huntercameron
Active Member
- Messages
- 783
Im looking for an opinion dell , hp , or apple? Out of those which one would you recommend
Laptop?
- Thread starter huntercameron
- Start date
NVBighorn
Long Time Member
- Messages
- 9,458
Dell. They can all have problems. Dell's do too. At a previous employer I maintained probably a 150+ Dells over the years. That was the only brand we were allowed to buy. It was a corporation that probably had 5000 Dell computers and servers. Old habits...
Wiszard
Long Time Member
- Messages
- 10,897
You should buy a cheap one because it will be outdated in 3-4 years anyway. Laptops are not built to stand the test of time.
Cancer doesn't discriminate...don't take your good health for granted because it can be gone in a heartbeat. Please go back and read the last line. This time really understand what it says.
Cancer doesn't discriminate...don't take your good health for granted because it can be gone in a heartbeat. Please go back and read the last line. This time really understand what it says.
1911
Long Time Member
- Messages
- 6,197
Chromebook. Instant on and start up. Around 200 give or take depending on screen. Everything is run off the cloud which is only a bad thing if you are in and out of wifi coverage. If you are using it in wifi, it beats everything in every way imaginable for pennies on the dollar.
eelgrass
Long Time Member
- Messages
- 31,441
LAST EDITED ON Mar-19-18 AT 05:54AM (MST)[p]I'm with Wisz...I bought a Acer on Amazon for cheap. I guess it depends on what you're going to do on it. I also have a Surface Pro that is pretty amazing. Solid state. A powerful computer if you do a lot of video editing, etc.
But as far as Dell or HP or Apple. I don't know.
But as far as Dell or HP or Apple. I don't know.
wileywapati
Very Active Member
- Messages
- 1,808
MacBook Pro with either VM Ware or Parallels for Windows.
"If the DWR was just doing its job, and
wildlife and hunting were the actual focus,
none of this process would even matter.
But that is not the focus or the goal in any
of this. The current DWR regime, and
SFW were born out of wildlife declines,
and are currently operated and funded
under that paradigm. Those 200 Expo
tags would not even be worth anything if
the focus was where it was supposed to
be, and wildlife and tags were plentiful.
But under the current business model,
that is how the money and power is
generated. It is generated through the
rising "value"(monitization) of a declining
resource. A resource that is supposed to
be being beneficially managed for the
masses that own that resource, ie. US.
The problem is obvious, hedging is not a
long term sustainable strategy, and
others have to lose, for some to win. In
this case it is us, the many, and our
resources, that are being forced to lose,
because there is a minority who's power
and money is derived from our loses."
LONETREE 3/15/16
"If the DWR was just doing its job, and
wildlife and hunting were the actual focus,
none of this process would even matter.
But that is not the focus or the goal in any
of this. The current DWR regime, and
SFW were born out of wildlife declines,
and are currently operated and funded
under that paradigm. Those 200 Expo
tags would not even be worth anything if
the focus was where it was supposed to
be, and wildlife and tags were plentiful.
But under the current business model,
that is how the money and power is
generated. It is generated through the
rising "value"(monitization) of a declining
resource. A resource that is supposed to
be being beneficially managed for the
masses that own that resource, ie. US.
The problem is obvious, hedging is not a
long term sustainable strategy, and
others have to lose, for some to win. In
this case it is us, the many, and our
resources, that are being forced to lose,
because there is a minority who's power
and money is derived from our loses."
LONETREE 3/15/16
computerguy
Member
- Messages
- 95
>LAST EDITED ON Mar-19-18
>AT 05:54?AM (MST)
>
>I
>guess it depends on what
>you're going to do on
>it.
I see several answers here and eelgrass asked the one question that I would have asked you first.
What do you intend to do with it?
A cheap one will certainly be lacking in memory and horsepower, which will be a problem for you if you are running video games or doing video editing or other resource intensive apps. This is to say nothing of poor customer service and tech support on a product of inferior quality that will likely break sooner.
Think about some things before you buy--Are you going to be storing a lot of photos and video files? You'll want a large hard drive of 1 TB or more, and some means to back up those files on a separate drive. There are two kinds of hard drives--those that have failed and those that are going to fail. Be prepared.
Think about whether you want or need a backlit keyboard. I really need that sometimes because my eyes aren't as young as they used to be, and in low light I have trouble reading the key markings sometimes. It costs more, and if one of your young'uns spills a glass of water on it, a replacement will really ding your wallet (voice of experience). My work HP does not have it, and sometimes I use one of those little lights that clips to the laptop lid. That's kind of a PITA.
I would not buy a machine with less than 8 GB of RAM, but that's just me. More RAM will cost more, but less RAM will run slower. If I were buying a new laptop, I would look for one at least upgradeable to 24 GB or more and then buy RAM aftermarket and max it out.
Acers are cheap and I wouldn't use one if somebody gave it to me, so I certainly wouldn't part with good money for one.
Dell isn't as good as they used to be, but they're better'n Acer. HP is fine. Dell and HP both have extensive tech support resources on their web sites. Both my current and previous employer bought HP exclusively. I use an HP for work and I have a Toshiba at home, but I sort of Frankensteined mine together from a shell and new RAM and hard drives (two drives--one traditional rotating disk hard drive for storage capacity and one Solid State hard drive (SSD) for speed).
I wouldn't own a Lenovo either, and I would not part with good money for one. Cheap crap made by a Chinese company that bought out IBM's PC and laptop division.
As for Apple, that's a separate question--Windows or Mac OS?
Apple makes quality stuff even if it is more expensive. You can save some $ by shopping the refurbished site or buying used from a known good source, or if you qualify to use the student/teacher page on Apple's site. But you need to understand that asking about Apple vs. any Windows platform machine is not the apples-to-apples comparison as when you're asking about Dell vs. HP. If you love the Mac OS and you use that exclusively, then it is a fine choice. If you are not proficient with a Mac, you can take classes at an Apple store if there is one near you. That is what I would have to do. As someone else pointed out, you can run VMWare or Parallels and run Windows on the Mac--but I would recommend that you understand why you're doing that and the extra cost and difficulty that brings. If you love the Mac platform but you need to have Windows also, then it's a good compromise. For me the Mac OS is quite a learning curve and I just don't have the time to relearn how I've learned to do things over the last 22 years or so. There are things I despise about Microsoft but Apple is no better in some regards. So you take the good with the bad.
Chromebook is a good and inexpensive Internet browsing machine, but it won't work for you if you need to run Microsoft Office applications or anything else that requires Windows or Mac OS. However, if you don't need those, you can use Google Docs. My son uses it for school work and my wife uses it as a teacher, but my job requires office apps that the government uses, and they will not run on Google's Operating System. I don't want to turn this into a philosophy discussion, but I have serious concerns about how everything is being moved to "The Cloud". Nothing is unbreakable; nothing is impervious, nothing is unhackable. Whenever something IS unbreakable, someone either socially engineers it (https://www.wired.com/2011/06/rsa-replaces-securid-tokens/), or steals it (German Enigma). Google is doing some really nefarious things and some disturbing things in the political world, and I personally intend to support them as little as possible.
In addition, because that is what my son is learning to use in school, I somewhat wonder if he will have a more difficult time in the military or law enforcement, or in any private sector job that does NOT use Google Docs. OTOH, kids today are growing up with this technology in their DNA and they don't seem to have any issues switching from one platform or technology to another. I sometimes marvel, watching him navigate the menus of different devices where I'm still asking "How did you do that?"
>AT 05:54?AM (MST)
>
>I
>guess it depends on what
>you're going to do on
>it.
I see several answers here and eelgrass asked the one question that I would have asked you first.
What do you intend to do with it?
A cheap one will certainly be lacking in memory and horsepower, which will be a problem for you if you are running video games or doing video editing or other resource intensive apps. This is to say nothing of poor customer service and tech support on a product of inferior quality that will likely break sooner.
Think about some things before you buy--Are you going to be storing a lot of photos and video files? You'll want a large hard drive of 1 TB or more, and some means to back up those files on a separate drive. There are two kinds of hard drives--those that have failed and those that are going to fail. Be prepared.
Think about whether you want or need a backlit keyboard. I really need that sometimes because my eyes aren't as young as they used to be, and in low light I have trouble reading the key markings sometimes. It costs more, and if one of your young'uns spills a glass of water on it, a replacement will really ding your wallet (voice of experience). My work HP does not have it, and sometimes I use one of those little lights that clips to the laptop lid. That's kind of a PITA.
I would not buy a machine with less than 8 GB of RAM, but that's just me. More RAM will cost more, but less RAM will run slower. If I were buying a new laptop, I would look for one at least upgradeable to 24 GB or more and then buy RAM aftermarket and max it out.
Acers are cheap and I wouldn't use one if somebody gave it to me, so I certainly wouldn't part with good money for one.
Dell isn't as good as they used to be, but they're better'n Acer. HP is fine. Dell and HP both have extensive tech support resources on their web sites. Both my current and previous employer bought HP exclusively. I use an HP for work and I have a Toshiba at home, but I sort of Frankensteined mine together from a shell and new RAM and hard drives (two drives--one traditional rotating disk hard drive for storage capacity and one Solid State hard drive (SSD) for speed).
I wouldn't own a Lenovo either, and I would not part with good money for one. Cheap crap made by a Chinese company that bought out IBM's PC and laptop division.
As for Apple, that's a separate question--Windows or Mac OS?
Apple makes quality stuff even if it is more expensive. You can save some $ by shopping the refurbished site or buying used from a known good source, or if you qualify to use the student/teacher page on Apple's site. But you need to understand that asking about Apple vs. any Windows platform machine is not the apples-to-apples comparison as when you're asking about Dell vs. HP. If you love the Mac OS and you use that exclusively, then it is a fine choice. If you are not proficient with a Mac, you can take classes at an Apple store if there is one near you. That is what I would have to do. As someone else pointed out, you can run VMWare or Parallels and run Windows on the Mac--but I would recommend that you understand why you're doing that and the extra cost and difficulty that brings. If you love the Mac platform but you need to have Windows also, then it's a good compromise. For me the Mac OS is quite a learning curve and I just don't have the time to relearn how I've learned to do things over the last 22 years or so. There are things I despise about Microsoft but Apple is no better in some regards. So you take the good with the bad.
Chromebook is a good and inexpensive Internet browsing machine, but it won't work for you if you need to run Microsoft Office applications or anything else that requires Windows or Mac OS. However, if you don't need those, you can use Google Docs. My son uses it for school work and my wife uses it as a teacher, but my job requires office apps that the government uses, and they will not run on Google's Operating System. I don't want to turn this into a philosophy discussion, but I have serious concerns about how everything is being moved to "The Cloud". Nothing is unbreakable; nothing is impervious, nothing is unhackable. Whenever something IS unbreakable, someone either socially engineers it (https://www.wired.com/2011/06/rsa-replaces-securid-tokens/), or steals it (German Enigma). Google is doing some really nefarious things and some disturbing things in the political world, and I personally intend to support them as little as possible.
In addition, because that is what my son is learning to use in school, I somewhat wonder if he will have a more difficult time in the military or law enforcement, or in any private sector job that does NOT use Google Docs. OTOH, kids today are growing up with this technology in their DNA and they don't seem to have any issues switching from one platform or technology to another. I sometimes marvel, watching him navigate the menus of different devices where I'm still asking "How did you do that?"
