(no subject)

[arethinn]

Due to having been out of work for eight and a half months last year, I am going to get a huge tax refund, on the order of $2000 total. This means that I am in the market for two things I've wanted to have for some time, but couldn't justify the cost of: a laptop and a digital SLR.

The laptop doesn't need to be anything too beefy; I just want to be able to sit in my living room and browse the web, maybe run Office, play Infocom games, and like that. Bottom of the line might even do it for me, since "bottom" is still pretty powerful these days (keep in mind my main desktop is only 1.2 GHz, 1GB of RAM, 80GB hard drive, and it suits me fine, although I confess it is a tad laggy trying to run Photoshop CS2 if I have other stuff open). I don't want to have to touch Vista with a ten-foot Pole named Poklewski if I don't have to, so I am perfectly willing to consider a Mac, depending on the cost. About my only specific requirement is for a 15" screen - 14" is too small for me. It's not a huge deal if it's not the thinnest, lightest thing on the planet either, since I don't intend to be lugging it around with me everywhere I go.

For the camera, I'm not sure what I want to use it for the most, if that makes any difference (probably only in what initial lens I would want to have). I don't really like the "handfeel" of enotsola's Canon EOS 300D (? i think it is); I find it awkward to press a button while turning the shutter-speed thumbwheel to change the aperture, for example, since my hand is a bit small to perform this operation with where the controls are located (I am rather used to twisting a ring on the lens, anyway). The ability to drive an autofocus, auto-zoom lens is not necessary since I am not attached to that feature (my film SLR can do this, but I don't have any AF/AZ lenses for it, so I have never gotten used to having that behavior), if there is any such thing as a digital SLR that can't do that. (I have done *no* camera shopping since buying my 3mp mostly-point-and-shoot three or four years ago, so I am pretty clueless as to what is out there.) I will probably be doing low-light and longish-exposure photography, so a camera that can perform well under those conditions (read: less noise) is a good thing. I have already got SD cards so using that memory format is also a bonus.

Any recommendations or anti-recommendations for either of those?

Comments

[ungarsfragile.livejournal.com]

You want a macbook. The baseline macbook is $1100, has two 1.8 ghz processors and a 60 gig hard drive. They're extremely thin and extremely light and have a gorgeous 13 inch widescreen (i know it sounds small compared to a 16 incher, but the fact that its a widescreen makes it a lot bigger than comparable PC notebooks).

I have a macbook. I love my macbook.

[arethinn]

That's outside my price range. I was hoping to get away for $600-700, but in any event no more than $1000 because I want at least half of it for the camera. $1100 plus tax will be almost $1200. So I guess a Macbook is out of the question. What's below a Macbook? Or is that the only laptop Apple makes these days?

[padaviya.livejournal.com]

I would have liked to have gone with a macbook, but it's true that they're expensive. My Toshiba Satellite M70 was $800 CDN, it's a 15.4 inch screen, about six pounds, 60 gigs space. It's not a mac, but it's a good computer, and the only thing cheaper I could find were Acers, and I've heard a lot of horror stories about Acer.

The only criticisms I have of my Toshiba are that the speakers started going fuzzy after about 8 months and that the screen has a fair bit of glare. It's find if it's just you using it and you can adjust it to yourself, but if there's a group trying to watch a movie on it, it can get irritating.
And my power cord just bit the dust yesterday, but luckily I still have a few weeks left on my warranty.