Another consideration should be for Asus. I own one of their laptops and it's been good for me. For the money it offered good options. I believe all Asus laptops (excluding their netbooks) include a 2 year warranty on everything but the battery (may include the battery for 6months, I forget) and I think 1 year 'accidental' warranty- spills, drops, power surges, etc..! Most manufacturers only offer 1 year and none of the accidental coverage (or very little). Might be worth looking into if more warranty interests you.

Hmmmmmmmmm Doug just take the money and buy a new skimmer. problem solved

I was looking at one here after someone mentioned the same thing in a previous laptop thread. Then went back and it was sold. No more have come in since. Suppose I can always buy from Future Shop online.

It was equal to the Toshiba I mentioned, in almost everything but $200 cheaper.

Well actually I am. A SWC 160 cone. Should do my 30 sps cube just nicely and still fit in my 20g sump. :mrgreen:

Just a quick note about the Macbook Pros... they are currently overdue for a refresh, so the price/specs right now are pretty poor. I'd imagine the new ones are out in the next couple of months with better specs, making it a better value (although value wise, PC is the way to go).

That is if you are thinking of the macbook route. One thing to think about that made my decision to switch MUCH easier. Bootcamp. I have windows 7 and osx loaded up on my macbook, best of both worlds!

In general if you are looking at buying ANY apple product, check this page out first. Measures the average refresh cycle for all their products.
http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

i agree 100%
like some aqaurium companies asus is a company that doesn't advetise much in north america, or much at all for that matter, but they are great.
i have played on a few and they are sweet.
everyone i know that has one is happy with it.
now you could look into alienware...but i wont get into that:twised:

Get the computer that will run the software you want it to. Simple as that. A couple of "neat" free programs don't really mean much if the stuff you really want to run is incompatible. Mac has a good OS, so does Microsoft so it should really come down to the programs you want to run.

That's the beauty of the Intel Macs. You can run either Mac OS or Windows. So use mac OS when you want to be productive and Windows if there is some junky piece of software you can't live without :eyebrows:

buy an acer and run Linux mandrake on it much the same as Mac but a bit nicer in my opinion. I have a computer running it and I like it wife has MS and has a hard time learning new things now so she has a windows based system.

Bill

I have been a devoted PC user for years. I always thought that the price of the Mac's was too much to spend. We record with Protools on a PC.......and I have had nothing but problems....(Hardware and software driven issues)I know guys that have been running Mac's for recording and other high end programs and they don't have any of the issues that I run into.

.....soooo I just bit the bullet the other day and ordered a Mac Pro...... and believe me when I say....this is the most I have ever spent on a computer......maybe 3 of them combined!!!

It really depends on your needs. PC's I find I am always re-formating the hard-drive to clean them up and get them running efficiently again after about a year of service.