OK, my home computer (laptop) has packed up, and I will need to buy a new one soon (conveniently timed with my tax rebate).

I want a laptop with decent storage (my old one only had 20GB - less than my iPod!), which can easily handle multitasking and is fairly lightweight. Decent screen size (it seems 15.4" is standard). Don't want to pay a fortune. I've always used a PC and don't have much interest in switching to a Mac, mainly because I'd have to re-learn a lot of commands.

Please recommend!

mac book
its the only way to go

See I have the best of both world. A mac book that allows me to run Windows XP and the mac OS X by using bootcamp. Well of course I use windowss XP, but we all know it is the superior operating system, don't we Matt
[Edited 4/26/07 12:25pm]

I'm not a man who likes major changes - would getting a Mac after all these years confuse the hell out of me?

booyah said:

no , it would ease your constipation

Don't listen to the Mac fans. They prey on people like you and then steal your children.

Sony Vaio or HP are the way forward. What's your budget?

Spookymuffin said:

Seize and fuck him!

NastyPig said:

Point proven.

I'll take that fuck though.

Spookymuffin said:

^ Thanks, Spooky, cause I don't want it.

booyah said:

No problem.

Now about your laptop. I wanna help you find one, so gimme some details. Screen size isn't enough.

^ Decent speed, storage (80-120GB) - I'll use it mostly for editing video, storing music and lots of photos. Needs firewire port, wireless internet. Don't mind too much about recording TV since I have a DVR, but I guess it would be a nice bonus.

Is Vista standard on new PCs now?

booyah said:

Vista is, and there's nothing wrong with it; it's actually a very solid OS.

Sounds like RAM is fairly important to you. Don't settle for less than 2GB. That will cover your video editing and photo browsing needs. Firewire and Wifi should be fairly standard in HP and Vaio laptops. Are you american?

British/American dual citizen. But living in the US, so for all intents and purposes, yes.

Pretty much all I hear about Vista are the bugs - and I use iTunes to manage all my music - I thought there are problems with Vista/iTunes?

booyah said:

i have had no problems with vista, besides the fact that some of the programs i use havent published updates to make them vista compatible. !!!!

i have a new compaq presario, and i LOVE it.

booyah said:

http://www.shopping.hp.co...&tab=specs

http://www.sonystyle.com/...=computers

I'd choose between those two. Sony cost a little more, but they tend to be built better, last longer and be a hell of a lot cooler. It's up to you.

They match your specs exactly.

Spookymuffin said:

this is what mine looks like, but i have different specs. can't remember what they are exactly.

http://www.shopping.hp.co...e2/SDP_SDP

isn't is sexy?

SexOnWheels said:

Very nice. I looked at that for him too.

^ Oh, and a built-in webcam would be nice (though not essential).

Spooky, thanks for doing my research for me

The HP Pavilion dv6000t is winning out simply on price of the ones you recommended, Spooky. That looks nice.

booyah said:

No problem.

Make sure when you go to customize it you put in:

2GB RAM
A big hard drive
WiFi.

Then you're sorted.

i just bought a mac.
tis the most wonderfulest thing that i ever bought
i recommend this computer!

Vic20.

Spookymuffin said:

HP? HP, Ben? Really??!! HP??

Poor choice.

HP.

live4lust said:

A great choice! Beats Dell any day.

live4lust said:

How so?

Dell just bugs me because it's direct sale only. May not matter for computers much, but owning a Dell printer at work has put me off dealing with the company at all.

booyah said:

I don't know much about Dell, so I wasn't listing them. Ben started that malarkey. I had an HP a long time ago when I discovered that they were very difficult to upgrade. It was a desktop, but it put me off them.

Grab and MacBook and you can run OS X and Windows side-by-side on the same computer. This way you won't miss out on anything and can always fallback to Windows if something in OS X happens to be confusing you at the time. It's the best of both worlds and you'll never miss out on anything.

...and as a person who services computers for a living, stay away from Dell.