New laptop: Toshiba Satellite U505

I very much like the MacBook that I bought almost three years ago, but it has it limitations (mainly not enough disk space).

I decided to buy a "Windows" laptop because for $800 I could get a laptop with 4 CPU cores (Intel CORE i3), 1/2 terabyte disk, and 4 gigs RAM. Ubuntu Linux uses all the cores :-)

Comments

  1. Michael H.10:44 PM

    That does sound like a pretty sweet laptop, and I think it makes sense for you.

    If the rumors hold and the new MBPs ship with dual-core i5s with a "turbo" mode that can kick in if the load isn't balanced across both cores, I'll be pretty happy. (But, there's no chance that'll be $800.)

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  2. kenliu9:13 AM

    It is dead simple to upgrade the hard disk in a MacBook, isn't it?

    Core i3 is only two real cores with hyperthreading, you might want to get a core i5 with 4 real cores instead.

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  3. Mark Watson, author and consultant9:23 AM

    Hello kenliu, I would never do a hardware upgrade on a 2+ year old laptop. And, yes, I would like a i5, but I only saw i3 availability in laptops. BTW, the hyperthreading does help: IntelliJ Java, Scala, Clojure IDE) runs very much faster on the new laptop.

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  4. Michael H.10:09 AM

    Mark, I put a new drive into my 3-yr-old MBP (320 GB, 7200 rpm) last year, and I was quite happy with that. And most laptops don't require removing 47 screws to do that particular operation. (Mine was special, it turns out.)

    The discussion about the i3 and hyperthreading explains some things I was confused about when you first posted. Glad to hear it's working great for you!

    ReplyDelete
  5. kenliu8:58 AM

    Hi Mark, I see now what you're saying about the availability of the i5s. I'm in the same boat as you; I have a 3 year old MBP and have considering the possibility of getting a Win7 machine because they are so inexpensive and Ubuntu is so great. Still, since I am a pretty heavy OS X user I think I will stick with the and run Ubuntu in Vmware.

    ReplyDelete
  6. kenliu9:03 AM

    I did just notice yesterday that Lenovo is offering i3, i5, and i7 in their T and W series ThinkPads.

    ReplyDelete

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