sophinisba: Katie Jackson as wide-eyed hobbit girl in FotR (wee hobbit lass)
Sophinisba Solis ([personal profile] sophinisba) wrote2009-06-30 04:45 pm

seeking computer advice

This morning I accidentally dropped my backpack that had my beloved laptop Kimiko in it in the street. It's still working fine but one corner of the casing is a little dinged up and some of the paint is chipping off. I just backed up the files on my external hard drive.

I've only had this computer (a Toshiba Satellite) for a year and a half and it's been great for what I need it for but I'm a little worried about how banged up it's gotten. Also its battery only lasts about 25 minutes these days, so it's getting less and less practical for taking places. Of course I could get it a new battery, but I've been thinking about whether I should try getting a new computer instead rather than lugging this one around all the time and worrying it might actually crack up one of these days.

I've been thinking about Macbooks and how pretty they are and how Mac people are so cultish snobbish enthusiastic about them. I've heard they're sturdier, and that would certainly be a good thing. But then I look at the prices and I think, okay, technically I could maybe afford to spend that much money, but how do I justify it when I could get a PC laptop for half of that? Mac people, can you help me?

So then on the other hand I think about these new mini-laptops, netbooks, which are around 3 pounds and $300 and cute. I guess they're mostly supposed to be for the Internet but I could install a word processor on it too, and that would pretty much take care of the stuff that I do when I take my laptop to campus or a coffee shop (reading and writing). Then I could keep Kimiko at home for reading and writing but also watching movies and TV shows, and it wouldn't get so banged up. Anything PC would also probably be more compatible with school/work computers than a Mac. Maybe the small keyboard would make typing on a netbook uncomfortable though, I don't know.

What do you think?

ETA: My eyesight is not awesome. I mean, it's not bad, I wear glasses and they're okay but I still really hate small type and lack of contrast. Does that make a difference? Do netbooks make type any smaller or do they keep it the same size so you just have to scroll more? What's with Apple's website and all the gray-on-white text? Are the computers like that too, when you're doing...operating system type stuff?

ETA2: If you've got all your files on a PC (Mostly Office documents but also PDFs pictures and some videos and other things), how easy is it to transfer them to a Mac?
ext_23799: (Default)

[identity profile] aralias.livejournal.com 2009-07-01 03:57 am (UTC)(link)
seconding the 'macs are not more sturdy' comment. but they are very light (much easier to carry around) and feel lovely and are v pretty. the operating system is pretty easy to get along with (and as with the macbook in general - much prettier than windows. but if you know windows, it's not easier really. the things i really like about my macbook are its lightness, the built in camera/microphone, various mac only applications like iSquint (easily converts file formats to other formats), but i'm more accustomed to it than out and out in love with it. there are things definitely wrong with the miracle macbook - where is the delete key? where is publisher? (though i don't love publisher and haven't found any other programs that don't work with mac) why is iPhoto such a piece of crap? (i was happy just scrolling through my pictures in windows - no joy in macbook land).

good and bad points to each - i do feel cooler, owning a macbook, but i feel out of place when i go to the apple store. so - good and bad...