What's a good laptop

what’s a good laptop in taiwan? There are no dell, rarely sony, mostly compaqs and I don’t like compaqs…so what’s a good laptop in taiwan and how much? I am looking for a decent one. those asus and some other name brands I ain’t too familiar with…thanks

Asus is actually a nice brand. It is famous for making motherboards and other components for both the local and overseas markets (in the U.S. motherboards market, Asus is considered a “luxury” brand). I have friends who own Asus laptops and they are actually quite decent.

Another brand I personally like (in terms of Taiwan’s local brand) is Acer. Their TravelMate line is rather well equipped for a reasonable price (some may consider it high though). I personally don’t like HP/Compaq either… :frowning:

And please don’t ever get Sony. I have had to support Sony as a sys admin. They are a pain to support and upgrade! But then it COULD be just the few dozens or so I have supported.

What’s your budget and what features are you looking for?
Screen size?
Operating System?
Accessories? (internal cdrom? or cdrw? or dvd + cdrw?)
Hard drive size?
Built-in wireless?

Take a look at the Asus M2418
P4 1.8G
256 k ram
dvd drive- can be taken out to make it even lighter.
No floppy drive… That’s what the 64meg flash disk replaces.

about 2 kg’s. Light compared to the 3 kg’s.

We got one for $43000nt tax included. It is cheaper with no company number (ie you own a business and need official receipt for tax purposes) and paid in cash. It includes a 64meg flash disk.

Ask for extra 32meg flash disk and other goodies.

Depending on a slew of reasons why you are buying a laptop, the prices can range from 25,000 to 60,000.

On the cheaper end, I have grown to like Twinhead for their recent light and thin designs. Of course, since I never plan to keep a laptop for more than 3-4 years, I’m not sure about the service. Asus and Acer are also good choices for workhorse(lots of power, pretty heavy) type computers.

I am using it for work. prolly just need an average one…but I would like better ones…what size screen they have now? they all come with winxp preinstall can you install win2k urself? HD maybe 40 or 30, dvd or cdrom does’t matter. prolly like dvdrom. built in wireless what’s that?

prolly will spend like 45000NT

get an IBM, light, good quality and at a competitive price,
take a look at any T-Zone store :sunglasses:

Cheers,

I was just about to get an Acer TravelMate 300 or 600 series (300 series = small and light, 600 = bigger but more powerful) when I was doing research for a laptop last October. But I bailed out of the Windows platform and got a Mac instead. As much as the machine cost, my dream of owning a Mac was finally realized. And it couldn’t have been a better choice.

Back to PC: Acer was my top choice. And they pioneered some technologies for mainstream users which all the other major brands have yet to catch up. Based on the people I know, there seem to be more Acer and Asus users than any other brand.

That is so weird! I just realised my own Apple dream last evening! :sunglasses:
What model do you have?
Going to the Apple Shop to browse as soon as the typhoon blows out of here.

[quote=“fredericka bimmel”]That is so weird! I just realised my own Apple dream last evening! :sunglasses:
What model do you have?
Going to the Apple Shop to browse as soon as the typhoon blows out of here.[/quote]
The force is still strong on the “dark side”. Taiwan’s Mac population is limited, you may find yourself an odd ball owning a Mac!

I got a 15" PowerBook (2.5 months before the new machines were announced) with airport but no superdrive. If there was an advice I could give you about the 15" PowerBook, it’d be to get the darn superdrive! I don’t regret spending an arm and a leg on the machine, but I do regret not getting the DVD-burning drive as I am begining to edit more and more home videos on it… arrgghhh!

So what are you looking into getting? A desktop or laptop? :slight_smile:

I want a laptop and have been in private conference with Mother Theresa about his Compaq evo 610c, which he seems to love.
Then my neighbours who’re powerbook owners sort of turned me onto the idea and I did some checking out online and realised I could get a much better deal (reliability, speed, features, life) if I go with Mac, which is my lifelong dream like it was yours.
I work in publishing and have lots of docs to produce, and I was concerned whether I’d be able to cross platforms sending them to the local pcs. I hear that’s not a problem at all these days.
I’m so tired of this desktop pc I have which is going on four years now (replaced Hard D, cdrom, etc) and afraid to put a lot of money into a laptop that will fuck up in a year or so. Thinking about Mac, I realised they’re really a much better value all in all and the battery life is at least double the PC, which is important for my present needs.

Btw, there are circles of Mac users here in TW(like a cult or something), and it’s growing, so I don’t think I’ll have much trouble.
And YES! I want the superdrive so I can copy those Soprano dvds, dammit!

Does the “apple benefit” apply to their desktops, too? I’ll be looking for a new desktop soon and would gladly move over to Apple. The question is, since PC’s are so much cheaper here (than in Europe), would I be wise to get an Apple desktop here since the same price advantage doesn’t hold for Apples, or so I gather?

Macs have come a long way since the days of OS9, which I don’t miss at all. It was becoming crash-pron and started to show its age. The new Unix core of the machine is absolutely marvelous. I have crashed it only once and was due to over-heating (you will need to elevate the PowerBook at the back to prevent that). In terms of speed though, I still think the new Pentium 4s “feel” faster. But I don’t care as much about that.

[quote=“fredericka bimmel”]
I work in publishing and have lots of docs to produce, and I was concerned whether I’d be able to cross platforms sending them to the local pcs. I hear that’s not a problem at all these days.[/quote]
Cross platform hasn’t been an issue since the 7.x days. And it has gotten better over the years. A few minor issues I have noticed relate to PowerPoint presentations. Not all transformations (animated stuff) tranfer properly onto the Mac. But all graphic programs are almost the same on both platforms (Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator… etc.). And you might miss a couple of “exe” files of silly animations your friends might send you via email. But it’s safer not to open any exe files anyway. I don’t know if there’s Chinese version of Office for Mac, but if you ever want to type Chinese in Office on your Mac, you will need an unofficial patch. Let me know if you need it.

My fears exactly. Speaking of reliability, I would never recommand anyone to get a Sony. I wouldn’t even wish it on my worst enemies. Sonys are great for one year (I am not kidding, count the days – one year) after which they are simply the worst laptops to maintain. And don’t even try to upgrade a Sony without blessings from the manufacturer. Almost all of the features exclusive to Sony laptops will not be compatible when new OSes come along because they will all need Sony-written drivers. You can take that to the bank.

An article I read earlier mentioned that a Taiwanese contractor received orders of possible “notepad-like” devices from Apple. Let’s see what Steve has under his sleeves for this summer. New OS, Panther (or OS X.3) will be debuted then.

You raised a good point. PCs are almost always cheaper and will continue to be, especially in a place like Taiwan. In terms of price of an Apple laptop/desktop, a friend of mine got the same PowerBook as mine about the same time in Taiwan; unless he was lying, the price difference between Taiwan and US (which I’d assume is the cheapest) is less than $100.

The speed benefit definitely extends to desktops, especially the PowerMacs (instead of the iMacs). If you get one of the dual CPU desktop Macs, you can even install VirtualPC and run Windows on top of it, and it feels almost natively (I’d strongly recommand Windows 2000 as opposed to XP). My 800MHz PowerBook runs Windows 2000 just fine under VirtualPC; imagine what a dual 1GHz desktop can do with lots of RAM!

On the flip side though, I heard Apple Taiwan’s service sucks a$$. Is this still true?

To scchu,

What do you recommend for digital camcorders for home videos?

[quote=“scchu”]
I don’t know if there’s Chinese version of Office for Mac, but if you ever want to type Chinese in Office on your Mac, you will need an unofficial patch. Let me know if you need it. [quote=“scchu”]

Are you talking about that annoying issue of having about 7 extra spaces after chinese characters when you are trying to type in both Chinese and English??? If so, I WANT THE PATCH!!!

Had to write my entire master’s thesis in Appleworks because of that…

What’s your price range? And does size of the camera matter?

I think Canon is probably the better bet of the bunch (Sony, JVC, Panasonic… etc). Canon specialized in making still cameras and lenses before the digital revolution. The expertise in their lense craft translates well to the video camera market. And as any photographer/videographer will tell you, good lense makes all the difference in an image, whether still or moving, digital or analog. But keep in mind digital photography/video is a little more complicated than analog; you have to take into consideration of various technologies involved and such.

All in all, depending on your price range and camera size, Canon is a safe bet.

Cheers.

I have had my eye on the Sony IP220 because it has the highest megapixels at 220 million. I don’t know if I should base my purchase on that. I know it should have a Carl Zeiss camera lens but I don’t know much about Carl Zeiss quality. On average, I say Sony products are over priced but I don’t know if I can trust the other brands… I did see that people liked the Canon products.

Basically, I don’t know much but I plan to purchase around next year where I can save some money. Plan spend about 45,000 to 55,000NT.

I heard smaller is better and get one wih a good light for dark areas.

That’s about it. Sometimes ChinaTrust has the Points book out and I take a look at the camcorders then and see the JVC and Panasonic brands.

So far I Canon would be my second choice but I don’t think there are many places here that have it.

PS Can I make a low budget movie with any of these models you buy at the stores?

I am not very familiar with the IP220s. I noticed it uses a rather new technology called “MicroMV”. The MicroMV tapes are smaller in form factor. However, they are quite expensive and is not yet a standard. For editing footages using anything other than Sony’s packaged software will probably create issues for you.

MiniDV is the digital video standard right now for semi-pros. Like MicroMV, it’s completely digital and you can transfer footages to/from your computer, technically, without any loss of quality. May I ask what prompted you to look at the IP220? MicroMV is such a young and not-well-adopted technology (though some speculate it eventually replace or have similar support sometime in the future).

For consumer grade MiniDV cameras, here’s a list of them, also from Sony (if that’s your thing).

Carl Zeiss lenseses are on almost all Sony consumer grade cameras (haven’t looked into pro cams in a while). It’s a very nice lense (expensive). The company specializes in making high quality lenses.

If you don’t mind spending the cash for IP220 (for the benefit of smaller form factor), I think that’s ok. But again, the issue is in availability of editing software and support.

Yes, you can. The difference between a “pro” and “consumer” grade digital camera is mainly (but not only) the CCD chip(s) that process and store the images. Consumer grade cameras come with one CCD chip, which does RGB all in one. Pros come with 3 chips each processing a color, which makes everything that much more clearer and sharper for editing. An entry level pro camera cost about USD$2000-$3000.

However, given the right lighting, composition and script, nothing should stop a creative mind from creating a good quality movie. With enough lighting, one CCD chip ought be good enough. Just keep in mind it probably won’t look quite good in a real auditorium like ones in theatres compared to images produced by a 3 CCD camera. :wink:

I want want of these:

naturetech.com.tw/p747s.htm

A real laptop! :smiley:

[quote=“blueface666”]I want want of these:

naturetech.com.tw/p747s.htm

A real laptop! :smiley:[/quote]
Haven’t seen a laptop with UltraSPARC chip in a long while. Can’t believe they still exist! Can’t one just install an Intel port of Solaris on a “normal” laptop? As a matter of fact, here’s a link for more info: sun.com/bigadmin/features/ar … ptops.html

I’d suspect Intel chipsets to be faster (though may not be as reliable) and cheaper to own/upgrade!