New Computer, Probably Laptop

So i was wondering what kind of advice people have for getting a new computer.

Ive had a macbook for the last few years and am looking to replace it.
The only way im going to get another mac laptop is if i dont like the options that are available for widows.

Im wondering what kind of pc's people have (laptop or desktop. but im probably going to get a laptop) and if they're happy with them.
I really have no idea what brand i should be looking at.
HP computers always seem like cheep pieces of crap, but maybe thats just because every printer i've had from them has been a cheep piece of crap.

Also, there always seems to be some drama over windows OS. Like people spazzed over vista because of whatever was wrong with that. and i just had someone tell me windows 8 was terrible and hard to learn. Is there any truth to this? or are bitches just crazy.
ive had issues with mac with having an old OS, so i dont want to get an older version of widows unless theres a good reason to.

I had looked into the whole 'build it yourself' concept. but it seemed like that is becoming less advantageous than it used to be. and im not really motivated to devote time to that. And it also sounded like it only worked well for making a desktop.


But yeah, any thoughts would be appreciated

Building your own desktop is cheaper then buying a laptop, you can get a really good desktop for the same amount as a much worse laptop, so i recommend building your own desktop, unless you really need to take your computer around with you
I recommend buying from newegg: http://www.newegg.com/ much of the stuff they have their is free shipping and priced reasonably, and they ship fast too
They have laptops there too if you decide on a laptop, if you decide on a desktop i can help you pick out parts for it if you dont know

As for latptop brands, i like gigabyte and asus the most, acer and toshiba are decent not as good as gigabyte or asus but not that bad either, and hp and dell are probably the worst brands
But its more about the specs than the brand really, as long as you avoid hp and dell and focus on the specs it should be fine

I was going to recommend a laptop to you, but after looking at a bunch, not only on newegg but at other places too, none of them are as good as desktops and they all cost more then they should for the specs they have
So you really should get a desktop if you can

Whether you decide on a desktop or laptop you should definitely get a PC, they are way better than mac, especially for gaming
I personally dont like windows 8 and much prefer windows 7, mainly because it takes extra steps to do simple things, the problems that mac has with old OS versions dont really effect windows, theres a few things that microsoft forces to only run on their newer stuff in an attempt to sell their newer stuff but it rarely effects you
The only time it matters is directx, for example directx 10 doesnt run on xp and required windows vista or higher, directx is used in most games
As a mac user you probably wont have the same problem i do with windows 8, so windows 8 would probably be fine with you, its not hard to learn at all, and if you really wanted to you can make it look like mac with a theme and a program
The only weird thing to you would be the placement of cntl alt and command(windows) keys, but you can remap those to be more like mac too



I built my desktop and have an asus laptop
My desktop should be replaced as its over 6 years old now with multiple problems (im waiting for 512gb ssd drives to come way down in price so that i can put that in my next computer) but it still works and still runs modern games and since its served me so well all these years im willing to put up with the minor annoyances of the problems it has
My laptop is about the same age (less then a year younger) but i dont use it as much so it doesnt have any problems with it, since i dont use it for gaming (it struggles to run sc2 at low settings) i mainly just use it when i go somewhere or as a portable movie player since it has hdmi output, originally i used it for school so now i dont use it that much

Quote :

I had looked into the whole 'build it yourself' concept. but it seemed like that is becoming less advantageous than it used to be. and im not really motivated to devote time to that. And it also sounded like it only worked well for making a desktop.

there are a few, very rare, deals that switch this up. on black friday, the microsoft store (apple store knockoff, if you havent seen one) ran a promotion that priced a 1.5k laptop (that wasn't overpriced) down to $550. Unless youre willing to wait a year while paying attention to all the fliers you can find, you're probably not going to see anything nearly as much of a value as a build-it-yourself machine

build-it-yourself laptops have picked up a tiny bit but a laptop's ability to be thin largely comes from specific engineering of parts. the more qualifications there are for what parts can work with what parts the less options you have. laptop cases innately have many more criteria than desktop cases

OS wise, whatever floats your boat. If youre making a modern desktop you will, almost definitely, have more storage than you know what to do with. partition it up with whatever you want.

as far as windows 8 being from the devil -- nah. it has a few extra features that are kinda bland but by and large its just a prettier windows 7 with a few good features and a few bad ones. you can disable most of the ones you dont like -- the entire intro metro page is toggleable. Windows 8.1 fixed the vast majority of windows 8 problems worth caring about. take what pat says with a grain of salt. most of the features he doesn't like are disable-able and he also just hates change
if you're going to be buying a fresh version of windows you might as well buy windows 8.1
A. you won't have to deal with updating an ancient filesystem 2 OS advancements the next time you want to upgrade (like you would if you went with 7)
B. once you get used to them, a lot of the swipe features are nice -- even with a mouse
C. its prettier

if you were a long time windows user and were advancing your OS from XP, I'd recommend stopping at windows 7, but for a new user just do 8. its not worse and you might as well

i agree with what pat said about laptops
if "probably laptop" comes from academic needs id recommend you just keep your current laptop since you really only need internet and a word processor for school. or if that broke, then you should get a mini laptop + desktop. the mini laptop will run you about $100-$200
it really does save money to get a desktop over a laptop though

Serenity09 wrote:

as far as windows 8 being from the devil -- nah. it has a few extra features that are kinda bland but by and large its just a prettier windows 7 with a few good features and a few bad ones. you can disable most of the ones you dont like -- the entire intro metro page is toggleable. Windows 8.1 fixed the vast majority of windows 8 problems worth caring about. take what pat says with a grain of salt. most of the features he doesn't like are disable-able and he also just hates change

My experience with windows 8 is with other peoples computers, people who dont disable those things, i know you can disable them, but the fact that they have to be disabled is annoying since people rarely do and i cant go changing their stuff to my liking
Thats why i said "i personally dislike windows 8" rather than "windows 8 sucks" or "windows 8 is the devil" and i did tell him to get windows 8 in the end

Serenity.09 wrote:

if "probably laptop" comes from academic needs id recommend you just keep your current laptop since you really only need internet and a word processor for school. or if that broke, then you should get a mini laptop + desktop. the mini laptop will run you about $100-$200

The keyboard in his current laptop is dying, his g key stopped working almost completely and now other keys are being effected by the same thing
I didnt suggest a mini laptop/netbook cause hes close to being done with school (i think) so spending $100-$200 on something you wont use for that long isnt really ideal

If i were going for a desktop i'd definitely go for a not-a-mac.
But its most likely i'd get a laptop just because i spend a lot of time needing my comp to be mobile. Even for non-school things.

pat wrote:

The keyboard in his current laptop is dying, his g key stopped working almost completely and now other keys are being effected by the same thing
I didnt suggest a mini laptop/netbook cause hes close to being done with school (i think) so spending $100-$200 on something you wont use for that long isnt really ideal

Yeah, i have 3 semesters worth of credits remaining.
I'd save money in teh short term.
but my comp is almost 5 years old, so i think ultimately i'd end up spending more money.

serenity wrote:

as far as windows 8 being from the devil -- nah. it has a few extra features that are kinda bland but by and large its just a prettier windows 7 with a few good features and a few bad ones. you can disable most of the ones you dont like -- the entire intro metro page is toggleable. Windows 8.1 fixed the vast majority of windows 8 problems worth caring about. take what pat says with a grain of salt. most of the features he doesn't like are disable-able and he also just hates change

haha, good to know.

pat wrote:

Whether you decide on a desktop or laptop you should definitely get a PC, they are way better than mac, especially for gaming

Im also really biased towards mac just because i've only had good experiences with their customer service so far (Replacing hundreds of dollars worth of hardware with no charge, and 0 wait time).

I was also reading some things that were saying that even though macs have a much higher starting price. buying another comp with matching specs would actually be very close in price. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/apple-mac-leopard-windows-vista,1985-2.html
Its outdated from 2008. But mac's start at less than half that price now, so it should still be valid.

Also the laptops i was looking at that were touted as being good for gaming all had either slightly higher, or far higher prices than the starting macro.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2020688,00.asp
http://www.apple.com/mac/compare/notebooks.html

----
i still think PCs can be slightly better both overall, and for games. But theres just a lot of inertia for me to overcome since i've had good experiences.
(theres also a lot of inconvenience for me to switch, just cuss all my other electronics (iphone + ipod) are mac based, which means its less seamless for them to work together)

I didn't mean to inadvertently restart the Mac vs PC war.

I concede pc's are better. i was just expecting to be more motivated to switch.

No matter what i pick i'll definitely get at least 500 gb's of memory (preferably 1TB) so i can comfortably partition my HD from the start and put both OS's on there. Cus either way i want to be comfortable using windows.
its been a long time since i've had to use it
The comp i used before the one i have now had some old version of XP

And my lack of space has been the main wall i've repeatedly run up against. Not so much that my OS is limiting.

------------

It sounds like getting a desktop is the ideal option (ignoring the whole portability issue)
I know build it yourself cant be that hard (if mark can do it i can do it)
But for some reason the idea really doesn't appeal to me. Probably because i tend to be a perfectionist with anything mechanical and stress myself out. plus its a knew thing that i've never done before.
I also dont like having to make choices (i.e. choosing parts) when i dont have expertise in something. and i dont have expertise in this.

Are there any desktops you guys really like that aren't too much worse than a build it yourself?
I think if i compare those to some laptops it'll help.

My input isn't going to be as useful as pat and seren so I'll just say this. Windows 8 is from the devil, I would know I praise him regularly.

Spoiler:

So, i was getting all excited about desktops, but when i was looking at graphics cards i remembered that im planning to move to thailand after i graduate (not premaritally. which i can explain some other time)

And i want to be able to take a good computer with me, and theres no way i'd put my desktop through an overseas flight. So we may be back to the laptop option.

Seren did what i was going to do, comparing mac prices with build it yourself desktop prices
A lot of the parts he picked were overkill (meaning they are much better than the version that the mac hes matching has), but even with the overkill it still ended up being less

The only laptop in your links thats worth a look is this one: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2423120,00.asp?tab=Specs
The specs on that for its price isnt terrible, however you can get a desktop with twice as much ram and slightly better everything else for the same price

I personally wouldnt get that laptop though, because the screen is too small (which is probably the reason its decently priced) and theirs no backlight for the keyboard

Those are the specs you should be looking for in a laptop though as a laptop like that would run all modern games at medium or high settings at 60fps, and will continue to run modern games for several years (the ram is a bit low and might become a problem in the future, but since the next console generation is about 10 years away it should be fine)


If you get a desktop, you dont need a sound card, and you should get a disk drive like seren said, even though disks are being used less and less now (in a few years i suspect we will be able to download everything and wont need disks at all once internet speeds increase) but its still good to have one because even though you can download what the disk has on it (in most cases) it can save time to just use the disk (in the case of a large game)
And sound cards are pointless, they dont really add much quality to the sound as long as your mobo doesnt suck the sound on there should be fine, also you can get very high quality usb headphones/speakers which wont even use the sound card anyway
And a 600 watt power supply should cover just about anything (unless you have multiple graphics cards)

I dont recommend SLI/Crossfire, i used to use SLI (before 1 of the cards crapped out) and the performance increase isnt worth the price
When the 1 card broke i replaced both with a single card that was more powerful then those in SLI (i use the extra, still working, card from the old SLI set up as a physx processor now, which is actually a better use for the 2nd card then SLI was)

Similarly i dont recommend RAID either, before ssd existed i wanted faster hard drive technology so i set my hdds up in RAID-0, which was much faster than just 1 hdd, but now that 1 of them is failing its a pain in the ass because i cant pinpoint whats wrong with it since theres 2 hdds working as 1, and now that we have ssd theres no point to RAID (RAIDing ssds is possible, but way overkill and not needed yet as 1 drive is fast enough)

As for using an apu like seren suggested in his last post, i wouldnt
APUs will have weaker parts for both the cpu and gpu
Even the new one has a smaller L2 cache (4mb, technically its 2x2mb) then typical, and slow ram for the gpu side (ddr3)
They are better then integrated graphics, but its still better to get a graphics card (the performance gain from being on the same chip doesnt outweigh the decrease in specs)
Some day APUs will be the thing to get though because of the fact that the gpu and cpu is on the same chip, just not yet
I dont know what your budget is, since you were looking at laptops between $1200 and $4000 in the links you posted i assume your budget is somewhere in there and with that kind of budget you dont have to skimp and get an apu

And a hybrid drive is basically just a normal hdd with an ssd cache, so youll get ssd like speeds if the stuff you want is in the cache (stuff you use a lot will get cached, the stuff the comp needs to start up will also be cached so start up times will be like having an ssd), but you will get hdd speeds most of the time, so its not worth it
You should just get a 128gb ssd and a 1tb (or 2tb) hdd, and put OS and frequently used programs/games on the ssd and everything else on the hdd
The reason i want a 512gb (other then being greedy) is that modern games and games in the future will be 20-40gb each, and a 128gb ssd doesnt cut it for me, but i play a lot of games and keep a lot of them around for dlc (like i still have bioshock infinite installed waiting for the burial at sea episode 2 dlc) so if you dont do that then a 128gb drive is fine (anything more then 128gb is overpriced right now)

If you dont want to build it yourself for whatever reason their are places that are build to order which ive heard arent bad, like www.cyberpowerpc.com
They have build to order laptops there, and the thing that you use to pick the parts is easy to use

Heres a laptop i made with it: http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/saved/1FR650
It is a bit overpriced for the specs when compared to a desktop (i picked stuff that had discounts so thats the only reason its not horribly overpriced), but you do have the ssd and hdd i was talking about, as well as 16gb of ram and a good enough cpu, a desktop cpu would be way better though, and the gpu isnt as good as a desktop gpu, but everything else is on par with a desktop
That will probably be the best laptop you can get for that price, its basically the same as this: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2422311,00.asp?tab=Specs
But for more then $1000 less (that has more to do with alienware being overpriced though)

Building your own desktop is still the best way to do it though, but if you really want a laptop thats the 1 i would get



As for Thailand with a desktop, it will be a pain/cost money to deal with so in the short term it is inconvenient, but in the long term i think its worth it

Thailand? You like to bang cock? Sorry I couldn't help it.

The build wasn't hard, took about an hour and a half or so. You can watch youtube videos of how to build and you got pat and seren to help with choosing parts.

Quote :

A lot of the parts he picked were overkill (meaning they are much better than the version that the mac hes matching has), but even with the overkill it still ended up being less

i went with overkill whenever there wasn't something with identical specs. i wanted it very clear that mac products are a ripoff haha

Quote :

I personally wouldnt get that laptop though, because the screen is too small (which is probably the reason its decently priced) and theirs no backlight for the keyboard

what is the need for a big screen? like i get the appeal of having more pixels available and all, but you guys are phrasing it like its a must. if you got only a laptop im assuming youd also get another screen (at least a tv) at some point

Quote :

the ram is a bit low and might become a problem in the future, but since the next console generation is about 10 years away it should be fine

software ram req's have not been keeping up with hardware improvements / reductions in price. things kinda just plateau for way longer than makes sense, i think you're right, pat, that it has to do with not blowing past what consoles can handle. the entire topic is kinda interesting. its almost like there are cliffs in RAM utilization. like it doesn't go 4gb -> 4.1gb as the years progress; its 4 -> 6 -> 8. which makes sense relative to a few things, i remember awhile ago you were complaining about how in TES oblivion loading screens would break your sense of involvement with the game. the fix to that would be to have more things available in memory, but you wouldnt be able to do kinda-more-things it has to be all the more things that you could possibly need next. i wouldnt be surprised if we saw a few trends in the coming years that encourage way higher ram utilization.

Quote :

Similarly i dont recommend RAID either, before ssd existed i wanted faster hard drive technology so i set my hdds up in RAID-0, which was much faster than just 1 hdd, but now that 1 of them is failing its a pain in the ass because i cant pinpoint whats wrong with it since theres 2 hdds working as 1, and now that we have ssd theres no point to RAID (RAIDing ssds is possible, but way overkill and not needed yet as 1 drive is fast enough)

raid-0 doesnt make any sense anymore but raid-1 definitely does -- especially if the ssd is going to see a lot of writes. raid 1 is when you have 2 hdds that are effectively copies of eachother. if one fails then eh! you have another. raid 1 is not quite so ideal as, frequently, both hdds are new when configured so often when one goes the other follows within months (you could replace the failed one and then this wouldnt be a problem rather it would be an early warning system)
ach: hdd's largely die due to mechanical reasons. ssd's have none-ish mechanical parts and so dont have to worry about that. what they do have to worry about is that whenever you write to a part of a ssd it decays that part. reading doesnt do any damage, that's part of why theyre so ideal for storing stuff that doesn't change much (like the os). because of write decay ssd's also have a lifespan, just a much more predictable one than a hdd (and also significantly longer)

Serenity09 wrote:

what is the need for a big screen? like i get the appeal of having more pixels available and all, but you guys are phrasing it like its a must. if you got only a laptop im assuming youd also get another screen (at least a tv) at some point

13 inches is just so small though, and if i was using a laptop as a main computer for the next several years id want at least 17 inches (if its not my main then it doesnt really matter)
Sure you can hook it up to a monitor/tv, but it should have a good screen size for the times when you dont have it hooked up like that

Serenity09 wrote:

software ram req's have not been keeping up with hardware improvements / reductions in price. things kinda just plateau for way longer than makes sense, i think you're right, pat, that it has to do with not blowing past what consoles can handle. the entire topic is kinda interesting. its almost like there are cliffs in RAM utilization. like it doesn't go 4gb -> 4.1gb as the years progress; its 4 -> 6 -> 8. which makes sense relative to a few things, i remember awhile ago you were complaining about how in TES oblivion loading screens would break your sense of involvement with the game. the fix to that would be to have more things available in memory, but you wouldnt be able to do kinda-more-things it has to be all the more things that you could possibly need next. i wouldnt be surprised if we saw a few trends in the coming years that encourage way higher ram utilization.

I dont think it will be that much higher, it is set by consoles, like currently 8gb is for consoles, so most games will use 8gb at maximum because its easier to program it that way for multi system releases
Also youve been able to use 4gb of ram for the past 8 years without any problems, 6gb was never really a needed within that time span

The only exception to that is PC exclusive releases, but even then, they rarely go crazy with it since they want their game to run on low end PCs, if they design the game in a way that loads most or all of itself into ram for no loading of any kind it will be impossible for low end systems to run
So even though people have 32gb of ram and you could load the entirety of many new games into that ram they wont as people with less than the size of the game in ram wont be able to run the game (also currently loading that much into ram at once would take awhile, even with ssd, so the initial loading would take too long)

Someday though i think the standard amount of RAM people use will surpass the size of games and it will be standard to not have any loading after the initial loading (which will be faster at that point as ssds get faster)
In fact i think the difference between RAM and storage will fade away in time, either storage will become fast and efficient enough to be used as both, or RAM will become large and efficient enough to be used as both

Serenity09 wrote:

raid-0 doesnt make any sense anymore but raid-1 definitely does -- especially if the ssd is going to see a lot of writes. raid 1 is when you have 2 hdds that are effectively copies of eachother. if one fails then eh! you have another. raid 1 is not quite so ideal as, frequently, both hdds are new when configured so often when one goes the other follows within months (you could replace the failed one and then this wouldnt be a problem rather it would be an early warning system)
ach: hdd's largely die due to mechanical reasons. ssd's have none-ish mechanical parts and so dont have to worry about that. what they do have to worry about is that whenever you write to a part of a ssd it decays that part. reading doesnt do any damage, that's part of why theyre so ideal for storing stuff that doesn't change much (like the os). because of write decay ssd's also have a lifespan, just a much more predictable one than a hdd (and also significantly longer)

RAID-1 doesnt seem worth it too me, since both drives are exactly the same, your spending extra money to ensure your data is kept in the long run, which is good for servers or companies, but for personal use it feels like a waste to me, most of the data i have i can just dl again and the stuff i cant i can keep safe on a flash drive (or on dropbox or some other file hosting place to dl it later from)
At least with RAID-0 you get the space from both hard drives, and extra speed, so it feels more like its worth it

And yeah, hdd lifespan is typically 5 years before it starts having problems, 7 years before it fails completely
I dont know the life span of ssd, i assume it would be longer, but even though there no moving parts rewriting it a bunch of times will cause wear and it should eventually fail, the estimates for ssd lifespan are all over the place, and since they havent been out for long enough for real life testing we dont really know how long they will last

pat wrote:

13 inches is just so small though, and if i was using ______ for the next several years id want at least 17 inches (if its not my main then it doesnt really matter)

you would be a very hard to please girl

pat wrote:

I dont think it will be that much higher, it is set by consoles, like currently 8gb is for consoles, so most games will use 8gb at maximum because its easier to program it that way for multi system releases
Also youve been able to use 4gb of ram for the past 8 years without any problems, 6gb was never really a needed within that time span

The only exception to that is PC exclusive releases, but even then, they rarely go crazy with it since they want their game to run on low end PCs, if they design the game in a way that loads most or all of itself into ram for no loading of any kind it will be impossible for low end systems to run

yeah thats what i started out saying / agreeing with. ram usage levels out for chunks and then jumps. partially due to console hardware but also partially due to scope (you can see it in pc only games). that, at this point, for usage to rise in a pc only game devs would need to really do something big with it -- which would make usage jump rather than rise gradually.

what i dont understand is why there haven't been any attempts at a dynamic config. ie the program starts by reading in available ram and then just owns however much of that. then the rest of the program/game would work with that number to the fullest. yeah i get how hard it would be to do s.t. it doesn't cause any glitches, but its done so many other places that i cant see why it shouldnt happen here as well.

Quote :

So even though people have 32gb of ram and you could load the entirety of many new games into that ram they wont as people with less than the size of the game in ram wont be able to run the game (also currently loading that much into ram at once would take awhile, even with ssd, so the initial loading would take too long)

i was thinking about this as well. personally id rather a long initial vs small but staggered, but also with modern ssd's it wouldn't be all that long.
let's say in the next 3 years pcie ssd's become a thing. currently they read sequential data (which a game would likely be) at around 830mb/s. at that rate it really wouldn't take all that long to load a 15gb game into ram -- 18.5 seconds + [ram write] isn't too much longer than current startup load times for games and id be totally down with that

pat wrote:

In fact i think the difference between RAM and storage will fade away in time, either storage will become fast and efficient enough to be used as both, or RAM will become large and efficient enough to be used as both

i never realized that ram might be volatile by choice rather than by necessity to be as fast as it is. you sure that ram could be non volatile if they wanted it to be?

pat wrote:

RAID-1 doesnt seem worth it too me, since both drives are exactly the same, your spending extra money to ensure your data is kept in the long run, which is good for servers or companies, but for personal use it feels like a waste to me, most of the data i have i can just dl again and the stuff i cant i can keep safe on a flash drive (or on dropbox or some other file hosting place to dl it later from)
At least with RAID-0 you get the space from both hard drives, and extra speed, so it feels more like its worth it

it never did to me either. i guess thats pretty obvious at this point, ive started with a fresh hdd 4 times this year alone. i fucking hate hdds
i really should have invested in a hybrid or something
like the speed of raid 0 with the backup of raid 1. raid 50 looked the coolest but i think that took something like 7 hdd's minimum and that'd be a lil bit excessive

In the options for that laptop, pat. For 'usb flash drive' you selected 'none'
But in reality i'd want usb ports wouldn't i? Or are some form of usb ports going to be standard, and that option was only extra.

Also. one of the last options is on what kind of 'wireless network card' to pick.
Is there any reason to go with the option with blututh? i feel like theres very little that utilizes bluetooth that actually matters, but i don't want to skip things if its going to be a pain later.
-----

Also, and this is my biggest concern with buying a pc.
Whats the procedure for warranties and replacing parts?
Cus like i've said, apple basically hands you free things so long as its obvious you weren't insanely negligent. whereas with a pc im worried im more likely to have to spend hundreds of dollars to replace things if they wear out quickly.

ach wrote:

In the options for that laptop, pat. For 'usb flash drive' you selected 'none'
But in reality i'd want usb ports wouldn't i? Or are some form of usb ports going to be standard, and that option was only extra.

im quoting this so that it may be preserved for all time
a "usb flash drive" is a little stick that get's plugged into a "usb port". the "flash drive" can hold files of many kinds and is mostly appreciated for this ability combined with its small size and durability. you can plug it into any "usb port" and it will probably work so it makes it a good option to physically transport / backup files. it's pronounced "flash drive" not to be confused with "usb port"
so the option "usb flash drive" refers to whether or not you want to buy a flash drive, not a usb port
being condescending is fun
i'd guess that the laptop has at least 4 usb ports. but that's based on size of case more than anything else

ach wrote:

Also. one of the last options is on what kind of 'wireless network card' to pick.
Is there any reason to go with the option with blututh? i feel like theres very little that utilizes bluetooth that actually matters, but i don't want to skip things if its going to be a pain later.

bluetooth is getting more and more popular. but that's only if you like accessories and you like them to connect. think of it as an easier LAN for accessories.
personally if i was buying a laptop, i'd just get it since its like $20 and there are some cool things (like wireless portable speakers, but those are meant more for phones)
down the road you can always just get buy something that plugs in and gives bluetooth if you really need it. that's what im planning on doing for mine

ach wrote:

Whats the procedure for warranties and replacing parts?
Cus like i've said, apple basically hands you free things so long as its obvious you weren't insanely negligent. whereas with a pc im worried im more likely to have to spend hundreds of dollars to replace things if they wear out quickly.

im doing this right now!
it depends a bit. if you're doing the replacement yourself, which you might as well since your not an idiot, its pretty easy. when buying separate pc parts, they each come with a warranty. most parts have at least 1 yr, many are 3yrs. if it ever fails you just contact the manufacturer, tell em what happened and then ship them the part. they'll test it on their end and if they agree they'll send a new one back. if they don't, they'll send the old one back. this part is usually super easy and agreeable -- the only downside is that it can take a bit since most places won't cross ship to regular consumers.
the only part that can be difficult is diagnosing. 99% of the time its a breeze if you know what to look for (or are on good terms with somebody that does). that last 1% of the time its a fucking nightmare. you could very easily go the lifespan of a computer without seeing that 1%...

Serenity09 wrote:

i was thinking about this as well. personally id rather a long initial vs small but staggered, but also with modern ssd's it wouldn't be all that long.
let's say in the next 3 years pcie ssd's become a thing. currently they read sequential data (which a game would likely be) at around 830mb/s. at that rate it really wouldn't take all that long to load a 15gb game into ram -- 18.5 seconds + [ram write] isn't too much longer than current startup load times for games and id be totally down with that

Yeah, but again, it will take awhile for pcie ssd, longer than 3 years, to become a standard thing so most devs wont program for that kind of hardware, basically technology doesnt become a standard thing until consoles start using it

Serenity09 wrote:

i never realized that ram might be volatile by choice rather than by necessity to be as fast as it is. you sure that ram could be non volatile if they wanted it to be?

Its not really by choice, more due to technical limitations, several limitations, the reason ram even exists is due to technical limitations
But yeah, they can make RAM thats non volatile, its not the same RAM we use in computers now though
Weve gone through several different types of RAM over the years, SRAM, DRAM, RDRAM, SDRAM, so eventually we will use types of NVRAM (FeRAM, nvSRAM, MRAM)
But it depends on if we need it or not, if storage speed gets fast enough we wont need ram at all, and that is looking more likely than using NVRAM
I only said either or because 1 of the 2 will happen

Achilles.42 wrote:

In the options for that laptop, pat. For 'usb flash drive' you selected 'none'
But in reality i'd want usb ports wouldn't i? Or are some form of usb ports going to be standard, and that option was only extra.

It has 5 usb ports on it, 3 are 3.0 and 2 are 2.0 (it says on the 2nd page at the very bottom of the configureator)
And yeah like seren said, flash drives arent ports

Achilles.42 wrote:

Also. one of the last options is on what kind of 'wireless network card' to pick.
Is there any reason to go with the option with blututh? i feel like theres very little that utilizes bluetooth that actually matters, but i don't want to skip things if its going to be a pain later.

Bluetooth is nice to have, not needed though, you can get a usb dongle for bluetooth for like $10 later if you get bluetooth stuff
Theres really no reason to have bluetooth unless you have devices that use bluetooth
The 1 in that option is also wireless ac, which is different from b/g/n, so unless the router your using supports ac, you wont get ac speeds, im not sure if a wireless ac laptop will work on a b/g router, since ac uses 5ghz and b/g routers only output at 2.4ghz, it will work on an n router though

In thailand they are probably still using g, so to be safe i would get the b/g/n one and if you really need bluetooth get the $10 usb dongle later

EDIT: The laptop already comes with bluetooth, even without the wireless ac card, so just get the b/g/n one as ac routers arent wide spread yet

Achilles.42 wrote:

Also, and this is my biggest concern with buying a pc.
Whats the procedure for warranties and replacing parts?
Cus like i've said, apple basically hands you free things so long as its obvious you weren't insanely negligent. whereas with a pc im worried im more likely to have to spend hundreds of dollars to replace things if they wear out quickly.

Generally theres a 1 year warranty like seren said you can sometimes get a 3 year one
After reading this: http://www.apple.com/support/products/mac.html it seems to be about the same for macs
The laptop in the link includes a 1 year warranty and life time tech support

If you buy parts separately to build your own desktop youll have warranties for each part but if you get them all from the same place, like newegg, you only have to deal with them if something goes wrong, i dont know if they offer tech support though, ive never needed it

serenity09 wrote:

"usb flash drive" refers to whether or not you want to buy a flash drive, not a usb port
being condescending is fun

i know.
i wasn't sure if it was a typo or what.
cus right underneath there was an option for a 'disk/dvd drive' which is obviously not asking if you want to buy dvds.

I also didn't understand why it would have an option for specifically buying flash drives, cus there was no other accessories it was trying to get you to buy.

when are you going to decide by?