
New Laptop - rjett
I have had a desktop my whole life, but I really want to buy a laptop so I'm not relegated to working in one space.  Given that I'm on a budget and I'm just starting to learn to program, what is the best "bang for my buck?"
======
Create
They are all Intel Reference platforms: only your budget will determine the
model (if you get your money through work, then you'll go for the best "bang
for the buck").

That said, there are 4-5 (tops) companies in the WORLD making notebooks: all
the choice you see in the shops are about branding and artificial product
differentiation. ECS, Acer, Asus etc. fall off the same machines as Apple,
Fujitsu, HPQ etc. (Lenovo being a notable exception). They contain the same
CPU, same RAM ...same MS licence etc. Some even have almost the same shell
(e.g. ECS-DELL-FSC-Toshiba).

If you use it for work, I suggest you get the cheapest one that offers you
enough value to perform your task (e.g. 15.4", 17" being no longer portable;
x3100, 2Gig are all sufficient for coding: if you need real power, you'll ssh
anyway to the given HPC). You will not get a heart-attack if it drops, gets
scratched or stolen: you will just get a brand new one, being 2x better for
approx. the same price within a year with strong batteries (they will fade
within 2 years anyway).

If it is (also) for showing feathers, then obviously Apple, Sony (and no,
Lenovo is no good for attracting attention).

But then again, these are PC-s, and the P stands for Personal: tastes and
habits vary. On a pure technical level, whichever runs Linux/BSD best
(generally the least fancy ones) already gives enough empowerment to change
the world...

------
briansmith
I strongly suggest getting a 14.1" ThinkPad T6x series laptop. I have had a
T60 for almost two years now and it has worked great. The keyboard is just
amazing compared to anything else out there. The TrackPoint (little red mouse
pointer thing in the keyboard) is great when you get used to it. Unless you
play games, you should get the integrated graphics (great battery life and
easier to get working under Linux). The only bad thing about ThinkPads is that
they don't run Mac OS X (legally/easily).

If you are on a budget, I recommend getting a slightly older model (slower
processor) but with as much memory as you can get. I also recommend that you
get a model with the one-year warranty instead of the three-year warranty, to
save money. There are so many people selling ThinkPad parts and accessories
that there is no reason to pay for a warranty that you will probably never use
when you can replace anything that breaks yourself for less money. I just
priced one at lenovo.com and it was less than $1,100.

BTW, I strongly considered buying a MacBook but I went and tried them at the
Apple store and I found that the keyboard is really horrible for programming.
Only Sony VAIO is worse. No dedicated home/end/pageup/pagedown on either?!?!

~~~
mindslight
I've had a T60 for about 16 months now. What exactly do you like about the
keyboard? I've found that the keys have a tendency for things to get stuck in
their movement, and the ] key had even fallen off of my keyboard. Then the
whole keyboard stopped working, so they sent me a new one. I've also gotten a
new power adapter (insufficient strain relief).

I personally like going with the three year warranty (but in a bundle rather
than explicitly adding it on). I previously had a T22 that I ran into the
ground, and over the course of its life had the motherboard, drive, and power
cord replaced.

~~~
holygoat
Speaking of power supplies... MAGSAFE. Nothing beats MagSafe.

------
andrewparker
Regarding "bang for your buck" Dell's are still the best bargain for compute
power. Many people (rightly so) piss all over them for bad customer support,
but if you buy from the "small business" side of the site instead of the
"consumer/residential" side of the site, then you get small biz customer
support bundled, which anecdotally is much better.

~~~
aneesh
Yeah, you can get a great Dell for really cheap. They now come preinstalled
with Ubuntu (<http://dell.com/ubuntu>), so you don't have to pay for Windoze.

~~~
davidw
I got one of those, and have really liked it. It's not going to ever get lots
of looks, but I use it for programming, not showing off.

Also, in the one occasion when I needed customer service, it was really good.
I bought it in the US, but called up the support line in Germany, and had a
new hard drive here in Innsbruck, Austria the next day. I was pleasantly
surprised: I thought I would get hassled because of the change of country, or
they would be slow, or see that I had bought it with Ubuntu and give me grief
for that, but they really didn't ask any questions, just sent a guy over with
a new drive.

------
username2
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~~~
aneesh
Good, but I think you can do better. I got a Dell with the identical specs
(plus Windows) 2 years ago for $700 and change (incl shipping). The time value
of those two years makes me think you can get better specs for this price.

------
tx
There are really only two: the MBP and the ThinkPad.

~~~
xenoterracide
Thinkpad++ I do believe some models come with linux preinstalled.

I believe thinkpad is one of the few laptops left that has what's called a
stick? you know the little nub on the keyboard that you can use instead of a
touch pad, and in reality it's way better than a touch pad. god I hate touch
pads.

I wish I had bought a thinkpad.

~~~
mikeryan
The new MBPs (and MacBooks?) have a two finger touchpad interface that I've
found makes a huge difference in its usability - with one finger down already
controlling the mouse a second finger essentially works as a mousewheel. I can
use my MBP's touchpad fine but can't stand having to use my work dell laptops
w/o that feature.

~~~
jcl
Most of the PC laptop touchpads that I have used will scroll the focused
control if you run your finger up and down along the rightmost edge (or
bottommost for horizontal motion). If yours doesn't, check your control panel
settings to see if it can be enabled.

It's not quite the same as a scroll wheel in that there are some programs
where one scrolling technique (wheel or trackpad) will work while the other
won't, but it's similar enough to handle most cases.

~~~
xenoterracide
oh this I'm aware of. mine has this feature. I still think touchpads (all that
I have encountered) suck.

and infact on linux you can modify the area of the touchpad that does this. I
think you can even add horizontal scroll if your touchpad didn't previously
support it (not 100% on this).

------
nickb
I think you're approaching it from a wrong standpoint. You should start off by
telling us what you're going to program in and what your OS and tools of
choice are.

~~~
PieSquared
The article author is learning to program. Not learn to program in something,
learning to program. I doubt it would be a good idea to tell us that, since it
would be, in effect, limiting options for exploration. (Well, or just giving
us false data, which wouldn't be as bad.)

------
notdarkyet
Watch out for the cheap laptops. These are really enticing options and I am
typing on one now. As a student and planning to run linux on it anyway, I
thought it would be a good idea to save my money and get a cheapie. I bought
an Acer about a year ago and after a good amount of usage I realized my
mistake. After having this thing on for about an hour or so it gets hot. I
mean hot lava burn your nuts so you won't have children hot. Not only is this
an inconvenience, but the performance goes down as well. I can't watch videos
for more than 15 minutes and even youtube can be annoyingly choppy. None the
less it does get the job done when it comes to programming, as most laptops
out will.

My friend gave me good advice about this once when I was complaining, he said
"Why would you try to save money on a tool that will not only be the basis for
your profession, but also the device you will spend most of your day on?". He
was right. Its like trying to save 150 bucks on a bed that has a huge lump in
the middle that makes you wake up with a sore back every morning. Its not
worth saving the money. Don't worry so much about bang for the buck, focus on
getting that consistent bang to get the job done each day without added
stress. A carpenter wouldn't go to work each day with a plastic hammer and a
nail file instead of a saw, so approach your purchase with the same logic.
Find out your needs, find the tools that meets those needs, and then make your
decision from that point. Don't let money be that big of an influence, you
will regret it.

------
rcoder
Honestly, I'd recommend looking for a used Thinkpad -- something from the
T41/X41 era will be cheap (<$500), well-built, and extremely well-supported
under just about any recent Linux distro.

I used an X41 as a mobile development box for quite a while, and only upgraded
to a MacBook Pro when I started shooting a lot of RAW photos with my DSLR and
wanted to run Lightroom.

~~~
ra
Thanks for this. I'm just selling my Macbook core2duo on ebay at the moment. I
use a mac mini with a 23" screen at home, and I don't take the macbook out
much because it's heavy and valuable, so mainly it just sits there doing
nothing.

I have been planning to get the new eeepc (when it comes out in a week or two)
- I hadn't considered a second hand thinkpad.

Thanks very much indeed for a great tip.

------
Aeos
Get a Dell. I've had one for 4 years now and it has held up pretty well. It
did cost me around $2000 but it has been worth it. If you really want a
'cheap' laptop get a refurbished one.

------
niels_olson
I went to a mac reseller and told him I wanted a mac laptop for $200 if he had
anything, even if it needed a repair, like a hard drive. He did. In September
2006 he had a late 2004 ibook G4 for $200. The hard drive was wearing out but
still usable. Ended up replacing the hard drive for another $100, and put
another 1GB ram in it (for a total 1.25GB ram) but totally worth it. Upgraded
to Leopard and it's even better. Firefox 3, and it's even better. Total of
~$550 and I've got a pretty decent laptop.

I got my wife a Dell under the Tulane student discount, loaded Ubuntu dual
boot, and she chooses Ubuntu. I wouldn't recommend a Dell, but it sure attests
to the usability of Ubuntu.

I'm not sure I would get a macbook simply because I can't stand the short
screen, glossy or not. MBP is definitely not a budget buy. Thinkpads seem
awefully nice. Since you can run linux on a mac now, I would think the
question comes down to do you or do you not want OS X?

I have to say though, I have never been more please than getting a $200 iBook.
It used to get deadly slow if you leave firefox 2 open for days, but with
firefox 3, it got a new breath of life.

------
kajecounterhack
Under $400 (Prolly not you): Eee and OLPC battle!

Under $700: You just walk into best buy and try to max out ram/HD/Optical
Drive/USB Ports and stuff. Its hard to say who's a sure winner becuase this
category is so tight.

$700-1000: Either do what you did for the lower price range, or sometimes you
can get a lower end PC from the next price range, if you know where to look.

Over $1000: Thinkpad, MBP, Dell Precision, HP 85xx/87xx series.

------
3KWA
budget + starting to learn => don't underestimate the second hand market

despite lusting for a MPB I recently acquired a hp nc4400 second hand which
rocks when I am away from the desktop it runs Hardy and all the soft I need
for my coding (and I am not starting to learn :P)

... and you get the feeling that your are doing something for the environment
in the process (not that I'm a hardcore green or anything ;)

------
pg
Buy something used; the Powerbook G4 I use seems to go for about $500 on eBay.

------
natch
The best Unix machine you can get (things just work, no driver issues) is a
MacBook Pro. It also allows you to develop for iPhone, and for Windows if you
use Parallels or VMware. If cost (comparing with crappy Dells that come with
Vista, egads) is an issue, I invite you to check your wallet for this amazing
device called a credit card. It's worked wonders for me.

------
goofygrin
Are you a mac, linux or windows user?

What's your budget? A budget of < $1200 basically rules out any recent mac
laptop.

~~~
midnightmonster
I got a refurb macbook from apple for $800 or $900. With a recent Core 2 Duo
processor, it's very snappy. Only downside is it came with only 1GB RAM.
That's surprisingly tolerable for basic use, but application switching starts
getting slow with my ~50 tabs of Firefox and overloaded Eclipse install. Easy
to fix for cheap, though, as I will be soon.

------
iron_ball
I use an HP/Compaq NC6000, $300 on eBay. Make sure you get the widescreen
(1440w) version with integrated Bluetooth, and expand it to 1GB RAM. It runs
everything I need for interactive development, including hogs like Photoshop,
Flash, and the Eclipse-based Flex Builder 3; the Bluetooth means I can get
internet access through my smartphone; it's fairly light and has a real-world
battery life of three hours under steady use; its battery is swappable, so you
can carry a spare; and you can afford to lose it, which is a very distinct
possibility if you're carrying it around a bustling city all day. (I live in
Manhattan.)

Even the best backup plan and warranty won't cover the "oh FUCK ME" moment
when you realize your $3000 laptop just got lost, dropped, or stolen.

------
yummyfajitas
If you have small hands, the eee pc might be nice.

[http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=EEE+PC&x=0&y=0)

~~~
goofygrin
I've got an eee and a development box it is not.

------
misterbwong
What are your requirements and what is your budget?

If you're purely looking for a cheap machine that will hold up decently well,
you're going to be looking at a Dell + warranty.

If you're looking for higher quality (and price point), you're going towards
Lenovo/Apple

------
eugenejen
I bought a MacBook. Bought 4GB ram and 320 GB hard drive and replace the
factory one. Total cost without warranty and before tax: $1099 (MacBook) +
$139 (disk) + $98 (4GB).

I need to add $79 for VMWare Fusion to run different VMs for FreeBSD, Linux
and another $150 for Windows XP pro. But this laptop will have all client
system that I need to use.

I guess you can do the same thing on Lenovo ThinkPads with similar cost or
maybe cheaper. If you don't need to write stuffs for OS X/iPhone, you just
need to use Safari Windows to check your web sites.

Since your are beginner to learn programming. I guess a ThinkPad with Linux
and you can start to learn python right away.

------
bk
You don't need anything fancy, save as much as you can, and buy additional ram
(possibly from a 3rd party site for much cheaper rates).

I have 2 gigs and frequently go to the limit with the number of apps I have
open. Slowdowns due to lack of ram can really kill your flow.

I have a regular macbook, mainly because of OS X, which gives me unix tools
with an OS that just works. Apple's hardware is ok, not great. I've had issues
with 3 out of 3 notebooks. That said, the issues have become smaller (so
Apple's QC seems to have improved).

If I could run OS X on cheaper hardware, I would do it in an instance. I don't
need to show off at the coffee shop. :)

------
breck
If you're just starting to learn to program than any laptop you get will be
sufficient. If you go Windows, HP's are pretty slick. They're fast, good
looking, easy to carry, and have great multimedia features. I personally have
a ThinkPad, HP, and Dell. I use the Dell the most but the HP is extremely
light and small and great for traveling. If I had to choose one I'd go with
the Dell. I got a MBP for work and that's great, but I still prefer
Windows/nix. The ThinkPad is old. Haven't used a new one of those since before
Lenovo.

------
mattmaroon
I'm a pretty big fan of the Lenovo X series if you want to go Windows. You may
want to look at the T instead if you're not planning on using an external
monitor though due to screen sizes.

------
rtf
I've been using a model n200 from Lenovo's 3000 series(the consumer ones, a
grade below Thinkpads) and am relatively pleased. Build quality is lower than
a Thinkpad, but I've had no trouble using it daily since last summer, toting
it around, scratching it up....it's taken one fall, and the only thing that
happened was the battery came loose.

Main caveat: have to baby its airflow so that it doesn't overheat. Vista will
throttle on overheating, Linux won't, at least not the kernel I'm using.

------
blender
We use Toshiba A200-AH9 laptops running Ubuntu. Intel wifi just works. 9-cell
battery. Only downside is the resolution if you don't use an external monitor
and no bluetooth.

~~~
davidw
Good point about the Intel chipsets - they work better with open source
drivers than, say, nvidia.

------
Hexayurt
Macbook. They're updating them soon, so you might want to wait for that to
happen, and then either buy an old one for less, or a new one with new
features.

------
gtani
Random thoughts: the MacbookPro and thinkpads, besides everything said here,
have the highest resale value, for sure. But i would definitely avoid the
early MBPs, lots of heat issues, bulging batteries and keyboards. The recent
ones, including mine, still seem to not sleep/hibernate properly.

Buy used from Craigslist. Make sure you get original purchase receipt, O/S
install DVD's. Or from Costco. 90 day return policy.

~~~
gtani
a couple other things: look for a full complement Control, Alt, Option keys on
the right side of keyboard. Very important for a lotta editors, emacs,
textmate.

off-topic, but i've never seen this discussed anywhere. TO dual head my
toshiba laptop with ubuntu Gutsy, I choose gutsy in grub with external monitor
disconnected, then plug it in about 4 seconds later. It works, no nasty
xorg.conf to edit.

------
jdvolz
About 18 months ago, I bought a Dell laptop (dual core, 2 gigs RAM, etc.) and
it has worked really well for me through short (day) and long (to Australia)
trips. As a contractor, it has made me a lot of money because I can show
customers their software at their site, and I can make adjustments as needed
on site. A quick turnaround time for changes is essential to happy customers.

------
thingsilearned
I bought the lowest model Macbook (not pro) for ~1000 bucks and then bought 4G
of ram at Fry's for $60. Its worked great for a year now. Most of my friends
have pro's but mine has worked just as good for me. I like the smaller size as
well.

Another great thing about the macbooks is their high resale value. Factor that
into the cost.

------
Tamerlin
I recommend checking out powernotebooks.com before you decide. You might like
what you see there. I have a Sager that I recently purchased from them; it's a
great machine, well-built, and since it's factory direct, it's less expensive
than a comparable machine from most other vendors.

------
pbnaidu
If you're going to buy MBP from apple, try buying refurbished ones from apple
online store, they're about 15-25% less than the brand new ones. I think the
refurbished ones go through extra testing as well, so I think its a pretty
good deal.

------
jamesbritt
Dell D830 with the WUXGA 1920x1200 screen rez.

Very cool. Ubuntu 8.04 works like a charm.

------
rms
What about something like this?

[http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=204814777&list...](http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=204814777&listingid=4746360&dcaid=17902)

------
listic
If you consider using ThinkPad, you can find the following specialized forum
useful: <http://forum.thinkpads.com>

~~~
listic
Also, your options may vary according to whether you care about any of the
following points: 1\. weight and size (do you want to have your laptop with
you all the time and feel light on the go) 2\. battery working time (do you
want to work on batteries for long periods of time) 3\. screen quality and
brightness (be prepared that laptops in general are backwards from desktops in
this regard) 4\. keyboard quality and size 5\. drive size, longevity and
durability 6\. network acess options (some laptops have cellular modem built-
in, so theoretically you will be able to stay connected really anywhere; need
that?)

If you don't care, that's easier for you. If you do care (like me) - then you
should do some serious research and, frankly, can still have some backwards
thoughts after your purchase.

I was in the situation similar to yours, i.e. I wanted a laptop to be able to
learn programming in different places. As a long time computer user, I had my
specific preferences: 1\. minimum weight and size; I want to have my laptop
with me all the time and not feel constrained with it 2\. maximum battery
working time. noone thinks that a cell phone that is only able to work half of
a day is ok, why is it ok for laptop? in the meanwhile, I want a laptop with a
battery life as long as possible. 3\. i wasn't concerned about screen quality,
as I don't want to edit images on my laptop but mainly work with text and
programs. but now I think screen of my current IBM X60s could really be
brighter. it's ok to use in rooms, when not under direct sunlight, but not
with the minimum brightness settings. viewing angles are decent, but cold be
better too. in general, from what i gather, IBM/Lenovo is very conservative in
their choice of screens. In non-Apple world, the only company whose laptops'
get frequent praise for their screens is Sony. 4\. i'm very used to desktop
keyboard, so the more I was inclined to buy a ThinkPad: their keyboards are
often said to be of great quality and the key placement is the closest to
desktop that I've seen. 5\. i don't need file storage of great size, but I
really want to be sure that my hard drive won't break. so I chose SSD (these
models don't come with them standard, the hdd was upgraded manually by the
prev. owner) 6\. i wanted to have cellular modem built-in, so I went a bit out
of the way to get it: here in Russia the models with WWAN are not sold, so I
bought import model and had to unlock it with a special program. It works now!
also: I needed Windows. In fact I think that open-source OS is the wave of the
future, but I don't ride that wave. I'm deeply rooted in Windows. XP is fine
for me, don't need Vista. mat screen. 4x3 screen proportions. lower dpi
screen, please. 1024x768 on 12" is ok (107 dpi), but higher resolution screens
have higher dpi - I have problems with those. I have good vision, but I don't
want to strain it.

So, after careful consideration, that brought me the following laptop: IBM
X60s (1702-64M) 12.1 1024x768 | CD 1.66LV | 2GB | 32GB SSD |
BT+abg+WWAN(MC8755) [1,5 kg, 6..8 hours of mild work] I bought it from a
ThinkPads forum member in Australia. I'm generally quite happy with it, but
I'm still yet to get adjusted to some issues like the smallish keyboard (maybe
a light 14" would be better? or should I just adjust to this one?) and not
very bright screen (it's ok in the room, but when I'm on a bus and there's
sunshine in the street and the bus turns - oops, I can't see anything anymore
:) - maybe a Sony would be better)

------
gunderson
i have been happy with the toshiba r205 s209

originally retailed for $2200 but i've seen them lately for around $800.

Spend an extra $100 and load up the RAM to 1.25GB. It runs linux like a charm
and gets great battery life.

Best of all, it's got a titanium case and doesn't flex and groan the way mac
laptops do. It's light and rock solid.

For $800 it's by far the best deal you'll find today.

If you like games, don't buy it however b/c it has a slow graphics card for 3d
stuff (I don't play games)...

------
aggieben
I just bought a Lenovo T61p (ThinkPad mobile workstation), but it was very
nearly a coin-flip decision vs a Dell XPS M1530. www.notebookreview.com

------
vegai
I'm looking at MSI Winds with great interest. If you can handle the small
display, you that might be good for you.

Price should be at $400-500ish

------
slvrspoon
all laptops have one of the highest failure rates in all of mainstream
consumer electronics.

that said: i will add to the groups discussion i am a die hard thinkpad guy.
the 'stick button' is SO MUCH more effective than a touchpad. they are
fantastic machines. X series are small light and about $1k - $1.5k. i never
spend more.

downside: Windows. or worse... VISTA!

------
kajecounterhack
I'm using the Dell Precision series and I'm really happy with it. Its hardware
is well supported by Linux.

------
maxklein
Let me warn you: DO NOT BUY A MACBOOK! Let me tell you my story...

A few months back, I decided to travel to china. I sold off my desktop, and
because the macbook was small and nice looking, I bought it. I installed
windows on it, installed bootcamp and all was fine, and I really loved this
notebook for a few months.

But the thing is, in China, I was constantly on the move. And I was moving
with the laptop all the time in my bag. The macbook does not deal with this
well at all. Two nasty things happened: First, my hard drive failed a mere 4
months after I bought it. I lost weeks of work, and the Apple repair store
would not replace it for me for 3 weeks because of chinese new year. So I
bought a new hard drive and did it myself. The instructions online do not
mention that you need a very strange and difficult to find screwdriver to do
this.

Next thing that happend is that a piece of plastic along the edge broke off.
The problem with the macbooks body is that when a piece along the edge chips
off, the entire edge slowly peels of. My laptop is losing the edge, and now
the resell value is less than half of the original because it looks fugly as
hell.

Some other things:

* The white macbook gets dirty as hell quickly

* Bootcamp is no longer free! You need to buy Mac OSX to get the new version of Bootcamp. There are some on the torrent sites, but you never know what trojan you'll be getting, and a trojan in a kernel driver is nasty

* When booting windows, the keyboard does not always get detected at startup. When reinstalling from CD, this can be frustrating. And if you have that 30 seconds countdown on windows, you have to wait for it to countdown because the keyboard is not detected. You also cannot go into safe mode.

* There is no frickin right click on the keyboard. For development work, it's very annoying. Try using Eclipse or Visual Studio without right click.

* There are no fricking curly braces or square brackets or the pipe symbol on my macbook keyboard! You cannot open or close functions, you cannot index arrays and you cannot do a logical OR. Who came up with that braindead keyboard designs. Also, there is no printscreen key. You never know how much that screen is useful till its gone. (this is the german keyboard layout I'm talking about)

* In some rooms with overhead projects, the audio of the macbook goes on and off randomly. I learnt this the hard way when tryign to do a presentation. This probably has to do with the remote control

* The webcam is mirrored.

* If a CD is inside and your macbook has no power, there is no way of getting it out

* The macbook comes with a minidv video output, A.K.A make them pay extra money

* The coolness factor of a macbook is long gone. Everyone and their grandma own a macbook

On the positive side: * Has webcam

I'm about to switch my laptop as soon as I can get apple to repair that hard
drive for me. I've done some reaearch, and I'm going for the:

LENOVO THINKPAD x61t

It's a rugged looking tablet PC, smaller than the macbook, has a docking
station and is not particularly expensive.

Conclusion: Macbook is like a pretty but crazy girlfriend. In the beginning,
you are madly in love, and later you have to break up when bits start falling
off!

~~~
astrodust
I think a lot of these grievances apply to any notebook, really.

* Any white computer, like a white car, is going to look super dirty.

* Bootcamp comes with any new MacBook as part of the package. You would only need to worry about trojans(!?) if you were buying an old, used machine and didn't have the extra money for 10.5. It's a fraction of the price of Vista, so what's the trouble here?

* The German keyboard sure is peculiar (<http://flickr.com/photos/fuzheado/453807351/>) but is this just an Apple thing? How does Asus, Toshiba or Lenovo compare?

* Right-clicking is usually done with control, and that works in VMWare, but BootCamp is a different deal. If Apple had better Windows trackpad drivers, they could fix this.

* The webcam only appears to be mirrored, it's all done in software. You can turn this option off.

* Any CD stuck in a machine that's slot load will be difficult to rescue if the power is off.

* The MiniDV output is a bit of a pain because you need a dongle, but you can use VGA, DVI or composite from the same port. Most notebooks only have a VGA port which is probably more convenient until you want DVI, in which case you need a new notebook.

* If you need to buy a computer to 'be cool', then I guess you need a MacBook Air. That's gold-plated. With diamonds.

~~~
maxklein
Bootcamp upgrades are not free. I have the old bootcamp, but want the new one.
Why should we pay for driver upgrades? It goes against my philosophies.

Apple is the only computer maker with that wierd layout. All others are sane.

------
LPTS
Get a refurbished mac. If you are going to program you should have a mac. The
21rst century computer company.

