<p>Yup, water and electricity…bad combo. Same thing is true of cel phones, the minute they see liquid damage or you admit liquid damage they don’t cover it.</p>
<p>Unfortunately this won’t help Mousegray’s situation, but for others reading this thread … student insurance (at least the plan that I have which was recommended on CC) covers spills.</p>
<p>Apples laptop designs suck in air through the keyboard and vents air to the back. They’d have to do a redesign for a sealed keyboard. Our solution is to always use an external keyboard when at a desk when using laptops.</p>
<p>u<em>u</em>dad, I’m a netbook fan, the small size is great. I’m not stuck with MS Vista. Mine runs Adobe apps without problems, which proves that it has the speed and memory for most apps. But for portability, the small size options are nice. I worked on the DG/One back in the day and remember when Norton criticized it for not having a handle, different strokes for different folks!</p>
<p>Data General? That’s going back in time.</p>
<p>I’m on a Nehalem System right now and the performance is addicting. Every application opens up in a second. Boot and shutdown time are insane. This is a quad-core with hyperthreading (system appears as 8 cores), integrated memory controller, triple-channel memory up to 12 GB of RAM. My laptop is a Penryn 2.5 or 2.6 Ghz which is quite nice - nowhere near as fast as the Nehalem but it’s a laptop. I think that it would be pretty hard to go to a Netbook when you’re used to high-end systems.</p>
<p>Mrs Weasley:</p>
<p>Although I don’t have a netbook, I’ve lugged laptops around enough to have an appreciation for a small and lightweight portable so maybe someday I’ll get one. Right now I have a fairly lightweight 14" laptop but it’s big enough that I need to consider whether to take it on a vacation trip or not. If I had a small netbook I’d probably just take it. But I also have an iPhone so the browser is fairly usable unless I plan to do something intensive with it (which I try to avoid on vacation).</p>
<p>However, for college students, many of whom don’t routinely take their laptop to class but still need some level of portability, a more normal size laptop might be best. For CS majors in particular and also for certain other majors, the screen size is important so they have enough screen real estate to reasonably write code, documents, etc. They could have it both by getting an external monitor for a smaller laptop but IMO a laptop in the range of 14" -15.4" is ideal. </p>
<p>Yes - I remember some of the early ‘portables’ like the Osborne, Kaypro, Compaq, etc. and my fingers still automatically do the keyboard shortcuts for Wordstar.</p>
<p>BCEagle and u<em>u</em>dad, oh yes, nothing beats the screaming fast desktop computer with the great big monitor. And those are much more difficult for someone to casually steal from a dorm room. Great for watching TV shows too. :-)</p>
<p>But I think that, for documents, the netbook size is okay. Netbooks come in different sizes, so there is some flexibility on the keyboard and screen size. I think my keyboard is 75% of full size. Some Adobe software requires a certain resolution and mine mimics that reasonably well even with different dimensions. Still, I agree with you that they are not for everyone, but certainly worth a look. I like to encourage people to look at options less expensive than Apple offers.</p>
<p>Talking about Wordstar, were you the only person around with a legal copy of that program? Gee, everyone used that, but no one I knew owned it. Those were the bad old days for developers in some respects.</p>
<p>My MacBook Pro has a 1920x1200 screen so it’s easy to do side-by-side document work. A student could be writing a paper in Word or Open Office in one window with a browser looking at research papers in the other one.</p>
<p>I tried out a Netbook but I found it pretty slow for me. Apple is reportedly going to announce a Netbook but I think that the price range will be $600-$800. I think that it will have Mac OSX. There are a lot of nice things about Apple products and someone that is already comfortable with them may prefer to get another one.</p>
<p>
Yes - I had a legal copy of Wordstar and used it primarily to write programs although I also used it as a word processor. As I recall it was pretty expensive - a few hundred $$$. I even used it to write up my own real estate contract for a house I sold myself. I used it initially on a CP/M S100 bus system with a Televideo green-screen terminal attached to it. I also used Wordstar on IBM PCs once those came out. Wordstar was much better than some of the mainframe word processing systems I’ve used. I guess I’m giving away my age.</p>
<p>u<em>u</em>dad, I had to use p-system pascal when I learned to program, but I don’t remember what editor I used when I learned C. Yes, I think we are both giving away our ages. Whatever happened to CP/M? I guess that’s where Bill Gates won.</p>
<p>BCEagle, you are right that Mac has some good points and people who are familiar with it may be more comfortable getting another than moving to a new system. I’ll bet the Mac netbook will be popular when it comes out. Anyone know whether college students are using netbooks much?</p>
<p>Ummm… Why not just invest in a new computer if it costs to much to fix it?</p>
<p>My son’s Macbook pro spill cost almost $1400 to fix–and of course was not covered by Applecare. Fortunately, we had “dorm insurance” that covered the repair. See my thread, below, for details…
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/675541-dont-let-your-child-leave-college-without.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/675541-dont-let-your-child-leave-college-without.html</a></p>
<p>Hey guys! You three (that would be Mrs, Weasley, u<em>u</em>dad, and BCEagle) are in another universe from me. Like, ahem, what is a netbook?</p>
<p>So, do you think my D should get her 11 month old Macbook repaired for $790? Or get a cheaper laptop of a different brand? Or, if we can get a better quote somewhere else, what amount would be worth paying? $500? $400? She used a Dell for 4 years of HS, banged the crap out of it, hauled it in a bookbag daily, and it STILL works. I personally hate those things but they certainly are cheaper.</p>
<p>The main reason I like Macs myself, besides the snazzy look and besides the fact that I work with images frequently, is that it’s easy to turn on and off. My old Dell took forever to power on and off. Drove me nuts.</p>
<p>MomOf3, I wish I had seen your thread earlier. Big sigh.</p>
<p>mousegray, sounds like you should tidy up your Dell’s registry and startup menu. Hard drive clean up will be helpful, too. My new Dell powers up in a snap. I’m typing this up on a 6-yr old Sony machine, and it works just fine. Of course, it is a far cry from the BC’s ubercomputer. :)</p>
<p>mousegray:</p>
<p>A netbook is just a small, lightweight laptop with somewhat limited capabilities. The advantage is the size, weight, and low cost. They usually don’t have a DVD drive, have limited memory and processing power, etc. Here’s a link to some Dell ones -
[Dell</a> Netbooks / Mini Laptop Computers: Colorful, Small, Light Weight](<a href=“http://www.dell.com/home/netbooks]Dell”>Computers, Monitors & Technology Solutions | Dell USA)
I wouldn’t recommend your D getting a netbook as her sole computer unless she really feels it’d be adequate for her use. They make good second ‘traveling’ computers for limited use like browsing the internet and checking email but not so good all-around ‘base stations’ as used by many college students (movie playing, game playing, lots of disk space for music, heavy duty browsing, lots of ‘paper’ writing, etc.). </p>
<p>But if she’s geting a new laptop and doesn’t want to spend a huge amount of money, a 14"/15" ‘normal’ laptop from Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. might be an option. The prices are pretty good.</p>
<p>However, it might be worth not giving up on the defective Mac yet. Try to take it to an independent PC/Mac repair place in your area to get an idea of what it’d cost to fix it since it could turn out to be something simple. If your D goes to a large college she could try taking it to the bookstore or wherever they sell computers on-campus (if they do) and seeing if they have a suggestion. As to how much to spend - you probably just need to look at what you’d spend if you were to get a new laptop and decide if it’s worth it. Take a look at Dell’s, HP’s, Apple’s, and Costco’s websites to get an idea. Look for discount coupons (google ‘Dell coupon’) and specials.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Thanks, u<em>u</em>dad. I have a ballpark sense of how much new laptops cost. What gives me pause is the thought of giving up on a fairly new laptop (if 11 months qualifies as new in the accelerated world of tech). It seems like such a waste. But at some point, it doesn’t make sense to repair it, except it really was such a nice machine. Just can’t figure out where that point is, financially speaking.</p>
<p>I think a fair assessment is that a personal computer whether a laptop or desktop should be used for at minimum 6-7 years before a new one is purchased.</p>
<p>If it’s going to cost $750 to fix, I would invest in a new machine. Buy a new macbook or go for the cheaper HP, Toshiba, or Dell. If she loved the macbook, buy another. It’s not the fault of the machine that it was ruined by liquid. Same thing would have happened if it were a different brand. Yes, this is a very expensive lesson to be learned (keep liquids away from laptops) but “crap” happens sometimes and you have to move on. :)</p>
<p>“I think a fair assessment is that a personal computer whether a laptop or desktop should be used for at minimum 6-7 years before a new one is purchased.”</p>
<p>The pace of technological change is such that this no longer makes sense for most people. PCs at the low end are approaching VCR status. I still have my VCR that I bought in the early 1980s. I can’t program ahead anymore without some work because the clock only goes up to the year 2000. These kept coming down in price until they were made of cheap plastic and were basically designed to be disposable after a few years. PCs at $200 are disposable after a few years. Especially when they’re loaded up with malware and it’s cheaper to replace it than to have it cleaned (for those that don’t have a cheap service available).</p>
<p>I have a five-year-old laptop sitting on my desk at work. The processor is rated at 90 or 95 Watts. My current laptop (one-year-old) has a Penryn 2.5 Ghz which is rated at 45 Watts and runs about five times faster. The old laptop ran about 1.75 hours on a charge when new. My current laptop runs five+ hours on the battery. It also has a digital video out, Blue Tooth, and much faster interfaces than the old laptop.</p>
<p>Intel will be shipping new quad-core mobile Nehalems in the next 12 months so if you want power, it will certainly be available. They will also be delivering fusion products in the next 12 months where they will move the graphics chip into the CPU which should reduce system costs.</p>
<p>Older systems may not run modern operating systems well. Is that important? Well I read a report yesterday on the Conficker worm infecting hospital medical equipment including heart-rate monitors. A lot of medical equipment is running on Windows 2000 (my dentist’s porcelain machine is like this) which isn’t being updated with protection from malware.</p>