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I need a computer for entertainment primarily. I plan to load my 1,500 or so cd's on Itunes on it, and the better the clarity of the screen and rendition of the audo, the better.
People have suggested a Mac, Sony Vaio, or Acer Aspire 9920.
I was going to get the Sony, but now I am leaning towards the Acer. I really find it hard to compare the two. Many features are the same, so I guess the quality of the sound and picture are the determining factors.
The Acer can have 2 optional hard discs, read write Blu Ray, handless Voip.
Does anyone have experience or comments on these, please?
I need a computer for entertainment primarily. I plan to load my 1,500 or so cd's on Itunes on it, and the better the clarity of the screen and rendition of the audo, the better.
People have suggested a Mac, Sony Vaio, or Acer Aspire 9920.
I was going to get the Sony, but now I am leaning towards the Acer. I really find it hard to compare the two. Many features are the same, so I guess the quality of the sound and picture are the determining factors.
The Acer can have 2 optional hard discs, read write Blu Ray, handless Voip.
Does anyone have experience or comments on these, please?
If you are looking for a laptop for your entertainment like watching movies or just listening to MP3s, the Sony and Harmon Kardon HPs are pretty good.
However, there are so many other preferences that you need to specify when deciding upon a notebook. I advise you to check out the NBR forums www notebook review dot com and enter in the What should I buy section.
I opted for a Macbook Pro but that is overkill for what you are trying to do.
I need a computer for entertainment primarily. I plan to load my 1,500 or so cd's on Itunes on it, and the better the clarity of the screen and rendition of the audo, the better.
People have suggested a Mac, Sony Vaio, or Acer Aspire 9920.
Before buying a Mac as your main system, go to a store and check it out.
I've used a Mac mini for almost 6 months now and miss my Windows system.
Everything is easy with a Windows computer, and while some things have been easy with the Mac, I prefer Windows.
Adding my printer was plug & play, didn't have to do anything.
Networking.. still haven't fully figured it out.
Saving a file to documents. I haven't figured out how to make new folders when saving, nor navigating to any folders in documents.
If you are looking for a laptop for your entertainment like watching movies or just listening to MP3s, the Sony and Harmon Kardon HPs are pretty good.
However, there are so many other preferences that you need to specify when deciding upon a notebook. I advise you to check out the NBR forums www notebook review dot com and enter in the What should I buy section.
I opted for a Macbook Pro but that is overkill for what you are trying to do.
Wow. Now my head is spinning because every machine has something that sounds good, but no machine has everything. Great site, though.
I will just not get one for the time being.
Thank you.
Before buying a Mac as your main system, go to a store and check it out.
I've used a Mac mini for almost 6 months now and miss my Windows system.
Everything is easy with a Windows computer, and while some things have been easy with the Mac, I prefer Windows.
Adding my printer was plug & play, didn't have to do anything.
Networking.. still haven't fully figured it out.
Saving a file to documents. I haven't figured out how to make new folders when saving, nor navigating to any folders in documents.
Haven't installed programs except firefox.
Oh, I am so sorry for what you are going through.
Thank you very much for the heads up, though.
I am not very handy with these things and if there is a possibility to screw things up, I will find it.
I did go to Apple, and the fellow there seemed very helpful, but once I went when they opened and there were lots of people coming back for hand holding. I don't want to make Apple another hobby.
I was thinking of getting the software that partitions the OS so that I could run everything on Vista, but I am thinking it would be such a waste of memory.
Many people have told me that for audio/visual the Apple and Sony were the best, but some said that you get a very good deal, lots of bang for the buck, with Acer, so I was thinking of that.
Wow. Now my head is spinning because every machine has something that sounds good, but no machine has everything. Great site, though.
I will just not get one for the time being.
Thank you.
Go to a magazine store and pick up a few copies of laptop & notebook mags, that will give you more input.
I'd also check out Best Buy, and Circuit City, see what they have in stock. Most should do what you want it to do.
The main thing would be to decide how you are going to store everything. I wouldn't trust just one drive to store that amount of stuff, and might look for a larger hard drive that you can replace yourself, put the original away in case something happens. Hard drives are cheap and easy to install yourself as long as they give you restore or operating system disks. I might also look at some sort of external storage but would make my own with a double hard drive enclosure where you pick which drives (size wise) to put in, then use that as a double back up.
Another thing to consider in addition to how much you want to spend is how old is the notebook you are actually buying? Go to the manufacturers web site to see if it's a current model, you can usually see it in their online store. If it's not listed, chances are it's older.
We have 3 Sony monitors with the Xbright technology, I'm very happy with it. It's been a while since I shopped for a laptop but the Sony's always catch my eye in the store.
Quote:
Originally Posted by goldengrain
Oh, I am so sorry for what you are going through.
Thank you very much for the heads up, though.
I am not very handy with these things and if there is a possibility to screw things up, I will find it.
I did go to Apple, and the fellow there seemed very helpful, but once I went when they opened and there were lots of people coming back for hand holding. I don't want to make Apple another hobby.
I was thinking of getting the software that partitions the OS so that I could run everything on Vista, but I am thinking it would be such a waste of memory.
Many people have told me that for audio/visual the Apple and Sony were the best, but some said that you get a very good deal, lots of bang for the buck, with Acer, so I was thinking of that.
Thank you for your story. I appreciate it.
Honestly, I've always wanted a Mac. Hubby spec'd it out and surprised me with it; and being a techie (I build computers) he took some of the fun out of it for me. Had I gotten to pick what I wanted, I'm sure I would know more then what I do.
We bought a few dummy books, it's helped for a few things, but I haven't really dug in to figure out the things I mentioned. It's not something that matters since I don't really save a lot.
One thing I did notice as well was trying to save some pictures, they open to a black image, like they didn't save right.
One day I'll have more time to dig in. Right now it's not a priority until after I get my quad core computer going and get my backup back.
The december issue of Laptop magazine is good since there are a list of the 'hottest' laptops of 2008. There are a bunch of business, gaming and portable notebooks. In the end, I chose the Mac because of the hatred of Vista.
Before buying a Mac as your main system, go to a store and check it out.
I've used a Mac mini for almost 6 months now and miss my Windows system.
Everything is easy with a Windows computer, and while some things have been easy with the Mac, I prefer Windows.
Adding my printer was plug & play, didn't have to do anything.
Networking.. still haven't fully figured it out.
Saving a file to documents. I haven't figured out how to make new folders when saving, nor navigating to any folders in documents.
Haven't installed programs except firefox.
If you have used a Mac for as long as you have used Windows than you would say the same thing about using Windows for six months (that Macs are easier). It is all about what you are used to. Which is easier is ultimately about which one you are more familiar with.
I have never heard of creating a folder as I am saving, even with my experience on a Windows based machine so I dunno. Maybe that is one advantage for MS. I have made it a habit a long time ago to just save everything to the desktop and then moving it to the correct folder at a later point in time.
The Stacks feature in OSX.5 (Leopard) is pretty dumb and counter-productive in my opinion. The quickest way to find anything on a Mac is to just use Spotlight (the magnifying glass looking thing in the upper right-hand corner). Just type in the name of the folder, document, app, etc. and it will find it for you in about as fast as it takes you to remember what it is called
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roselvr
Honestly, I've always wanted a Mac. Hubby spec'd it out and surprised me with it; and being a techie (I build computers) he took some of the fun out of it for me. Had I gotten to pick what I wanted, I'm sure I would know more then what I do.
Probably not. MacBooks and MacBook Pros are basically what you see is what you get.
Quote:
Originally Posted by goldengrain
Many people have told me that for audio/visual the Apple and Sony were the best, but some said that you get a very good deal, lots of bang for the buck, with Acer, so I was thinking of that.
In my opinion, Macs are the best way to go if you want to use your computer for entertainment purposes. The OS is almost specifically built for it. The only drawback, to most people, is that there is no option for a blu-ray drive and Apple probably never will adopt one into their products, ever. You can buy third party slot loading blu-ray drives for the MacBook, MacBook Pro and even the G4 iBooks, but they can run as much as $1000.
Aside from that, I like HP's. They tend to get slammed by the more hard-core Windows users, but I find that the HP Satalites with Harmon Kardon speakers to be rather nice. They are rather bulky for a laptop, though. I am sure that Sony Viaos are a quality product but to my knowledge they are another product that people either really like or really hate but you have to keep in mind that most of the 'hate' for these computers comes from the gamers. They will never be satisfied.
Also of an interesting note is that most of the 'hate' towards Macs comes from the hard-core computer gamer as well.
It all really depends on how much money you want to spend. If you can do it, I would recommend one of the MacBooks (at least the 15 inch MacBook Pro), but any laptop could be set-up rather nicely for entertainment purposes. Macs come with a little remote control, though If you do not like the Mac, you can always sell it. The retain high resale values so you won't be out that much if you decide to get rid of it.
Thank you.
I am seriously leaning toward the Sony at this point. I want the BluRay and DL read/write capability, and this is their technology. No games.
My music can be stored in pristine form on an exterior hard drive, and evem a backup of that, just in case. I see that they now have huge capacity external drives.
Some manufacturers offer more speakers but I would imagine that Sony would offer good sound quality.
I will get something to remove the glare and prefer something that can be easily removed, but also can be left on the machine while closed. Pity you cannot see such things demonstrated in person.
If you have used a Mac for as long as you have used Windows than you would say the same thing about using Windows for six months (that Macs are easier). It is all about what you are used to. Which is easier is ultimately about which one you are more familiar with.
I taught myself windows with forums & books/magazines & consider myself pretty knowledgeable. Had I really needed to do things on the Mac, knowing there wasn't a Windows computer in the house then I'd be forced to dig in already. I did buy a new scanner because my old one wouldn't work with Vista or a Mac but I haven't needed to use it yet. In the next few weeks with taxes coming up, my Windows computer has to be running.. lol
But yes, had I used the Mac 1st, I'd probably feel different.
Quote:
Originally Posted by K-Luv
I have never heard of creating a folder as I am saving, even with my experience on a Windows based machine so I dunno. Maybe that is one advantage for MS. I have made it a habit a long time ago to just save everything to the desktop and then moving it to the correct folder at a later point in time.
When you save a file on windows you get that box that pops up, if you right click the box you are able to make a new folder. I don't save to desktop as I had issues one time trying to delete a file, it wouldn't delete.
I go to various forums, I have a folder for each forum, then any subforums because I save posts every now and then. Makes it easier to put everything where it belongs to begin with instead of after.
Quote:
Originally Posted by K-Luv
Also of an interesting note is that most of the 'hate' towards Macs comes from the hard-core computer gamer as well.
People like myself who need a computer to do certain things and don't want to learn something new are people I've seen posts from. One guy at a place I go to bought a new Macbook. I sent him a message to let me know certain things when he got his running, told him I wasn't liking mine too much. He sent me a message back saying he returned his after a week because it wasn't user friendly
Quote:
Originally Posted by goldengrain
Thank you.
I am seriously leaning toward the Sony at this point. I want the BluRay and DL read/write capability, and this is their technology. No games.
My music can be stored in pristine form on an exterior hard drive, and evem a backup of that, just in case. I see that they now have huge capacity external drives.
Some manufacturers offer more speakers but I would imagine that Sony would offer good sound quality.
I will get something to remove the glare and prefer something that can be easily removed, but also can be left on the machine while closed. Pity you cannot see such things demonstrated in person.
One of my doctors has a Sony as well as a Mac, he loves his Mac as well as his Sony.
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If you do not like the Mac, you can always sell it. The retain high resale values so you won't be out that much if you decide to get rid of it.
