veronica 2 Posted April 11, 2008 Share Posted April 11, 2008 I'm not sure if this was done before, but time for a fresh look. I was wondering what time scale people usually replace their computers. (and what indeed you do with the old ones!) My current one is getting slow and I am thinking about treating myself to a new one. Poll! Link to post Share on other sites
tsondaboy 0 Posted April 11, 2008 Share Posted April 11, 2008 what's the specs of the one that you are using now? Link to post Share on other sites
veronica 2 Posted April 11, 2008 Author Share Posted April 11, 2008 Rubbish. I'm looking at the Toshiba Qusmio notebooks, they look quite nice. I'm looking online for reputations and stuff - anyone got one? I want to avoid Dell. Link to post Share on other sites
tsondaboy 0 Posted April 11, 2008 Share Posted April 11, 2008 I have a Toshiba dynabook laptop and I am pretty happy with it. Tips for when buying a computer: 1) Put the highest memory that the motherboard can take, don't buy anything with less than 2GB memory. 2) Select the hard disc with the highest rpm (that would be 7200 rpm). 3) Dont buy Celeron processors. Link to post Share on other sites
grandmastaal 0 Posted April 11, 2008 Share Posted April 11, 2008 macs have better longevity. but if the software you run is all windows and you like to play alot of games its a no no. If not, i switched across 4 years ago and think its been a great move (i mostly use microsoft word/excel/powerpoint, photoshop, flash, movie editing software etc). I dont want to turn this thread into a mac vs pc debate but from my experiance, my computers outlast my friends - well aside from my mate who has an Alienware laptop, which he bought a similar time to my mac book pro, and they are still on a par performance wise. Turn your old computer into a media centre, wipe everything bar the basics (itunes/media player etc) and fill it with tunes and videos and connect it to your TV! Link to post Share on other sites
tsondaboy 0 Posted April 11, 2008 Share Posted April 11, 2008 The strongest/fastest machine I have al runs Unix. Link to post Share on other sites
veronica 2 Posted April 11, 2008 Author Share Posted April 11, 2008 Just looking at the toshiba direct website, they are really cheap there with the coupons on the page - much cheaper than kakaku as well so it seems. Link to post Share on other sites
tsondaboy 0 Posted April 11, 2008 Share Posted April 11, 2008 kakaku is not that cheap anymore. Link to post Share on other sites
Roger's head 0 Posted April 11, 2008 Share Posted April 11, 2008 Be careful - often times there are differences in the specs that are hard to root out for the online models. Half the size HDD, etc. Link to post Share on other sites
Ezorisu 0 Posted April 12, 2008 Share Posted April 12, 2008 I just got a Toshiba Satellite U-series and it's great! If you run on battery a lot, get anything with Intel Centrino technology - the power consumption will be lower and you'll get a longer run-time. Any of the current Intel dual-core processors are faster than Pentium 4 or 3 in actual practice, even if the speed rating may be lower, so your new machine will easily be faster than your old one. Link to post Share on other sites
snowbender 3 Posted April 12, 2008 Share Posted April 12, 2008 About every 2 years. I get tired of them getting bogged down, slow, etc and while I know you could spend days and days doing stuff to make it better, it always seems a good idea to refresh and get a new beast. Link to post Share on other sites
snowbender 3 Posted April 12, 2008 Share Posted April 12, 2008 BTW, I have a Vaio and I think it's great. My mate has a new one from last month complete with Blu Ray player/recorder and all. Impressive beast it is. Link to post Share on other sites
charlotte 0 Posted April 12, 2008 Share Posted April 12, 2008 Is that an overseas model Ezorisu, I couldn't see on here when I looked today. I am looking for a notebook at the moment as well. The one I have now is just over 2 years old. And has some issues. Link to post Share on other sites
OBLONG 0 Posted April 12, 2008 Share Posted April 12, 2008 Just worked it out - average 2.5 years. I'd be interested to know what people get. I have a toshiba notebook now, the one before was Dell and that had a lot of small problems, I wasn't too pleased with that one from the beginning (build, some issues with the hardware) Link to post Share on other sites
JA2340 16 Posted April 13, 2008 Share Posted April 13, 2008 Originally Posted By: tsondaboy The strongest/fastest machine I have al runs Unix. I seem to recall that the MacOS is unix based. Which is partly why there is such a divide - macnatics love the beast, PC users realise that they are using an inferior machine but with a more "popular" system. (popular = better marketed) Link to post Share on other sites
grungy-gonads 54 Posted April 13, 2008 Share Posted April 13, 2008 You know, on the subject of Mac and PC and whaterver, I reckon that most non-geeky people will just think like I do (which is the red bit below) Link to post Share on other sites
grungy-gonads 54 Posted April 13, 2008 Share Posted April 13, 2008 As for getting new machines, hmmmm maybe between 2-3 years I suppose. Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted April 13, 2008 Share Posted April 13, 2008 I've often felt that when Americans say "I could care less" they meant "I couldn't care less" But this chart has enlightended me. Link to post Share on other sites
veronica 2 Posted April 14, 2008 Author Share Posted April 14, 2008 That is a good chart, gg. Link to post Share on other sites
js 0 Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 At home have an old DELL which is now EIGHT years old (Window 98SE) - burnt out one HDD in that time (so far!). Stripped it back to a glorified Word Processor, etc. Can burn CD's and watch DVD's on it because it was top-of-the-range back then. What's the lesson? Buy the best machine you can afford with all the techy gismo capabilities and it will last you a long while. At work we have very high end 'puters, printers/plotters and scanners, do some home-related (foreign orders!) on them, burn to memory stick and take home for further work, hence, no need to upgrade home PC for a while. Also, have a 500Gb external HDD = back-up facility. The HDD has been making some whirring noises lately, so it may be going to Hard-Disc Heaven soon. Will simply get another HDD rather than a new PC. (Vista hasn't had all the bugs worked, so will wait a while before jumping into that.) Link to post Share on other sites
NoFakie 45 Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 I was going to replace my main desktop recently because it was unexpectedly dieing on me all the time. However, I opened it up first, cleaned out all the dust I found, and now its going great again. Its much more quiet as well. Its four years old. With laptops, I find the biggest problem is the power connector. If your kid pulls on it or trips over the wire, it soon gets knackered. We've had problems with two in a row. This computer I'm on now has it jammed in with a load of tin foil and duct tape. When I get some time, I saw open the case and solder the thing on. Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 company refreshs every 3 years and the memory requirements to meet the min standard doubles each time. So on 4GB right now. In my industry, we don't touch cutting edge technology. Link to post Share on other sites
2pints-mate 0 Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 I often get fed up with computers when they start getting slow and full and the keyboard goes wonky. I get to the point where I "feel the need" to get a new one, and usually do when I get to that point. Just worked it out about every 2 years for my notebook, but the desktop I have now is 3 years old (got me thinking!) Link to post Share on other sites
Ezorisu 0 Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 Originally Posted By: charlotte Is that an overseas model Ezorisu, I couldn't see on here when I looked today. I think it's a "Dynabook CX/47E" on the JDM. The US model has a deep blue case instead of silver/white. I wanted something as small as possible. Link to post Share on other sites
@tokyo 14 Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 Hmmm, about every 2-3 years I reckon Link to post Share on other sites
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