Macbook or Dell Inspiron?

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shesells

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Looks like my PB laptop (only 3 years old) is dead. Have it at a computer rescue place in the hope that my files (pics and itunes not backed up - silly girl!) are not all lost.

It's looking like I'll have to replace the laptop. Don't want to spend over 1k and would prefer to spend less. Am looking at a Dell Inspiron and the basic MacBook. My SIL swears by her MacBook for battery life and longevity.

Basically I use my laptop for itunes, pics and internet. Thesis finally finished so at the moment not a whole load of other stuff I would want. Desktop not viable in current home due to space issues.

Any opinions
 
You will pay a significant premium for a MacBook over a similarly spec'd non Apple (presumably Windows) laptop. Whether you "need" or prefer the Apple experience is really up to you. If I was looking for most bang per buck I would probably dismiss Apple. I would love to have one but could not justify paying the premium.
 
My main reason for considering a MacBook is battery life. My now dead laptop had a battery life of only about 2 hours at its peak. Given that we travel a lot a 2 hour battery isn't very useful on a 10 hour flight.

My OH is a student at the mo so I could get the Apple student discount on a MacBook which would help a bit.
 
You should do a bit of research on battery life of different makes/models of laptop and their different battery options so rather than just plumping for Apple on a single recommendation or Dell. Something like a UMPC or ultraportable might have fantastic battery life but the trade off may be elsewhere (e.g. speed, SSD capacity, screen size etc.). Horses for courses and every need/want generally involves tradeoffs.
 
Basically I use my laptop for itunes, pics and internet.
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I just got an asus eee, for about €330. It comes with open office etc, so you can also use it to do work.
I love it.
 
Another thing to consider especially if you carry it around a lot is the size and weight of each of them.
 
shesells said:
Looks like my PB laptop (only 3 years old) is dead. Have it at a computer rescue place in the hope that my files (pics and itunes not backed up - silly girl!) are not all lost.
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Unless the hard disk has packed in completely chances are that taking it out of the original laptop and installing it in another one or as an external USB drive will give you access to the files. Or maybe even booting the laptop off a live CD Linux distribution. Etc.
 
Asus Eee PC.

Elara have one Eee PC model for about €290. I'm not familiar with all the different hardware specifications/options so am not sure how this rates in terms of bang per buck. I've also seen them for sale 2nd hand on www.adverts.ie.
 
ClubMan said:
Unless the hard disk has packed in completely chances are that taking it out of the original laptop and installing it in another one or as an external USB drive will give you access to the files. Or maybe even booting the laptop off a live CD Linux distribution. Etc.
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It does sound a big suspicious that they can't get the files off.... unless the hard drive is the problem then they should be able to save everything as Clubman posted above...

if the hard drive is the problem then you should be able to get your laptop up and running with a new hard-drive very cheaply...
 
Elara have one Eee PC model for about €290. I'm not familiar with all the different hardware specifications/options so am not sure how this rates in terms of bang per buck.
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That seems to be a pretty good price! They must have just got a delivery of them. They've been fairly hard to get over the last few weeks.
 
ClubMan said:
Unless the hard disk has packed in completely chances are that taking it out of the original laptop and installing it in another one or as an external USB drive will give you access to the files. Or maybe even booting the laptop off a live CD Linux distribution. Etc.
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Fingers crossed this is the case. Basically I had been having low memory issues and set aside last weekend to back up files. Went to switch on laptop on Sunday and I got the first screen (f2 to boot f12 to something else) and then the screen went black. The hard disk light was flashing when I switched it on and after the screen went black the hard disk light stayed off. Guy (recommended by another IT professional) who has it says that there's a major issue if the computer is not recognising the hard drive but he will do his best. He only collected it yesterday so fingers crossed!
 
shesells said:
Basically I had been having low memory issues
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Do you mean low diskspace issues?
Guy (recommended by another IT professional) who has it says that there's a major issue if the computer is not recognising the hard drive but he will do his best.
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If you could not get to the BIOS configuration screen then my first inclination would have been to try booting off a live CD of some sort (e.g. a GNU/Linux distribution) to see what happened. If that didn't work then I would have considered taking the hard drive out and installing it as an external USB drive in another laptop/PC to see if I could read it. But if this sort of stuff is beyond you then you did the right thing in seeking professional assistance.

As mentioned above this incident does not necessarily mean that your whole laptop is junk and needs to be replaced!
 
shesells said:
My main reason for considering a MacBook is battery life. My now dead laptop had a battery life of only about 2 hours at its peak. Given that we travel a lot a 2 hour battery isn't very useful on a 10 hour flight.

My OH is a student at the mo so I could get the Apple student discount on a MacBook which would help a bit.
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TBH the battery life on my MacBook is no better than any Windows laptop I've used. Maybe the new MacBook Air with a solid-state drive has a longer battery life due to no moving parts, but it is very expensive. Although Apple machines are much more expensive, having bought my MacBook over a year ago, I will never switch back to Windows machines - I am quite happy to pay a premium for what I have found to be a far better user experience.
 
If you use the Apple refurb store you'll pick up a basic Macbook for about €800. On the Dell Outlet, you'll pick up a far better spec'ed 1525, or XPS1330 starting around €400~500. I'm not making a value judgement, but thats that the hardware costs.

With the Mac you are mainly paying for the experience of OS X as the hardware is broadly the same. If you been using a Mac up to now, I'd probably suggest sticking with it. You can buy used MacBooks too, so thats something to consider.
 
shesells said:
Looks like my PB laptop (only 3 years old) is dead. Have it at a computer rescue place in the hope that my files (pics and itunes not backed up - silly girl!) are not all lost.
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One of cable sets, a snip @ around €11 (delivered), will allow you to connect the laptop drive to another PC as an external device and unless it's totally horlicks'ed it should be detected and assigned a drive letter so you can copy your stuff off. Oh, I wouldn't buy a mac, IMHO they're over priced, over hyped and less reliable; I also dislike the OS.
 
Thanks but that's not a runner as the laptop won't power on past the start up screen. Just had a call and it seems like my own is a gonner, after a week they only have a handful of files. Am gutted but it's a lesson learned, albeit an expensive one. First purchase after a new laptop is an external hard drive and I'll be fussy about backing up.

Or is an online storage cache a better option? Dell offer one?
 
shesells said:
Thanks but that's not a runner as the laptop won't power on past the start up screen.
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That does not necessarily mean that the hard disk cannot be extracted from the laptop and attached to another machine via USB allowing the files to be recovered. Also while the laptop may not boot right now that doesn't necessarily mean that it's junk either.
 
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