Those with laptops/notebooks, please read & reply.
 

Hey everyone, hope your holiday season is going great so far! Okay, here's the dilemma: I can't decide which laptop to ask for for Christmas. I've narrowed my selection down to TWO possibilities, with price and bang-for-buck being the main things I was concerned with; both are Toshiba Satellites. They are, 1) #1805-S274 and 2) #5005-S504. Both run at 1.1 GHz with P-III processors, both have DVD-ROM/CD-RW and 15" screens, and both have 2 PCMCIA slots.

The MAIN difference I see (besides #2 having 512MB RAM vs. 256MB in #1) is the ports on them are different. I can either have 3 USBs and 1 FireWire port, OR I can have 2 USBs, 1 parallel port, and one serial port. HD size is also larger on the one with FireWire.

This will be my first laptop, so I need some input here on which you would prefer if you were in my shoes: I'm a 21-year-old college student that's going to be going to a university for a degree in electrical engineering, whom also needs to have a system that can do some minor shtuff with media such as still pictures and possibly video in the near future. My instincts tell me it's better to go with the second unit, simply because I don't see myself using parallel or serial ports that often, because virtually everything is USB now...plus that 512MB just has to scream!!!! Let me know what you think please!!!! :)

I'd go with numero dos.

You know I'm going to recommend the Titanium PowerBook G4. It's the best there is, but I don't see you moving up to a Mac just yet. With that being said, get the one with the FireWire port. FireWire was one of Apple's greatest inventions, and those of us who use Macs have been benefitting from it for quite a while now. The PC world finally seems to be accepting it's lightning fast speed, and I feel confident that it will replace USB just like USB replaced parallel and serial ports. Buying any kind of computer today that doesn't have a FireWire port would, IMHO, not be very wise.

Take care,
-Chris

Thanks for your replies so far! Um...I should mention the price on these two for comparison as well. The lesser of the two I can get for $1,149 after rebates, and the better for $1,699 after rebates. I think the FireWire might not be that big of a thing really, since I can get a card for it if I find use for FireWire, anyway. Plus I'm thinking on HD size, I won't use but prolly 7-10GB of space, and anything beyond that, I'm going to burn to disk most likely...and memory's cheap right now. Oh man, the case looks so cool on the S504 though!!!!!!

Okay, have I just convinced myself to get the cheaper one?
Should I just buy both and send back the one I use less? j/k ;) In the back of my mind, I'm thinking that $550 price difference would more than pay for a Cobra intake for the 'Stang..... Goddamn it, why do these things always have to be such a trade-off/sacrifice????

Let me know what you think still!!!

FYI, there are no Toshiba's left in the City of Toledo AFAIK! I have to wait until Thursday morning for Best Buy to get one (or two) in.

MAC.

Do NOT go with a Sony Vaio. My dad and I both have one, and we've had to reinstall things twice on each comp. What a pain :rolleyes:

During the past spring I picked up a Compaq presario notebook, similar to what you're looking at. 900MHz, 256MB Ram, 20GB, CDRW/DVD etc. And the one thing I can tell you is, get the one with the most options, ie. ports. Not having a PS-2 port for a mouse/trackball when its at home is kind of a pain, although I'm getting the hang of the touchpad... All in all, you won't be disappointed by either notebook you choose. The Toshiba was my second choice (mainly because it wasn't available when I needed one).