to the internet without installing on the hard drive or altering any software.) Just set the Computer Bios to boot from the CD/DVD ROM as 1st preference, insert the iso-image disk and you are away, Simples! You can also do lovely things like syncing multiple ipods with gtkipod manager or songbird! I have Google Earth, Picasa and Chrome working very happily. Open Office Suite (also free) is a great substitute for Microsoft Office.
http://www.xubuntu.org/get