Mantas 3 Posted November 9, 2007 Share Posted November 9, 2007 My computer guru brother is in China at the mo, so I'm relying on some of you more astute SJ ers to help me out. I have and opportunity to buy a cheap laptop for my kids to use in the main area of the house so we can keep an eye on them. I'm set up with WI FI. The thing that concerns me is that they are not very fast (500mhz) and have small RAM (200mb). What I don't know is how much does this affect the speed if only surfing the net. Bear in mind Australia has some pretty slow internet anyway. Link to post Share on other sites
kokodoko 67 Posted November 9, 2007 Share Posted November 9, 2007 imho ram and chip speed have nothing to do with how fast the internet loads.. it is all up to the isp provider and the phone line and the modem.. and a few obscure settings on your machine.. Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted November 9, 2007 Share Posted November 9, 2007 what is the seppd or your broadband? what OS are you running? 1GB min recommended for XP. The RAM is very important, so too your bandwidth. Link to post Share on other sites
Mantas 3 Posted November 9, 2007 Author Share Posted November 9, 2007 I think it's 512 kps and thew operating system in Tiger osx 10.4 (mac) Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted November 9, 2007 Share Posted November 9, 2007 Mac? Dunno, but much more efficient than windows so the RAM may be enough. If I was to buy a new laptop these days, I would go for at least 2GB. CPU does not need to be super. Your broadband sounds real slow. Mine is 10MB and that's a slow one. Link to post Share on other sites
Mantas 3 Posted November 10, 2007 Author Share Posted November 10, 2007 It's slow alright. We don't even have a 10MB option. A lot of people are still on dial up. We are good at digging up stuff and filling up ships down here and bugger all else. (oh, except sport) I don't really download anything so it's enough for what I do. I've just found out that there is a range of laptops for sale and as the RAM and HD and processor gets bigger so does the price, naturally. So I guess what I'm asking is what would be the minimum I would need. This will be for net surfing only. Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 Mantas, you will not buy a PC just to surf the net. If you do that, your present PC is enough. You will store photos, type up the odd doc, do some calculations on excel, have a contact database, and of course games. Link to post Share on other sites
Mantas 3 Posted November 10, 2007 Author Share Posted November 10, 2007 No I wont. Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 then these days the cheapo laptops are 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 133GHZ CPU. Ya cheap skate. Link to post Share on other sites
bobby12 0 Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 I have ab old 550mhz laptop running win2000. It has i think 256MB. Its completely fine for surfing the net. Of course it is slightly slower than my mega desktop but only when loading complex pages with tons of AJAX (e.g. gmail). Link to post Share on other sites
indosnm 0 Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 Mantas.. direct ya mac questions this way mate! What king of laptop is it? An ibook or mac book, maybe an old powerbook? 500mhz & 200mb ram? maybe 256mb? Sounds like an old powerbook. if so the ram (memory) sounds pretty low, but that can be fixed with an upgrade. Just be careful, as if it's an older model parts might be rare and therefore exy.. Your connection speed is a 512 line.. Is that broadband? man that will be slow. Ours is supposed to be 100mb! I see myself not using the net in oz! Link to post Share on other sites
Mantas 3 Posted November 10, 2007 Author Share Posted November 10, 2007 Originally Posted By: thursday then these days the cheapo laptops are 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 133GHZ CPU. Ya cheap skate. That's the kind of comment I'd expect from a cashed up bank robber. Anyway why would I spend good money on a Laptop for the kids? The first thing the little fella is going to want to do is see if it floats in the bath! Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 I use an ancient laptop running XP downstairs in front to the TV. It is slow and has little memory (like the operator), but it's fine for surfing. If the price is right I wouldn't be too bothered. Link to post Share on other sites
Mantas 3 Posted November 10, 2007 Author Share Posted November 10, 2007 Indo- They are ibook G4's with up to 800Mhz processers and 600MB ram. They come with tiger 10.4.10 installed. I'm using a desktop G4 now with 512 MB ram and 1.83 Mhz processor. It's fine for what I do. You CAN get connection speeds of 8MB with Optus but it's exy. $100/month. We don't use half of the things that the net is capable of in this country. The ALP have said that they will change all that when they get in. And they wouldn't lie would they? Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 Out here in the bush we'll be on fibre optic cable next year. How's the rollout going in Oz? Link to post Share on other sites
indosnm 0 Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 I think for the type of usage they'll get sounds like they will be fine, as long as your son isn't trying to Dl and open Pammy Andersons latest home flick! "The ALP have said that they will change all that when they get in. And they wouldn't lie would they?" I think Rudd said if he lies, he'll eat his own ear wax! I really don't see what the bloody issue is with BB in OZ. Not even an issue here, seems strange for the pillies over there to be going on and on about it.. just make it FASTER and CHEAPER! Link to post Share on other sites
Mantas 3 Posted November 10, 2007 Author Share Posted November 10, 2007 I don't know too much about it. But to be fair. Australia is a big bloody country with FA people in it . 1 km of cable in Japan might service 100's of houses. Over here it might not go from one house to the next. Same goes for roads. Take WA for example. A land mass the size of western Europe with only a few million people. Europe has half a billion people. Link to post Share on other sites
Mantas 3 Posted November 10, 2007 Author Share Posted November 10, 2007 Here the ibook a crisp 12.1-inch (diagonal) TFT display 1.0 GHz PowerPC 7447a (G4) 768MB SDRAM 4X AGP ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 graphics card 30.0GB hard drive DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive USB and FireWire® ports built-in 56K modem and 10/100BASE-T Ethernet And the powerbook a crisp 15-inch (diagonal) active-matrix 1280 by 854 resolution TFT XGA display Processor Type: PowerPC 7447a (G4) Processor Speed: 1.33Ghz ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 (4X AGP) 60.0GB hard drive 256MB RAM Combo DVD/CD-RW Drive USB and FireWire® ports built-in 56K modem and 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet built-in microphone and stereo speakers Link to post Share on other sites
kokodoko 67 Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 go with the ibook with 768 mb ram.. Not that i know anything about macs Australian bandwidth is pathetic, thanks to stinky telstra and little johnny howard.. It's a joke. Link to post Share on other sites
indosnm 0 Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 I'd go the other way.. Powerbook. Difference between ibook and powerbook is huuge. Even though the ibook has more memory. the PB is ...er.. power! Link to post Share on other sites
Mantas 3 Posted November 11, 2007 Author Share Posted November 11, 2007 I think I'll spend a few more bucks and get a power book. Mainly to keep thursday happy. Link to post Share on other sites
fjef 0 Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 You will need to spend a few more extra bucks and get more ram for the PowerBook - 256 is barely enough ram to run Tiger and the machine will feel crippled. Boost it to 1 GB of Ram and it will keep you happy for many more years. With the configuration you have to choose from, the iBook will be a much nicer Mac to use as is - if you don't add ram to the PowerBook. Link to post Share on other sites
Mantas 3 Posted November 11, 2007 Author Share Posted November 11, 2007 So RAM is more important than processor speed then, when surfing the net?....I know nothing. Link to post Share on other sites
kokodoko 67 Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 ram is king... or queen.. but ram only controls the speed of the operating system and your software and not necessarily the speed of the internet.. Link to post Share on other sites
fjef 0 Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 A fast processor is crippled if it does not have enough ram - the prosessor will need to use your hard disk for virtual memory and this will slow everything the processor does way down. And all that extra disk activity is hard on the computer. But even a fast processor and lots of ram will be crippled by a slow internet connection - best to have all 3 as fast as you can afford. With the configurations you listed, the ibook will be faster than the PowerBook given the amount of ram supporting the processors. But the PowerBook could be a bit faster with a minimum 1 GB of ram. And the PowerBook has a faster video set up. 512 kbs is considered 'high speed' in most of the world - we are really spoiled here in Japan. 512 kbs is fast enough for most things as long as the connection is not shared by too many activities or computers at the same time. If you try watching streaming SJ videos and downloading, um, some family videos or TV shows or any large files at the same time, or if you have 2 computers connected and downloading at the same time, it will slow right down. But if you do one thing at a time, things should work quite nicely. Link to post Share on other sites
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