Shoppers' Paralysis (help me choose a computer)

[Metcarfre]

Oh, confirmation bias, we meet again.

[gcninja]

On a quick google, apple has had iphone, ipods, and powerbook battery exploding. As has dell, sony, and hp. It happens!

[RvLeshrac]

I don't really want to get too involved in this discussion, because people will say things, and then I'll quickly respond and get banned.

BUT.

Toshiba has no major issues, just stay away from refurbs and make sure you regularly check for drivers and BIOS updates on the website.

http://bit.ly/hwZ32z (ToshibaDirect)
Sandy Bridge i7, $1k

Acer is bloody disgusting. They make great LCDs, but that's about it. The plus of an Acer is that parts are ridiculously cheap. Sub-$100 motherboards, which is good, because you'll need them.

You can go high-end on an Acer and not have it suck, but if you're going high-end on a Acer you could just spend the money on a decent system from another manufacturer, like Toshiba.

ASUS makes great notebooks, unless you need service. If you need service, I hope you don't need your notebook for nearly a month. If you actually have a local service centre, though, this might not be a bad idea. They're up on the high end for pricing.

Sony produces nothing but crap (unless you're buying a TV). And overpriced crap (especially if you're buying a TV). Right now, Sony's repair centre is fucked up to a degree where they can no longer process parts orders from ASPs, they have to take the notebooks in and mail them out to customers.

Fujitsu/MSI/Panasonic/Yaddayaddayadda all suffer from the same problem as ASUS: No repair centres in most locales, takes forever to get a unit back.

Dell, contrary to popular belief, isn't crap. You just need to avoid anything with a slot-loading drive and, preferably, purchase it as a business, not as a consumer. Business support from Dell is *MILES* better than consumer support. Honestly, the XPS that gcninja posted a link to earlier in the thread is perfectly fine.

Lenovo doesn't make bad machines if you buy a black, old-style Thinkpad. I wouldn't touch an Ideapad with Uwe Boll's hand.

You don't want a netbook unless you're buying a desktop. This goes for a netbook by any name, such as "Air." Netbooks are complete ass for daily use. Even the high-end ones. They're ridiculously slow, flimsy, and frequently have lots of crap in them you can't replace at a decent price.

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You can get a student discount on a Mac, but make sure you buy the AppleCare. If you don't have AppleCare, Apple gives less of a shit about your notebook than they do about iPhone antennae that don't work properly. Just to be sure I've gotten my point across, I'm going to do this:

IF YOU BUY A MAC, DO NOT FAIL TO PURCHASE THE APPLECARE

I have no idea what software you want for a Mac, but I hate Safari, so I always install Chrome on every Mac I see. Prey works on OSX, so I'd install that.

Do. Not. Use. iWork. iWork is the bane of my existence. Compatible with nothing. Get Academic MSOffice or OpenOffice if you need an office suite.

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If you go with a desktop, build it. Or have someone build it. You'll usually spend much less than you would buying an OEM prebuilt. Intel. i5 or i7, Gigabyte MB. Please, don't go with AMD. I'm begging you.

If you have to buy a pre-built desktop, go with a Dell. Since they stopped using proprietary crap in the desktops, they've been making substantially better machines.

I still wouldn't buy a netbook, but if you still need something portable, a desktop gives you an excuse to buy a dirt-cheap netbook. Don't spend more than $200 on it, because you'll be replacing it every year anyway when the board or LCD dies.

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No matter what Windows-based machine you buy (if you go this way), you totally want:

-Microsoft Security Essentials
-Chrome
Screw Norton, McAfee, whatever. Install MSE, install Chrome, don't
do stupid things. Done.

-Q10
You need to write? Write! Worry about formatting things after
you're done writing. Unless you need to research *while* writing.
But that's a bad idea anyway. Research first!

-Paint.NET
Sometimes Photoshop is just way more than you need.

-Prey
Hopefully it won't get stolen, but it might, and you'll probably
want to try and get it back.

-Ninite
Save yourself the trouble of downloading and installing
every single commonly installed app.

I know, you probably have your own stuff to install on a new machine, most likely the things on your current machine, but here's a Bundle with links to all of the above anyway:

http://bit.ly/eTDnik

If you need Office, buy an Academic version from MS when they have it on sale, and make sure you get a version that includes OneNote, because OneNote is amazing. Otherwise, there's plenty of free crap around, like OpenOffice or whatever they're calling it now.

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The tl;dr here is that I like Toshiba, and Dell isn't terrible, but stay away from refurbished machines. If you buy a Mac, get AppleCare. Install Prey. Desktop? Build it, on an Intel CPU. Don't buy a netbook if you can help it.

(ed: I didn't mention HP. There's a reason I didn't mention HP)

[Danielle Pepin]

I prefer AMD over Intel for desktop computing. Instead of the blue screen of death all you get is a hickup which will clear itself resulting in less lost work...or at least so far so good in the 5 years I've owned mine built from bare bones. Only thing I've had to replace on it so far is little cell battery for the on switch and the fan. Originally bought it for the gaming and graphics heavy applications and my geek friend recommended it I can't remember all the reasons why.

[Ed.]

thing people don't realise with dells they sell good business desktops and laptops decent high end gaming stuff and heaps of crap consumer laptops.

[Dutch guy]

LONG POST

Agreed with the DELL stuff, if you can buy a business grade laptop, do so. The consumer line sucks donkey $&^% compared to the business line.

About AMD v Intel, right now the i5 or i7 is a better choice. They are good chips. Once AMD gets their ass into gear and releases their next gen core, things might change again. I've run AMD on all my desktops so far and have never regretted it. But the i7 cores are simply the better choice right now. But why the AMD hate dude??

About Chrome, it can suck my balls. I'll stick with firefox.

[RvLeshrac]

LONG POST

Agreed with the DELL stuff, if you can buy a business grade laptop, do so. The consumer line sucks donkey $&^% compared to the business line.

About AMD v Intel, right now the i5 or i7 is a better choice. They are good chips. Once AMD gets their ass into gear and releases their next gen core, things might change again. I've run AMD on all my desktops so far and have never regretted it. But the i7 cores are simply the better choice right now. But why the AMD hate dude??

About Chrome, it can suck my balls. I'll stick with firefox.

Chrome starts up exponentially faster than Firefox. If, for some reason, you think that Google is spying on you, you can always use Chromium. Or Opera, though I hate the Opera UI.

AMD has been making horrible processors for years now, with no innovation, and comparing their processors to Intel's based purely on clockspeed. The last decent thing to come out of AMD was AMD64, while the last mediocre processor from Intel was the P4. From the Pentium D on up, Intel has been beating AMD senseless.

It doesn't help that most AMD chipsets are crap. nVidia was the last manufacturer to make a decent AMD chipset, but even nVidia has been pretty abysmal since the nForce4.

I'm not saying they've never made a good processor. I'm not saying they never will again. I'm saying that they make crap right now, and have for recent memory.