Folks i don’t wana start on a rant here but i have a few observations before i actually round this up. I would like to summon the car industry tiering metaphor if i may. Do you all recall something called a Corolla? (which costs a pretty penny now) its from that mammoth Japanese company that sells cars. Well over the years if you notice they have been upping the ante on that series and introducing other sub- Corolla models like the Yaris and the Yaris hatchback. Of course the rest of the industry follows this approach as well.
The reason i make this analogy because in the Computing industry (laptops even more so) one sees the same tiering structure taking hold more and more. I recall back in the 90’s Dell’s cheapest computer would be no less than 800 USD. But the parts and specifications were not mediocre but average. Thanks to the might of Intel and AMD they have led a charge of lower priced (and lower performance in some cases) Central Processing Units (or CPU’s or the brains of the computer– sorry about all the industry jargon folks) Thus we have a whole new category of laptops and low end home PC’s running well mostly Windows 7 Home Premium. So to sum it up we now have:
Netbook: usually does not have any extras (not even a DVD Drive) ranging anywhere from 299-500USD like the Toshiba Satellite T135-S1300RD TruBrite 13.3-Inch Ultrathin Black/Red Laptop – 9 Hours 22 Minutes of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium)
Or an ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-EU1X-BK 10.1-Inch Black Netbook – 4 Hour Battery Life
and even the (this one packs more features for the money) Lenovo Thinkpad X301 13.3-Inch Black Laptop – Up to 5.5 Hours of Battery Life (Windows XP Pro)
Notebook: which is your full scale notebook which start as low as 599 – 2700USD smiler to a
or the infamous Apple MacBook Pro MC118LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop
And the of course there is the desktop replacement workhorse! like the DELL GAMING LATTOP – Intel® CoreTM2 Duo P8600 2.4GHz (3MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB) , Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit, 17-inch WideXGA+ 1440×900 (900p) , Slot-Load Dual Layer DVD Burner (DVD+-RW, CD-RW) , 4GB Dual DDR3, 250GB SATA HD, Single NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 260M 1GB, Internal 300Mbps Dual-Band a/g/n Wireless with MIMO Technology
are nothing but a behemoth like the Apple iMac MC413LL/A 21.5-Inch Desktop
These workhorses are “supposedly” the desktop class killers.
To make life easier across the board, i will share with you a quick decision making Usage and Laptop or desktop so you can quickly make up your mind and just start using instead reading reviews and rants like this one:
Common user:
email, internet surfing, word precessing, light spreadsheets, home finances, light multimedia (playing NO High Definition content / music is fine) Any of the following should be good enough : (mind you i haven’t owned any of these except the ASUS eEE PC for my little daughter to skype with)
ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005HA-PU17-BK 10.1-Inch Black Netbook – 10.5 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Starter)
Acer AOD250-1584 10.1-Inch Blue Netbook – Up to 9 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Starter)
Toshiba Mini NB205-N230 10.1-Inch Black Onyx Netbook – 9 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Starter)
Mid user:
email, internet surfing, word precessing, corporate spreadsheets, home finances, multimedia ( High Definition content / music / watching movies / some light games) Any of the following should be good enough :
Sony VAIO VGN-FW510F/B 16.4-Inch Black Laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium)
HP Pavilion DV6-1354US 15.6-Inch Black Laptop – Up to 4 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium)
ASUS UL50Ag-A3B Thin and Light 15.6-Inch Black Laptop (Windows 7 Professional)
Advanced Gaming and Desktop Replacement Warrior!
This is all the way and becomes the complete home PC which works off road and in the home/home business+ high end gaming or designing!
ASUS G51J-A1 15.6-Inch Blue Gaming Laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium)
Apple MacBook Pro MC226LL/A 17-Inch Laptop
The All in one family PC
Now there really is no such thing as a family shared notebook, there are alternatives i do like.
Most recently i had a chance to play with the Dell Zino HD
Dell Inspiron Zino HD Piano Black Desktop PC (Windows 7 Home Premium)
I really like this little hot tomato! its fast! its easy to use! and has an HDMI out (to connect to your existing HDTV) and 2 e-SATA ports (for super fast backup to your external family) . Works very nicely with any standard LCD or Plasma. For the family i highly suggest the following rig:
Dell Inspiron Zino HD Piano Black Desktop PC (Windows 7 Home Premium)
LG W2486L 24-Inch LED Backlit Monitor (Gloss Black)
Western Digital My Book Studio II – 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) USB 2.0/FireWire 400/FireWire 800/eSATA Desktop External Hard Drive WDH2Q20000N
and finally a keyboard/mouse combo that actually would work in your living room
IOGear Multimedia Keyboard with Laser Trackball and Scroll Wheel, 2.4GHz Wireless GKM561R (Black)
Your well under 1000USD (3750 SAR) with this setup and i think with the new Windows 7 all those 3 or 6 family members would be relatively happy. Oh and you will need some backup software to backup all the Windows user accounts on this machine. I would suggest reading my Backup article
Now for all you die hard Mac folk out there, i am a bit reserved on the whole new iMac line from Apple. I would prefer a nicely loaded Apple Mac mini MC239LL/A Desktop
+ LG W2486L 24-Inch LED Backlit Monitor (Gloss Black)
and of course
PTC Mini-DVI to HDMI Adapter with 6ft HDMI Cable for Macintosh
but i will enlist it anyway :
Apple iMac MB950LL/A 21.5-Inch Desktop
Western Digital My Book Studio II – 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) USB 2.0/FireWire 400/FireWire 800/eSATA Desktop External Hard Drive WDH2Q20000N
So there you have it! a simple list of brands and names and of course my rants! if you have further questions, please do send me directly for more Q&A’s. These technology investments should not be complicated — i try to make it simple but even i get caught up in the mix of trends and glamour!
Netbooks, notebooks, p.c., mac, intel, mad, dell, which netback, netback roundup, notebooks roundup, low end home pc’s, p.c. vs mac, dell zino HD, macbook pro, family PC, family computing, mini port to hdmi, mac mini on HDTV, dell zino on HDTV, HDTV, HD movies, HD Nation
useful Links
http://www.hqlaptops.com/apple-macbook-air-vs-lenovo-thinkpad-x300/
This one goes out to OB1 who asked me a question regarding ultra thin notebooks. Ironically the Mac Air he had purchased a while got nicked and thus now leaving him with am emptier wallet and the new ownership pain of finding another net vs note “book.”
Folks i don’t wana start on a rant here but i have a few observations before i actually round this up. I would like to summon the car industry tiering metaphor if i may. Do you all recall something called a Corolla? (which costs a pretty penny now) its from that mammoth Japanese company that sells cars. Well over the years if you notice they have been upping the ante on that series and introducing other sub- Corolla models like the Yaris and the Yaris hatchback. Of course the rest of the industry follows this approach as well. The reason i make this analogy because in the Computing industry (laptops even more so) one sees the same tiering structure taking hold more and more. I recall back in the 90’s Dell’s cheapest computer would be no less than 800 USD. But the parts and specifications were not mediocre but average. Thanks to the might of Intel and AMD they have led a charge of lower priced (and lower performance in some cases) Central Processing Units (or CPU’s or the brains of the computer– sorry about all the industry jargon folks) Thus we have a whole new category of laptops and low end home PC’s running well mostly Windows 7 Home Premium. So to sum it up we now have: Netbook: usually does not have any extras (not even a DVD Drive) ranging anywhere from 299-500USD like the ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-EU1X-BK 10.1-Inch Black Netbook – 4 Hour Battery Life
Ultra thin notebook: close cousin of the Netbook and sometimes the mid ground between supper high and price and super performance. I would include the Apple MacBook Air MC234LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop
Notebook: which is your full scale notebook which start as low as 599 – 2700USD smiler to a Toshiba Satellite T135-S1300RD TruBrite 13.3-Inch Ultrathin Black/Red Laptop – 9 Hours 22 Minutes of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium)
Common user: email, internet surfing, word precessing, light spreadsheets, home finances, light multimedia (playing NO High Definition content / music is fine) Any of the following should be good enough : (mind you i haven’t owned any of these except the ASUS eEE PC for my little daughter to skype with)
ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005HA-PU17-BK 10.1-Inch Black Netbook – 10.5 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Starter)
Acer AOD250-1584 10.1-Inch Blue Netbook – Up to 9 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Starter)
Toshiba Mini NB205-N230 10.1-Inch Black Onyx Netbook – 9 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Starter)
Mid user: email, internet surfing, word precessing, corporate spreadsheets, home finances, multimedia ( High Definition content / music / watching movies / some light games) Any of the following should be good enough : Sony VAIO VGN-FW510F/B 16.4-Inch Black Laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium)
HP Pavilion DV6-1354US 15.6-Inch Black Laptop – Up to 4 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium)
ASUS UL50Ag-A3B Thin and Light 15.6-Inch Black Laptop (Windows 7 Professional)
Advanced Gaming and Desktop Replacement Warrior! This is all the way and becomes the complete home PC which works off road and in the home/home business+ high end gaming or designing!
ASUS G51J-A1 15.6-Inch Blue Gaming Laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium)
Apple MacBook Pro MC226LL/A 17-Inch Laptop
The All in one family PCNow there really is no such thing as a family shared notebook, there are alternatives i do like. Most recently i had a chance to play with the Dell Zino HD
Dell Inspiron Zino HD Piano Black Desktop PC (Windows 7 Home Premium)
I really like this little hot tomato! its fast! its easy to use! and has an HDMI out (to connect to your existing HDTV) and 2 e-SATA ports (for super fast backup to your external family) . Works very nicely with any standard LCD or Plasma. For the family i highly suggest the following rig:
Dell Inspiron Zino HD Piano Black Desktop PC (Windows 7 Home Premium)
LG W2486L 24-Inch LED Backlit Monitor (Gloss Black)
Western Digital My Book Studio II – 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) USB 2.0/FireWire 400/FireWire 800/eSATA Desktop External Hard Drive WDH2Q20000N
and finally a keyboard/mouse combo that actually would work in your living room IOGear Multimedia Keyboard with Laser Trackball and Scroll Wheel, 2.4GHz Wireless GKM561R (Black)
Your well under 1000USD (3750 SAR) with this setup and i think with the new Windows 7 all those 3 or 6 family members would be relatively happy. Oh and you will need some backup software to backup all the Windows user accounts on this machine. I would suggest reading my Backup article
Now for all you die hard Mac folk out there, i am a bit reserved on the whole new iMac line from Apple. I would prefer a nicely loaded Apple Mac mini MC239LL/A Desktop
but i will enlist it anyway : Apple iMac MB950LL/A 21.5-Inch Desktop
Western Digital My Book Studio II – 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) USB 2.0/FireWire 400/FireWire 800/eSATA Desktop External Hard Drive WDH2Q20000N
So there you have it! a simple list of brands and names and of course my rants! if you have further questions, please do send me directly for more Q&A’s. These technology investments should not be complicated — i try to make it simple but even i get caught up in the mix of trends and glamour!
useful Linkshttp://www.hqlaptops.com/apple-macbook-air-vs-lenovo-thinkpad-x300/
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