jessiehl

I used an HP as an undergrad. Big mistake, not making it again.

These days, I <3 my Thinkpad T61. I strongly dislike using Macs, which is a personal preference thing, YMMV.

*Brahmin

aibarr...draw?? How did you draw on the computer?? Did you use the pad that responds everything you scribble onto the laptop?? And did you write equations on the computer faster??

aibarr

I used OmniGraffle... it's a Mac program. Outside of class, I drew up a palette of basic drawings that I used a ton, so I'd just drag and drop them onto a new drawing and then label them with text blocks. I uploaded my palette to Graffletopia if anybody's interested in using it... I think I mentioned this somewhere around here before. Anything that wasn't on my pre-drawn palette I could pretty much do with the line and spline tools without a ton of problems... A lot of engineering profs aren't any better at drawing than most engineers, so they use a lot of straight lines. Then, I'd drag/drop my diagrams into my note files.

Equations were a bit hairier. I made autocorrect shortcuts for pretty much all of the Greek letters I used the most, then I used Microsoft equation (mainly because I never actually learned LaTeX) to type in equations. Typically, there were only a couple of equations per lecture, and when there were more, it was typically a derivation series, so I could do a lot of copy/paste. Still, most of my profs had terrible handwriting... Even when I took notes by hand, I'd spend half my time sitting there trying to figure out what things said (is that a phi or a nine...?) so after I started typing my notes, I just got the equation editor set up while I tried to decipher everything. By the time I figured out what the prof had written, I'd be able to start typing straight away.

It never really slowed me down, and when the prof was talking, I could type much more detailed notes than I would have been able to write out by hand. Just requires a little practice.

frayes

I've had the x61t for these past two semesters. It was my final year but I find that a tablet and MS OneNote work very well together. No need to carry a binder anymore since all your files are digital.

Handouts were usually already on blackboard anything else I would scan using a document feed scanner.

ken285

I love my HP laptop and it works great. In fact, every computer my family has had is an HP or one of its predecessors.

*Brahmin

Cool aibarr...I'm keen on using the laptop...I'll look out for that software omnigraffle...will u get it with the macbook? And like microsoft equation is there a software in mac to write equations and stuffs?

aibarr

Omnigraffle is a free download, unless you want to upgrade to pro, which I eventually did. Microsoft Equation comes with Microsoft Office for Mac.

MELBYMOM

jessiehl - what did you not like about HP ?
Ken285 - why do you love it?

ken285

Great quality. Everything HP that I have has lasted forever without a problem. My first printer lasted me 6 years; the only reason I replaced it was that I felt 3 pages per minute (which was actually the advertised rate) just wasn't cutting it anymore. My current desktop is 5 years old and runs great. My laptop I've had for almost a year now and haven't had any problems.

Meanwhile, my old roommates have had lots of problems with their Dells. Two of them had Dell laptops and both had problems, and both had to pay a lot for replacement parts (I think you can only use the ones you get from Dell directly?). Two of my roommates had Dell desktops, and one of them had their graphics card stop working for no apparent reason. A friend of mine has a Thinkpad and the touchpad stopped working, though this was after about 3 1/2 years. Too many problems.

jessiehl

The laptop was a piece of junk. It was heavy and clunky. Several of the keys had stopped working within a few months. Part of the RAM randomly stopped functioning, reducing it from an already-pathetic 250 MB to 192 MB and making it horribly slow. The battery tanked randomly in the first few months, so that I couldn't go for more than half an hour with it unplugged before it would die.

I talked to some other people and they told me that HP laptops had a lot of hardware failures (I have no complaints about, say, their printers, I am only talking about laptops).

In fairness to the stupid thing, I used it for a little over four years (couldn't afford a new one until I graduated and got a job), and the CPU never died in all that time, while my friends with Macs seemed to have theirs die pretty often. This might have been a function of how we were *using* our computers, though, more than brand.

I've had the Thinkpad, which was highly recommended by all of my non-Mac-using friends, for six or seven months, with no problems so far. Which is not that long, but considerably longer than my HP made it.

electrifice

STAY AWAY FROM HP!
At least thats my experience with them. As for the kind of laptop needed for an engineer... its pretty much the same as what any other student would need: light, tough, small, and cheap.
I have a Sony VAIO that I bought a year ago, with pretty much standard features: centrino duo, 1 gb of ram, 100 gegs of space, and intel chipset. Its more than enough power for ANY type of student, in my opinion. More ram would probably be helpful though.
I've never used it with Vista though, but it works perfectly with Ubuntu Linux, and I've kept an XP partition for when I need it.

charlesjeon

wow does these people know about computers at all?
If you think a certain name brand computer is slow, that is your problem for installing the default programs that a certain program has.
If you buy a new laptop, do you use it from that time?
Well, I always format the whole thing,
install a custom based os that is lighter than the given one.
Dont install utilities that the brand gives, only install drivers.

Ever tried these methods before you can make discouraging comments about name brands?

If you think they are slow, its the specs not the maker.
If its heavy and clunky, it was your problem to buy it at the first time.

My laptop is Centrino 1.2/512MB/30GB 1.8"
well, its kinda slow,
however im running lighter xp version, and it weights 990 grams.
Nothing to complain about.



Have you checked out the new HP 2133?

RacinReaver

One of my friends has a pretty nice HP laptop, and the wireless networking card just randomly stopped working last night. It doesn't show up anywhere under Device Manager, any of the wireless settings, and even with updating the BIOS, reinstalling all the proper drivers and doing pretty much everything we could think of, nothing worked.

He called HP and they told him to send it in for repairs with an unspecified time frame until he gets it back. Pretty sweet for him, since he doesn't have any other computer at home, and his laptop had been doubling as his office computer via a dock.

ken285

So maybe I've just been really lucky with my HP...

RacinReaver

I think it comes down to luck for all laptops.

My Dell laptop's networking jack broke after a year and a half. My roommate's onboard video card died after around a year and a half. One of my friends IBM laptops had the monitor die, but the monitor out plug still worked, so he could only use it when it was attached to a normal monitor.

I'd recommend buying a 3 year warranty for any laptop you buy. Yeah, it's a lot of money (ontop of an already expensive for what you get computer), but something WILL die within the first three years you have it if you're a heavy user.