For the notebook, get the celeron, or even better the new "Centrino" mobile stuff. P4s in laptops are USELESS unless you use it for games.... which is kinda pointless anyway.

The Centrino chipset includes a wireless card onboard (trust me, youll bloody LOVE this the first time you park your butt in the hammock and post on rennlist) as is designed for battery life. It uses the Pentium M chip, which is far more efficint the the P4. I just read in a review that the "IBM T40" laptop which uses all this stuff, hit the 7 hour battery life mark. Unless youre one of the weird people who use their laptop only for games and dvds, I think battery life is far more important than a cpu geared more for games. The P4 laptops run stupid hot too.

And I think IBM offers discounts to teachers too, but dont quote me on that.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3121_7-...ml?legacy=cnet



For desktop, yeah get a P4 or an AMD system

 

Hrm, I'm running dual Dell 1700FP screens hooked through DVI to an ATI AIW8500DV and another ATI Radion card (some cheap PCI thing). Whenever I sit down at a PC with a CRT, things just look better and I can work for longer peroids of time without headaches.

To add to the 'don't skimp on the monitor' part, don't skimp on the keyboard or mouse either. You interact will all 3 things Constantally and there are vastly better items than the 'freebies' that come with a computer.

The Flat CRTs I was refering to are about twice as thick as an LCD, use about double the power and the first one I saw was in Maximum PC more than a year ago. I'm not talking about a normal CRT with a flat screen.... OLED isn't that far out either.. I've seen the raw screens for sale for a few months in my EE rags. It's just the individual mfg. taking their bloody time developing and assembling.

 

Wow, that 1700FP is a nice screen. I have the 2000FP and the only
thing that comes close to it are my SGI graphics grade CRTs!!

I ment no offence Brain, I just can't imagine an LCD giving you a headache!

But yeah, LCD technology is going to take leaps and bounds in the next
5 years. With Carbon Nanotube technology pushing things faster, we'll
have roll up TVs and computer monitors in no time!!

 

I agree with lonly taven, do not build or have a system built, i also built my system, when i just did a reinstall, it took me about an hour longer than it should cause i had to go online dl the video driver, dl my onboard drivers etc. and you get customer support. My only problem with the Celeron processor is that i tend to lock them up like crazy, it might jsut be the computer at work, which is like a 700mhz, i get on it and try to push it with multiple proggies like my 2.1 gig Athlon XP at home. Personally, If i had the option of doing my conputer again i would probably just go with a Dell,

Just my .02,
Mark

 

Raven. That was a wonderfully concise post, and brings up a lot of info that's new since I built this box several years ago. I still disagree with the opinion on buying anyones "off the shelf " box, but I do see that in the past few years, the better manufacturers (Dell, Gateway) are allowing buyers to customize their purchase more than they used to and end up with a much more suitable machine. But for at least two reasons, proprietary hardware, and the simple joy of building it myself ( it's almost a Frankensteinish thrill ) I would still prefer to build my own. I'm just about due for another, but it'll have to wait at least until next year,,too many irons in the fire right now.

 

WOW.....info overload! I'll have to print everyone's responses and read them after my son goes to bed..

Thanks to all!!

 

Sorry Berk, I attempted to keep things concise to try and avoid that.

Thank you for the compliment Mark. I like to think I know my shiznit.
And the reason I'm pushing for a Dell rather then custom built, is that
if Berk is using a PII 350, then he might apprecaite the (limited) support,
warranty, and quality of Dell PC vs a custom built one.

As we all know, anything that's custom built also comes with the need for
custom tweaking, and I wasn't sure Berk was up to it. Sounds more like
he'd want something stock and reliable then SUPER-CRAZY FAST and
mostly reliable.

Edge also made a good point about the Centrino. I didn't want to confuse
issues by throwing out a lot of names and model numbers, but I agree
completley. The Centrino is basically a super-tweaked P4 chip made to
be low voltage but still high-output specifically for laptop PCs so as
to extend their battry life. I believe the Centrino is also Hyperthreading
capable. I could be wrong on that though, I went to the Intel show only
for the food and really didn't pay attention to the presentation. LOL

 

If you like the idea of something powerful enough for gaming yet small enough to take up next to no space on your desktop and something which is almost as portable as a laptop then a Shuttle XPC is the way to go.
I have built lots of these mini cube PCs and they are brilliant.Get one with either AMD or Intel CPU and you will not be dissapointed.

Read some reviews here
http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=447

 

Again i totally agree, i built my system about a year ago and am still tweaking to make it faster, Good luck on the search.

Mark

 

Actually, Dell licenses Samsung to make their LCDs for them - merely slapping the Dell sticker on 'em. This in turn makes them more expensive. A Samsung 19" digital will run ~$650 ($620 is the cheapest I can find now) online, and the Dell will be much more expensive (comparing both as stand alone items).

 

Not Necessarily.

I paid $799 for my 20" Dell LCD, and it's a high end Samsung 20"
just as you said (and I said previously).

Dell puts these monitors on sale regularly, and the price you pay
*seperatly* is different then what you pay with a system.

Currently the Dell 19" is $679. Recently this same monitor was $550 and
a friend of mine picked one up.

You can get the same monitor with a system for about $550 all the time.

Plus, one thing that bugs me about Samsung, their demo models that
they give to reviewers and demo at shows generally don't have the same
specs as the ones that they actually release. They simply say "well we
weren't done with the specifications yet", so the 750:1 contrast ratio
that you saw at the E3 show turns out to be a 500:1 when it hits the
streets, and with no DVI to boot.

I'm not saying thats common practice, but it's happened enough times
that people have noticed.

 

i still say as far as processors go...AMD is the best. After personal usage of both brands, AMD outdid the P4 in most everything, and is considerably cheaper.

As far as monitors go, I own a computer business and can sell you a very nice 17" flat CRT screen for about $200 including shipping.