Laptops

Don't want to start a commotion here, but I can highly recomend the Apple iBook, one of my customers daughter's has survived three years of less than gentle usage and in spite of liberal use of duct tape to hold parts on (it has been dropped alot) works flawlessly. Good battery life easy wireless use and with the Office suite or Open Office it is document compatible with other platforms.
Good luck with this next chapter of fatherhood.
All the best,
rOb

Asus laptop´s are very good.Even Toshiba,I guess

Having just helped a close friend whose daughter took a laptop which was bought here in Christchurch away to university in another city - make sure that you can have the laptop serviced under warranty where your daughter is studying.

The laptop in question (an Asus - 3 months old at the time) developed monitor problems right at exam time in the final year of a science degree. If she could have had it serviced where she was studying it would have reduced the stress greatly - for everyone concerned.

IBM and Toshiba are good.

This has been done before, and the upshot of that was the problem of having it nicked. You either go for something that you have to guard with your life, or you buy a cheaper one, keep everything backed up on a small pocketdrive, and be prepared to replace the laptop when necessary. The backup thing applies whatever.

Several of my friends and myself have student daughters. Our experience is that the laptop will be subjected to physical abuse beyond your expectations. It is also likely to require re-formatting frequently due to being filled with viruses etc. on a regular basis.
We are all agreed that, filled with parental pride, we all spent far too much. Buy the cheapest laptop PC World has on offer, and expect to throw it away and get a new one long before finals.

quote:

Originally posted by Rasher:
The backup thing applies whatever.

I'll say. One of the worst things to learn the hard way. Doesn't matter how good the computer is - the data is worth more.

My niece went through this experience a year or so ago - The university had a link with a company that supplied Laptops (reasonable spec) along with a 3 year support agreement for a reasonable price. So I suggest you check with the university to see if they have any tame suppliers.

had this for 4 months...works a treat

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4CFJ&Sea...ationKey=50600,11012

I would suggest what ever is purchased some sort of online storage space be purchased so that she can back up her data.

Be very careful with insurance cover.

My friend arranged cover on household 'all risks' criteria, as she was doing professional study and occassionally some work presentations at home via Powerpoint etc.

House was burgled and it was nicked. She answered l/adjuster's Q's re use openly and claim was denied as was used for 'work' and not covered.

Took 6m's of letter writing to insurers to get them to pay up (grudgingly) -- there was a vast gap in their policy wording. 'All risks' is not always just so.

quote:

Originally posted by Rob-o-caster:
Don't want to start a commotion here, but I can highly recomend the Apple iBook, one of my customers daughter's has survived three years of less than gentle usage and in spite of liberal use of duct tape to hold parts on (it has been dropped alot) works flawlessly. Good battery life easy wireless use and with the Office suite or Open Office it is document compatible with other platforms.
Good luck with this next chapter of fatherhood.
All the best,
rOb

That would be my recommendation too: a Mac Book - not only does it have Mac OS X (Unix with a nice interface), but you can also run any Windoze stuff you need to on it too (though you have to buy Windoze to do this).

In many respects it depends what software she is going to need to use. The free Open Office (Neo-Office) is fine for most things, its better than MS Office in most respects and saves files both in MS Office format and as PDFs.

Plus the Mac Book comes with iLife so you get some nice tools for doing multimedia stuff - you can make DVDs for example. It depends what she is wanting to do.

If you get a firewire drive to go with it then you can back the entire laptop up using a free program called Carbon Copy Cloner in about 15 minutes. Then should the main disk get screwed up, you boot from your CCC disk and simply back it up to your main disk and your back - no work lost.

It does wireless networking very easily too.

Having used Apple computers for 20 years or so, I feel very confident in recommending them. The only thing the Mac Book is not really good for is playing games - at least I don't think it is.

Does Apple still sell Macs at a discount to the education sector? I know this was the case in NZ at one time. As a long-term marketing exercise I thought it worked out pretty well for Apple. This might reduce the sting of the higher price for an Apple laptop. Most New Zealand universities have computer suppliers that supply the departments and enrolled students and their prices are usually hard to match.

Yes Apple does still do this, but I'm not sure of the discount levels.

I bought a Rock XCTX about 12 months ago - best computer I have ever used and from a British company too with 3 year warranty and built like a brick outhouse.

To me Rock are the Naim of the laptop world. My XCTX is stunningly powerful, runs Microsoft Flightsim with everything maxed, copes with video editing etc like a dream and has a superb screen that makes my old SOny Vaio look and feel like crap!

See www.rockdirect.com for details. Oh and their support forum is superb and like Naim their MD and other staff answer queries there.

Good luck,

Jonathan

quote:

Originally posted by scottyhammer:
- she wants wireless internet connection and a decent size screen.

Can't see wireless being a problem, comes more or less as standards with laptops these days. Check with the university in case there are any known issues with wireless (or otherwise) networking on campus and in halls. Ditto views on alternatives to MS Office products. It should not be an issue these days, but it would be good to have someone confirm this.

Downside of a decent sized (big?) screen is that it takes up more space. You have to lug the damned thing around (In what bag / rucksack / ??? / and in what circuimstances - students drink, do sports, use public transport, cram lots of people and luggage into small cars, etc etc.) It also takes up real estate on the desk/table where you, and youir friends, are working. I personally would go as small (screen size) as seems reasonable, and then down one step further.

And ditto all the previous comments about maintainence agreements, insurance, seeing it as a disposable item, backups, etc.

/dl

May I be devil's advocate and ask why she needs a lap top? I have 2 sons at uni. The first has a lap top. It never goes out his room. The second has a desk top. He's never found a situation where he needed a lap top.

Personally I would not get a mac in this instance. Like all laptops they do go wrong, and it may be difficult for her to get it to a service centre.

hi bob,
she has a birthday coming up and thats what she wants ! thought it was a better prezzie than the normal things she asks for like: clothes/cds
etc.
scotty

Ah that explains it! My 15 year old daughter's birthday is in 3 weeks and God help me if I don't get everything on the list!

Downside of a desktop /tower PC over the Laptop is that the regular PC does not go home at weeken ds and so is left in vulnerable student accommodation and can get stolen.

I must be missing out. My 2 lads don't come home at weekends.