How much is a Mac?
I am buying a new laptop - help!
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Hi LOB, I have lots of friends with Macs...They are not very happy about it..but i dont know.
I have heard dodge things about macs also 
I am on a dell Inspiron 1501 at the moment.. with a rubber stump for an E and T key 
Dells no Irish at all.. :|
In fact it is pulling out of Ireland :P
My 22-yr old daughter and 15-year old son love their MacBooks.
Just looking at the macbook site, these things seem pricy
Dell is based in Round Rock, Texas, in the US. I would know, I work for them. ;)
You could go with a mac, personally I dont like them much. If you are going to go with a standard compuwter, I would go either with a Dell or a something like a Sony Vaio or an Acer. But dont use Vista. Vista is terrible. Use Linux or Ubuntu for your OS instead.
I'm also a big advocate for the Mac. Check out the refurbs that Apple has at the Apple Store. (http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac?mco=MTMzNTY)
The refurbs come with the full warranty and are eligible for the AppleCare extended warranty. I've purchased many refurbs from Apple and have never had a problem.
Just make sure you get that 3gb ram LOB you will need it if you are using it for lots of graphics.
The general consensus from most people that I talk to is that Macs are better computers, if you can afford them (which most of my friends can't). But then I'm in the Video Production world and Macs run circles around PCs when it comes to video editing. If you're looking for widespread applications, way more people own PCs than own Macs (probably cuz they can't afford Macs either), so you'll have fewer compatibility issues with PCs.
hi aoife
i have an acer laptop my wife got it for me in 06 (pressey):) i do everything on this from playing chess to doing my time sheets for work to reading electrical drawings , loading photos itunes etc and to date i have not had a problem yet. my wife got it in a shop called click.ie they were very helpfull, she told them what i was looking for ie adobe reader (programe for reading drawings)microsoft word,exel etc and they sorted her out.
i hope this is a help to you
liam
Their are many laptops that have great storage capacity. I'd stay away from Macs though. They are far overpriced. You could get a laptop from another brand that has the same hardware as a Mac for several $100s less (80 EUR). However, Macs do have an advantage and that's their operating system, which I find to be far superior than Windows Vista.
A few suggestions I have as far as brands go would be Gateway and Asus. They both have great prices. With gateway, I'd recommend their M Series notebooks. Those have 15.4" screens with a 250GB or 320GB hard drive. All of them are also under $1000 (800 EUR). Asus laptops have a bigger selection, offer bigger hard drive capacity, but I think might be a little more expensive.
Hello LOB.
The main thing, nobody told you before: do you need or not a dedicated video card? This is the main issue you should have in mind. If you are working in Photoshop or you're playing new games (like ... well, I know no examples, I don't play any games) then you will need a video card with dedicated memory. If you are using it for office/internet, then you don't need dedicated graphic card. It is not possible to add a graphic card afterwards. Look here for a list:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Graphic-Cards.130.0.html
As for brands Apple, Lenovo are regarded as the best. The second class is Dell, HP, Toshiba. Stay away from an Acer! Gateway sells only in North-America.
All this advice is brilliant I could not have named off half of these brands! :)
I was advised costelus to get a dedicated memory card with the laptop because though I don't have the time to twiddle with videos, photos or games too much I do enjoy occasionally doing those things - but when the workload calms down I will use it!
Thanks to everyone :) Keep it coming please I am building up a list 
Up to Intel® CoreTM 2 Duo T9500 (2.60GHz, 6MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)
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Try Alienware for speed, performance and top class looks, they have an Irish website and ship from Limerick or somewhere like that.
Price might be an issue though.
costelus wrote:
Hello LOB.
The main thing, nobody told you before: do you need or not a dedicated video card? This is the main issue you should have in mind. If you are working in Photoshop or you're playing new games (like ... well, I know no examples, I don't play any games) then you will need a video card with dedicated memory. If you are using it for office/internet, then you don't need dedicated graphic card. It is not possible to add a graphic card afterwards. Look here for a list:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Graphic-Cards.130.0.html
As for brands Apple, Lenovo are regarded as the best. The second class is Dell, HP, Toshiba.
This is definitely good advice.
Everyone told me that acer sucks but I started school in sept and I got a really good price on one. I have not had any problems it (except for vista) and it cost me several hundred canadian then the same specs for any other brand. That being said I am going to reserve my final judgement a while longer just to be sure the damn thing keeps working (I had a dell laptop where I had to keep replaceing things all of the time after about 6 months). but so far so good so I don't understand all of the flack.
Also everyone I know that has a mac book loves it, but they are seriously expensive. I've used them before and I found them pretty easy to use with very little training.
Acer are made to be cheap. I know happy owners of Acer, but I also encountered many unhappy ones :(. I would consider an Acer only for an extremely good deal.
Again, think whether you need dedicated memory or not for the video card.
- no dedicated memory: cheap laptops, thin, last very long on battery, don't have problems with overheating, good for office/internet/programming. Even a software like Photoshop works acceptably on such a video card.
- dedicated memory: substantially more expensive (at least 2-300$), do overheat, less portable, needed for front-end games.
Make a list with the software you're planning to use and see the requirements for the video card! And look around, see prices, differences, etc.
What do you mean by "video"? Full HD?
I am going to buy a new laptop in the January sale, I have a budget of 650/700 euro max. Am looking for the 150GB memory mark, it will be used for photos, music, notes, numerous chess training programmes (we are talking millions of games being stored in these programmes) so I have been advised 3GB RAM. I don't want to go bigger than the 15'4" screens as storage becomes a hassle after that. So speed, memory and sleek style is on the agenda, any ideas?