The question I'd have is what uses do you have for this desktop, which can be any of the folowing:

1) Gaming - Crysis, Oblivion and other games can require some big graphics horsepower so going with a desktop may make sense in terms of handling upgrades over time if you want to keep a high-end gaming system up to leading edge components.

I dont do much gaming, and when I do, it is almost always on consoles.

2) Home Theatre - Do you plan on watching a lot of videos and want a good video and audio experience here?

I would love to, but I dont nessecarily need a 'bolted into the ground' setup. Could I get away with using a large external hard drive with a laptop, and just connected to an HDTV?

3) Development a.k.a. programming - Will it need to run an IDE or two? How about database and web server software? Would numerical analysis or symbolic computation programs like Matlab or Maple be of interest to you?

Well, I am going into Soft Eng (hopefully), so I will have do to some programming work, but again, could I not get away with a laptop hooked up to a larger monitor?

4) Graphics design / Video editing - Does it need loads of memory for things like Photoshop?

Nope.

5) AutoCAD - Maybe you want something to handle drawing blueprints.

Nope. Possible, occasional use of like Google sketchUP.

6) Office Productivity - E-mail, excel spreadsheets and word documents.

Gmail. Thats about it. Spreadshets and Word Documents: Do I really need a desktop?

7) Digital Photography - Kind of falls into 4 but I thought I'd make it something else.

Nope.

8) Web browsing - Kind of like 6 in some ways if one goes for all the big browser versions on one box with varying resolutions.

Nothing that needs more than one window, but I often have 6+ FF tabs open

Those are the big ones to my mind and some do have potentially conflicting capabilities as a graphics workstation may not make for a good gaming rig I believe though if I'm wrong someone please correct me.

laptop choice-solved

http://www1.ca.dell.com/ca/en/home/Laptops/laptop-studio-1555/pd.aspx?refid=laptop-studio-1555&s=dhs&cs=cadhs1&~oid=ca~en~70702~studnb_1555_en_feat_2~~

it seems to me everyone is going for the Dell Studio 15... i was talking to a few friends and that's what they're getting, and i'm probably going to get it too. haha my mom was like spend as much as you need on a laptop so that it will last you for university =P but i'm not going to go ridiculously over board. =)

Dell studio 17 review

I have the same laptop (except 1gb less RAM and 256 ded gpu, and the 17" screen) I added a blacklit keyboard and bluetoth.

Personally, i have no complaints about the laptop, it can play crysis at high spec no AA, (whit the better ram and gpu you could go a lot higher)

+'s
good speakers
good touchpad
manages heat well
touchpad buttons are a good size
keyboard is one of the best i have ever used (i prefer it over my G15)
media touch controls

-
screen is a little close to the keyboard, you will want to put a papertowel in between the screen so the keyboard doesn't become imprinted onto the screen.
fans are a little noisy (arent all of them tho)
battery life sucks unless yo turn off bluetooth, lower the brightness, and put a gigantic hold on the GPU (i set mine to like 20%)
i have the 6 cell battery and on powersaver i get upto 3.5 hrs of battery running IE, word, and listening to stuff through itunes.
touch controols can't be reconfigured
very....extremely BIOS...no tweeking here



all in all 3.8/5 only minor complaints.

p.s
get rid of vista as fast as you can!!!!

Kay well that, versus a MacBook Pro with no complaints of keyboard-glass contact (because the keyboard is recessed into the body)
Every review calling it 'next to silent' until you activate the second graphics card (W00t at having two!) and start boosting the fan speeds manually.
Battery Life: 7 hours. WIN
Inline, logical media, brightness, and app keys. Also, the Mac 'chicklet' keyboard is my favorite keyboard to use, hands down.
No BIOS to worry about at all
Oh, and the best part of all: NO VISTA. Like EVER.

So Yeah, apparently MacBook Pro OM NOM NOM NOM NOMs the Studio 17.

Dell studio 17 review

I have the same laptop (except 1gb less RAM and 256 ded gpu, and the 17" screen) I added a blacklit keyboard and bluetoth.

Personally, i have no complaints about the laptop, it can play crysis at high spec no AA, (whit the better ram and gpu you could go a lot higher)

+'s
good speakers
good touchpad
manages heat well
touchpad buttons are a good size
keyboard is one of the best i have ever used (i prefer it over my G15)
media touch controls

-
screen is a little close to the keyboard, you will want to put a papertowel in between the screen so the keyboard doesn't become imprinted onto the screen.
fans are a little noisy (arent all of them tho)
battery life sucks unless yo turn off bluetooth, lower the brightness, and put a gigantic hold on the GPU (i set mine to like 20%)
i have the 6 cell battery and on powersaver i get upto 3.5 hrs of battery running IE, word, and listening to stuff through itunes.
touch controols can't be reconfigured
very....extremely BIOS...no tweeking here



all in all 3.8/5 only minor complaints.

p.s
get rid of vista as fast as you can!!!!

but I'm a window user, I haven't used any mac computer since gr 8 in school. and those mac computers were a pain in the ass for me cause I just can't get used to the close button on the top left side, and it's so hard to navigate though. I never knew how to open another window of netscape properly, I usually have to go on a website that gives pops ad or something to get another window. Basically it took me at least 3 times longer to do a task on mac than windows.

I might buy a laptop too.

from this post it seems MBP is the best.

but I'm a window user, I haven't used any mac computer since gr 8 in school. and those mac computers were a pain in the ass for me cause I just can't get used to the close button on the top left side, and it's so hard to navigate though. I never knew how to open another window of netscape properly, I usually have to go on a website that gives pops ad or something to get another window. Basically it took me at least 3 times longer to do a task on mac than windows.

I heard it's better now that you can have a setting that moves the close button to the top right side. but not sure about other stuff. Just wondering if mac can adjust to have those basic functions that I use everyday such as: alt-F4, alt-tab, window-D and etc.

Also some programs cannot run in Mac. (in fact a game I play can't run in Mac, though i should probably quit now that I'm going to university) just wondering if there's any program that I'll be using in university that cannot run in Mac.

For those of you that have lived in University how much effort is moving around a monitor with you if you bring one?

Anyway, Just curious if anyone knows if today's Macbook Pro (15inch, 2.8 or 2.66, 500GB, 4GB RAM) will last from now, THROUGH my Grade 12 year, and THROUGH four years of university, or if I should wait until just before university.

Aside from things like RAM and hard drive, replacing any part on a Mac will cost significantly more than the AppleCare price. If it fails out of warranty, even in a small way, you're probably going to be thinking about buying a new one instead of fixing it.

...or, fixing it yourself. My girlfriend's MacBook (1,1 revision) lost its hard drive a while ago. It made a wonderful scraping and not-spinning-up sound, then displayed a flashing folder icon on the screen - I guess that's the equivalent of "hal.dll not found" in Windows. We replaced the disk and installed Ubuntu (while the new hard disk was in the mail, she ran entirely off the LiveCD). There are some lingering issues - webcam needs some sort of proprietary driver, I haven't had time to make mouseemu do right-click and middle-click correctly - but overall it's working out well for her.

...or, fixing it yourself. My girlfriend's MacBook (1,1 revision) lost its hard drive a while ago. It made a wonderful scraping and not-spinning-up sound, then displayed a flashing folder icon on the screen - I guess that's the equivalent of "hal.dll not found" in Windows. We replaced the disk and installed Ubuntu (while the new hard disk was in the mail, she ran entirely off the LiveCD). There are some lingering issues - webcam needs some sort of proprietary driver, I haven't had time to make mouseemu do right-click and middle-click correctly - but overall it's working out well for her.

Sadly, he is bang on.
http://www.ifixit.com/MacBook-Parts/MacBook-Pro-15-Inch-Unibody-2-4-GHz-Logic-Board/IF161-005