Question for the computer geeks ;)

[Devils Advocate]

I need to buy a notebook or laptop but not sure what to get.It`s only gonna be used for email and surfing the net/chat rooms but the main things i need from it are:

1)..speed!....it absolutely must be fast booting up and loading pages quickly online.I`ve got a super slow desktop at home that drives me up the wall so dont want a laptop that does the same thing.

The rest of the things i need are trivial really,speed`s the main requirement,but if i could find something that`s also got a good battery life,decent keyboard,and a good screen,they`d all be bonuses.
can anyone reccomend a good one...cheaper the better.


and lastly,what "tech spec" defines how fast a computer will be?is it the processor?the size of the hard drive?

[Alexio]

The speed of a computer now-a-days is mostly dictated by the specs of the computer relative to the software on it. This means that the spec must be ENOUGH to handle the operating system etc, but it also means you can choose a faster operating system.

If you want the very fastest, buy a mac. Trust me, you'll be impressed with speed and battery life. If you need to stick with what you are used to then as long as you have enough memory (RAM) it will run fine.

Most of what causes a laptop to run slow is the extra software that is put on top of the operating system and loaded in to memory at boot time.

My laptop has absolutely no software that I let start up when it starts up and it's still blazingly fast since I bought it one and a half years ago. For example, I don't even have any anti virus software, but then I'm not stupid so I really don't need any and never have needed any.

Unless you can specify any very specific things you need to be doing (gaming or video editing for example will always require much more expensive computers) then absolutely anything that you buy and upgrade the RAM on will be fine as long as you maintain what applications you have running on it at any particular time.

Oh, and you can always load multiple operating systems on to any PC. I've been doing it for a long time and it's fun to use certain distros for quick boot up and speed if you just need to browse the web. If you understand what I just said though I'm sure you'd already be doing it.
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will never give up his CG. I look at my fuel gauge more as a progress bar than a fuel gauge.
G: With my GSXR I do often effectively use it as a scooter with a clutch in town.
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[That_Hornet]

Didn't fancy posting it in the geek section?

[Banned]

[Alexio]

[iooi]

[Devils Advocate]

so basically i could get a really cheap laptop and as long as i`ve got a good connection,and the system doesn`t have a lot of programs running,it`ll work nice and fast???