I only buy macs for my own and family use. I know they aren't cheap, but 
the lack of hassle makes them worthwhile for me. I have 13 year old twin 
boys. I got them a second laptop, a nice dell laptop last year, they 
destroyed it within 2 months. They share the macbook ever since(2 plus 
years). I had to take their macbook in for repairs when they dropped it 
down the stairs. The drive was squealing loudly.. I took it in, they ran 
tests and i didn't pay a dime. It is still running fine.

My mac has 16gb of ram and I run all kinds of different os's in virtualbox.

I do have several x64 laptops, but i use them as test systems. I 
recently bought a toshiba laptop for less than $300. I am a big 
proponent of buying last years model. They always come down in price.

linda

On 5/12/14, 8:27 AM, Marc Thomas wrote:
> Harlan,
>
> There are tons of really good options to even more bad one. My 
> recommendation to everyone is not to be cheap. It may seem like a deal 
> now, but you will pay for it in a few years, either buy having to 
> replace it early, or spend money and time on repairs.
>
> The Lenova Thinkpad line of laptops are generally of a higher quality 
> than most mainstream laptops and range in price from reasonable to 
> expensive. They are not my preferred laptop, but I know a lot of 
> people that swear by them. If your will to shell out a little extra 
> money for some of the sharpest looking, and most reliable laptops on 
> the market, I would look at the macbook air (11' and 13') and macbook 
> pro (13', 15') laptops. Macbooks are proven to have better hardware 
> reliably than most any other laptop manufacturer and their support 
> (apple care) is by far the best in the industry. Meaning if something 
> goes wrong, they will often offer to just give you a new/refurbished 
> one if they can't fix it for you at your local Apple store.
>
> Another good brand to look at is System 76. Their laptops are solid 
> and pretty easy on the eyes. They come pre-loaded with Ubuntu Linux 
> though they can run Windows and Mac if you really want to go that 
> route (hackintosh). They give you some of the best performance bang 
> for the buck at mid range prices with high end specs. Their support 
> team has a good track record as far as actually helping with you 
> call/email.
>
>
> Hope that helps!
>
>
> On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 7:48 AM, Max Shinn 
> <max at bernsteinforpresident.com <mailto:max at bernsteinforpresident.com>> 
> wrote:
>
>     > In my experience... a computer that is used daily costs about
>     $300-$400
>     > per year of service.
>
>     $300-$400/year of service?!  I'm currently running a 4+ year old
>     Dell that cost $500 new, and haven't put in a dime to repair it.  It
>     gets at least 4-5 hours of use per day.  I usually keep computers
>     around 5-6 years, and the only repairs I've ever had to do were
>     replacing a keyboard (on a ThinkPad) and a backlight (on an older
>     Dell).
>
>     >   For the PC-compatible laptops, who makes the most reliable
>     > consumer-class systems?  Which of their product lines are more
>     > reliable?
>
>     I think I'm going to have to suggest ThinkPads just because the
>     repairs
>     are so easy to do.  It's also one of the few laptops on the market
>     available without a glossy screen (if that is important to her).  It
>     also seems much better put together than the Dells I've had.
>
>     > Mostly she uses her computer for web browsing, email, word
>     processing
>     > and spreadsheets.  She would like something faster than she has
>     right
>     > now, or at least better response times.  Her current computer has an
>     > AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60 2.0 GHz cpu, 3GB RAM.
>
>     Thanks for reminding me how much I love Bodhi/E17. ;)
>
>     -Max
>
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>
>
>
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