Good solid-state laptop with security?

L

LDFerguson

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Thinking about buying a new laptop. I hear that solid-state laptops switch on almost instantly which would be nice. Really just need it for web use and basic office programs - don't need super-duper graphics, don't play games (on computers anyway). So I'm guessing that I just need plenty of RAM and 250GB+ hard drive.

Security would be a big thing for me. What's the latest thing in laptop security? It used to be fingerprint scanners which were cool, but I've no idea if they were effective.

Budget would be negotiable for the right machine.

Any help appreciated.
 
Thanks monagt.

I had a look at the Apple store - specs on the Mac Book Pro are very impressive. What sort of security does it offer? I'm thinking about security of data stored on the machine in the event that the machine is stolen.
 
Hi Liam,

At the risk of stating the obvious - you'd need to rebuy Mac versions of all of your software OR look into a product that allows you to run PC software on the Mac:

(cannot post links yet), so google :
Mac Bootcamp
or
Mac Parallels

(Parallels would be the way I would do it)

I think the main thing you are looking for is security of the laptop if it got stolen. In that case I would just use a drive encryption product such as TrueCrypt.

With TrueCrypt you can setup a partition on your drive that is encrypted so if your laptop got stolen nobody could get into it without the passphrase.

Finally - in terms of SSD - not sure I would justify the premium at the moment - ask yourself how much do you really need a 2-5 second boot time!

Hope this helps.
 
thumbelina said:
Finally - in terms of SSD - not sure I would justify the premium at the moment - ask yourself how much do you really need a 2-5 second boot time!
Click to expand...

SSDs have more benefits than just boot time. Data throughput and seek times are a lot faster and power consumption is lower, the later of significant benefit in a laptop that will frequently be used on battery power.
 
Finger print scanners are only a gimmick. If you want to secure the data on your laptop you'll need to encrypt same. I like TrueCrypt, which is free and is OS independent. You can encrypt an entire disk or just keep your sensitive files in an encrypted container on the disk, which would be my preference. SSDs are significantly more expensive than HDDs but do offer some advantages.
 
If you have a decent laptop now you can get a solid state drive easy enough and upgrade rather than new PC. They are fast!
 
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