A few questions

[Assume Nothing]

I've been pondering for a long time. Should I get a Desktop, or a Laptop? I don't have infinite wealth, the budget should be around the £700-£800 range.

 

I think with my limited budget range, and for what I want to do with my computer, I think it'll be better to buy a Desktop, but I could be mistaken. I want to learn how to use Photoshop properly, Blender (the thing that JeffreySon used in his vids), and other various gadgets. Watching movies on it too.

 

The only problem being... portability. If I ever move out of my tiny little place, I'm worried I'll be unable to move the comp. :/

 

Can someone list up some Pro's and Con's for Laptops and Desktops?

 

With a Laptop, I can use it wherever, but it breaks too damn much. I've never had a laptop that lasted for more than 2 years. (And it's not good if I want to use it as a alarm too, I guess)

 

Hmm. Some of the specs I think I want; 2gb+ RAM, preferably 3gb, Windows 7, 19"+, 250GB+ Harddrive, and a good processor. Do you think I can afford to get that computer?

 

Hmm

 

EDIT - And what make should I buy? Toshiba is full of crap the last time I got a laptop

[All_Bogs]

EDIT - And what make should I buy? Toshiba is full of crap the last time I got a laptop

You know you want that Value Added Package.

 

If you are interested in serious video/picture editing, you'll want a strong CPU and a sufficient amount of RAM. Other things are of lesser importance, although if you're into gaming you'll find that buying even a low end NVidia or Ati card is a significant improvement over the onboard graphics accelerator.

 

The laptop I'm using right now, an IBM ThinkPad, is 6.5 years old. It broke down within the first month of actual usage due to a manufacturing error that plagued many first-year students; other than that I've had no problems with it whatsoever. As it is now, the monitor is showing slight signs of deterioration (which is due to me not being particularly careful with how I carry it around), everything else is still in tip-top shape. So there are laptops that last :P

[Hegelstad]

Stay out of laptops unless you invest about 1000-1200£ Below that its just bad quality as you mentioned. If you go for a laptops portability, i suggest an Asus, mine has last for quite a while, but the downside is that you cannot upgrade laptops, which you can with Desktops. I would suggest a Desktop computer, buy an Ati processor, theyre quite good for the price, Nvidia graphics (Ati drivers are and will stay crappy), and 4GB ram.

[Doomster]

Got to compare like with like, so laptop versus complete system desktop (with screen).

 

Even then, you get more grunt for your money in the desktop.

Laptop specifications are either lower, or more expensive - one particular aggravation, the DVD-RW - if this has seen better days on a desktop, it's generally no biggie to replace, while it's a pretty expensive bit of kit for a laptop.

 

In the lower end, there is not so much in it, but the higher the performance and features, the more the laptop price climbs compared to the desktop, for instance, onoboard graphics moving up to lower midrange, is a small jump in the desktop, a much bigger one in the laptop.

 

In short, unless the portability is truly essential, don't go for a laptop - oh, the only other built-in laptop advantage, is that it is its own uninterruptible power supply, though that doesn't help if you were online and just lost the broadband modem.

[Laura]

Stay out of laptops unless you invest about 1000-1200£ Below that its just bad quality as you mentioned. If you go for a laptops portability, i suggest an Asus, mine has last for quite a while, but the downside is that you cannot upgrade laptops, which you can with Desktops. I would suggest a Desktop computer, buy an Ati processor, theyre quite good for the price, Nvidia graphics (Ati drivers are and will stay crappy), and 4GB ram.

I share the same opinion.

[Guy]

I would get a desktop with 4-6GB ram, maybe 8 I dunno. Decent CPU and a low-medium graphics card. I have an Asus EAH4830 which cost me 81 quid and isn't too shabby.

[Assume Nothing]

Slight bump - Is Novatech a good company to buy Computers from? Usually I just go into Pc World or Curry's and pick a computer from there, but I know they inflate the price a bit just because it's Pc World.

 

I do want some advice on what make I should buy too. All three of these look really similar, I'm not sure what I should be looking for when I'm buying a computer now.

 

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/pc/range/revolution.html

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/pc/range/iconquer.html

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/pc/range/irushpro.html

 

And lastly http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/medion-and-aoc24-06218923-pdt.html (gotta click technical details to find specs)

 

Hmm. It seems that 1Tb hard drives and 4gb ram is pretty much standard on all computers of that price range, what else should I look for? The rpm of the hard drive, or what?

 

One thing I like about desktops; If the monitor breaks, you replace it with a £90 monitor. With a laptop, you'd need a new laptop :|

[Doomster]

Most mainstream desktop hard drives will be 7200RPM, some drives are faster than others though, for instance, Western Digital have the "BLACK" - fastest, "BLUE" - mainstream, still 7200rpm, but lower power/quieter seek and "GREEN" - variable rpm. The Samsung F3 is also a pretty fast drive, slugging it out with the Caviar Black - they seem to be the two top ranked drives.

 

Another thing creeping in with some drive versions is "advanced format" or "4k sectoring", while it has some advantages, there are some serious trip-ups, as while Windows 7 formats in an optimal manner for 4k sectoring, some backup or transfer tools may not, leaving the NTFS 4k allocation units 512 bytes out of step and converting all 4k page writes into double read, modify writes.

There are solutions to this misalingment, from a jumper on the drive which makes the allocation mapping line up correctly with the OLD way (but not the new), or tools which can shift a partition to bring it into alignment.

If your OS and any other tools used are "4k aware", then no workarounds are needed, the alignment issue also applies to SSD.

 

Another related issue with advanced format, is that smaller data writes can also end up becoming slower read modify write operations.

 

Advanced format is NOT, at the moment, a passport to better performance.

[Assume Nothing]

Most mainstream desktop hard drives will be 7200RPM, some drives are faster than others though, for instance, Western Digital have the "BLACK" - fastest, "BLUE" - mainstream, still 7200rpm, but lower power/quieter seek and "GREEN" - variable rpm. The Samsung F3 is also a pretty fast drive, slugging it out with the Caviar Black - they seem to be the two top ranked drives.

 

Another thing creeping in with some drive versions is "advanced format" or "4k sectoring", while it has some advantages, there are some serious trip-ups, as while Windows 7 formats in an optimal manner for 4k sectoring, some backup or transfer tools may not, leaving the NTFS 4k allocation units 512 bytes out of step and converting all 4k page writes into double read, modify writes.

There are solutions to this misalingment, from a jumper on the drive which makes the allocation mapping line up correctly with the OLD way (but not the new), or tools which can shift a partition to bring it into alignment.

If your OS and any other tools used are "4k aware", then no workarounds are needed, the alignment issue also applies to SSD.

 

Another related issue with advanced format, is that smaller data writes can also end up becoming slower read modify write operations.

 

Advanced format is NOT, at the moment, a passport to better performance.

 

Whoa, break that down a little. I'm not a tech guy

[obfuscator]

7200 rpm will be fine :)