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General discussion

Need Specs for Home Movies Biz

by Hitekmom Oct 10, 2004 10:14PM PDT

I'll be purchasing a new Laptop to start a hobbyist transfer digital images/movies/music to DVD biz. Hubby has allotted me $3K (that's for the works, so I'd better not need anything after that's spent Shocked

Anywho, I researching and collecting opinions regarding the best system requirements for that industry.
I'm open to MACs (if they're the best for multimedia and I can output for pc formats) but if I stick with the PC it'll definitely be a Gateway.

I've own Gateway in the pass and you can not beat their customer service. I have "live chat" or email service for the life of my desktop. I've never been placed on hold longer than I would've like too.

I'm hearing, from friends and family, and reading, horror stories regarding Dell's customer service. So no thank you there!

Here's the specs on a Gateway Laptop I'm eyeballing (I prefer a laptop, because when it's my "get-away-day", once a week I like to work on my biz at the local coffeeshop):

GATEWAY 7200X -
Intel P4 (3.2GHz)
512MB DDR SDRAM PC3200 (400MHz), Dual Channel
200GB Serial ATA100 7200rpm hard drive
8-in-1 media card reader
8x Double-Layer Multi-Format DVD Writer (DVD

Discussion is locked

2 Posts
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Re: Need Specs for Home Movies Biz
by Hitekmom Oct 10, 2004 11:42PM PDT

Scratch those specs, it turns out to be their PC. I'm considering a similar laptop model, their 675X.

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Re: Need Specs for Home Movies Biz
by KenSanramon Oct 11, 2004 6:14AM PDT

If you are going to be a Starbucks Tmobile user or equivalent you should not be getting a heavy Pentium 4M notebook (which run very hot also and have very low battery life). You should be getting a Pentium M (Centrino) notebook.

Apple notebooks also run cooler and they are lighter (you can even get the 6.9 pound 17" Powerbook notebook but that is harder to find a bag for and costs about $2800). The 15.2" Apple Powerbook is in the low to mid $2000 price range depending on whether you can a DVD burner or not (CD burner/DVD ROM is a couple hundred less).

For Pentium M notebooks with a 15.4" LCD (widescreen -- great for spreadsheets and widescreen DVD's) I have a Compaq X1000 series (same as HPZT3000) -- see X1000forums.com -- you can order it custom and get a lot of discounts -- see forum.

The Toshiba M35S456 is also a great choice if you can still find one retail.

Note that Gateway closed all its retail stores and reorganized. They have effectively merged with E-machines and moved their headquarters from San Diego to Irvine (where E-machines was based).

Consumer Reports still had decent customer service ratings for Gateway but they are in transition and Best Buy is selling off much of their retail store stock.

At any rate, unless you are willing to carry around a hot and heavy Pentium 4M notebook (and use it on A/C power nearly all the time which defeats the purpose of surfing wi-fi in the Starbucks) then get a Pentium M, Apple or AMD Athlon 64 based notebook.

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