Have you bought your first computer yet?  I don't really mean your first ever computer but like first computer you buy yourself.  I ordered mine yesterday.  I really really wanted a new computer, a laptop specifically, right now all I have is a desk top made of multiple foraged pieces (mother's keyboard, sister's monitor, cpu the local computer guy gave me).

Now I keep feeling anxiety about it, but it's not the cost that is doing it, it's the size.  It's a 17.3" Toshiba Trax.  Link here (http://tiny.cc/oas8p).  Is that too much computer?  Is it going to be huge?  Am I worrying for nothing?  Logically I know it's only 8-ish pounds, I won't be carrying it around just leaving it on my desk, but I feel like I'm going to get it and it's going to be huge, even though 17.3" isn't that big.

So tell me your computer experiences, have you have a big laptop before?  When did you order the first computer you yourself bought?  Anything really.

17" is damn big even if you carry it just for short distance

I use 15" (Lenovo W500) with wuxga (1920x1200) display and It is fine for me, bigger will not have any advance for me, just much heavier.
For me there is no reason to buy 17" and if you don't want to carry it then is better classic desktop PC, is cheaper (or faster at same price) and better ergonomic

for me that would be not enough computing power... nowadays if you want to do anything fancy like use Photoshop or play a RPG, you'll be looking at double that price for a smooth running system with enough CPU and GPU to do anything interactive. 17" is just fine on the size, and good for playing movie dvd's, although for somewhere like at school it will take up most if not all of the desk space...

I'm in the middle of upgrading mine from the crappy stock wal-mart set... got a kick butt graphic card for the holidays and doubled my HD space, all I need now is a new PCIe 2 motherboard, double the RAM size, and the latest compatible CPU and I'll be ready to rock any game and make videos in a flash... right now I have to wait 5 minutes for every one minute of film that I render on sony vegas...


anyways, if you have the resources to buy a custom ordered PC direct from the manufacturer and max it out to your needs, then it will be worth the investment.

Quote from: Medusa on March 01, 2012, 02:48:43 AM
For me there is no reason to buy 17" and if you don't want to carry it then is better classic desktop PC, is cheaper (or faster at same price) and better ergonomic

For me the mobility of a laptop is nice, because while I may not take it outside the house, I wanted to be able to move from my room to the living room whenever.

Quote from: veritatemfurto on March 01, 2012, 03:58:55 AM
for me that would be not enough computing power... nowadays if you want to do anything fancy like use Photoshop or play a RPG, you'll be looking at double that price for a smooth running system with enough CPU and GPU to do anything interactive. 17" is just fine on the size, and good for playing movie dvd's, although for somewhere like at school it will take up most if not all of the desk space...

I'm in the middle of upgrading mine from the crappy stock wal-mart set... got a kick butt graphic card for the holidays and doubled my HD space, all I need now is a new PCIe 2 motherboard, double the RAM size, and the latest compatible CPU and I'll be ready to rock any game and make videos in a flash... right now I have to wait 5 minutes for every one minute of film that I render on sony vegas...


anyways, if you have the resources to buy a custom ordered PC direct from the manufacturer and max it out to your needs, then it will be worth the investment.

I don't need a lot of computer power.  What I mainly use the computer for is internet surfing, uploading some pictures, and general use for school, though I don't take it to school, just type stuff at home. 

I wish I was in a financial situation where I could spend however much was necessary to get the best of the best computer but I'm not unfortunately.  The only way I'm paying for this is because I got a nice tax refund this year.   Plus I don't really know anything about computers and had to get help from my uncle and from my brother's best friend to see if this one was ok.

What I mainly use the computer for is internet surfing, uploading some pictures, and general use for school, though I don't take it to school, just type stuff at home.

It will be fine for that.  Unless you're doing scientific calcs, huge video stuff, or data crunching on a government scale or running graphics laden games, I'd say most people have way more computer than they can use.  A ten year old iBook has more computing power than the entire NASA computer set-up during the Apollo flights.

when i travel, i normally take both of my 17" laptops... together with all the hardware, they're nearly 23 pounds... too much for most people, but i dual box a lot while doing things so it's really handy having that second computer just inches away... (2 desktops and 3 laptops i use a lot...)

Quote from: Azmaria on March 01, 2012, 01:48:59 PM
when i travel, i normally take both of my 17" laptops... together with all the hardware, they're nearly 23 pounds... too much for most people, but i dual box a lot while doing things so it's really handy having that second computer just inches away... (2 desktops and 3 laptops i use a lot...)

yea that's about as much as my camera equipment weighs, minus laptop.

Quote from: veritatemfurto on March 01, 2012, 02:06:16 PM
yea that's about as much as my camera equipment weighs, minus laptop.

my camera gear weighs about that as well... didn't realize that until you mentioned camera gear. ^_^

I have a laptop that's 17.5 inches (HP Dv7) and I use this (currently on it now) as a mobile computer. Granted it's a bit big and all but I don't have any problems hauling it around. 95% of the time though this thing is always plugged in and I'm more or less using it as a mobile desktop computer. If I need anything truly mobile I'll use my Android phone or I have a netbook that I can use for the once in a while time I go to a coffee shop or w/e.

Only main problem I have with laptops is once you buy it, if you want to upgrade anything other then the RAM you have to buy another laptop. For most of my computing needs this laptop works great... But I also like to play World of Warcraft and this thing is already "outdated" for the likes of World of Warcraft.

I don't think there's a such thing as too much computer although if you're not doing gaming/photoshop/video editing, there very well is a thing of an overkill system.

For any system I buy GPU first, then work around it (because it's a pain in the ass to upgrade in a laptop if possible at all). In practice this means AMD based systems because intel and graphics is a misnomer. I'm a fan of 14 inch displays for laptops because of portability (and still having full sized stuff and dvd or bluray drive).

For desktops it's easier since I usually build my own, but for a base donor system, the case should be easy to work with, have good ventilation, be quiet, and have a 80+ power supply.

Quote from: Flan on March 02, 2012, 04:20:30 PM
the case should be easy to work with, have good ventilation

I took the side of my case off when I took the case out of the box....

I haven't put the side back on yet.

I've owned this case for 5 years now I think...

Easy access and good ventilation (though I don't have cats or kids so I don't have to worry about things getting into it).

Frankenputer for the win.

i build and rebuild my laptops... i've been doing it for years... it costs a little more but i think it's worth it.

I build my computers myself. I play alot of games on mine so you can never have to much computer =D