Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 April 15

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April 15

Laptop specifications

Hi. I'm looking to by a laptop, which I will use for all intents and purposes in lieu of a desktop PC. Price is kinda not an object; I've tentatively set the maximum at $1000 though this is an extreme scenario and obviously cheaper is preferable if possible. I mainly want to get a laptop with the best specs available, in terms of processor speed, RAM and virtual memory, screen resolution, built-in wireless connectivity, etc, under my price ceiling. Since this is going to be replacing my current PC it should be better in all aspects, but the problem is I don't understand any of the technical computerspeak that searching gives me. It also needs to have the comfort that a desktop gives, i.e., a wide monitor and keyboard. I would prefer the Windows 7 OS. What do the essential numeric specifications mean in terms of how they will affect me (like RAM, hard disk, Processor, Core, etc.), and what range should I be looking for in these? What about audio/video drivers and stuff? Thanks. 72.128.95.0 (talk) 00:13, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I just want to put out there, since others probably will — what's the goal of having a laptop with a huge monitor? It makes the laptop really quite heavy and ungainly to have a large monitor on it, which in my experience totally destroys the only reason to have a laptop (portability). Might I suggest getting one with a small monitor, and then just having a docking station wherever you plan to do your big-monitor tasks? Just a suggestion, based on personal experience. Ditto with the keyboard. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:16, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Or get a desktop (which will be cheaper for equivalent or better hardware) and with the savings buy a cheap netbook ($75-150 in the USA). ¦ Reisio (talk) 05:30, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Even big and heavy laptops are much easier to transport than a tower+monitor+keyboard combo. And there are other reasons to buy a laptop, such as lower power requirements, less noise, and a built in UPS at no extra charge. -- BenRG (talk) 01:39, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

No doubt, but in my experience, nobody who owns a big laptop takes it anywhere on a regular basis. I'm just wanting to point out that things like big keyboards and big monitors come with quite a usage cost, one which is easily avoidable if you have a dock. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:55, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Aside from the price ceiling, you haven't asked for anything more specific than the best machine at the lowest price, so it's hard to know what to recommend. For "the average user" who isn't a gamer, any current-generation large-sized laptop will probably be more than fast enough. (Smaller laptops are slower.) Don't worry about Core 2 this versus i7 that, or Nvidia versus ATI versus Intel graphics. At least 2GB RAM is a good idea. If you have extra money, spend it on an SSD, not a faster CPU or graphics card. As Mr.98 said, if you really just want the fastest machine at a given price point, you should buy a desktop. -- BenRG (talk) 01:39, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

If you are comfortable spending $1000, then you can get a pretty decent desktop replacement laptop. My only advice on specs is to go with any multi-core processor. 4GB of RAM will give you plenty of overhead so swap shouldn't be touched nearly as much. If you plan on doing any gaming, look into a laptop with a dedicated graphics card that meets or exceeds the requirements of your most demanding game. Almost all laptops use nearly the same sound and network cards, so unless you have special requirements you don't need to pay too much attention to this. Most laptops also come with fairly large hard drives, so this shouldn't be too much of a concern either. If you want the extra speed of an SSD, plan on spending at least $1500. Caltsar (talk) 19:26, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Font ID

I can't seem to trace this font; even 'WhatTheFont' doesn't seem encouraging, but I've seen it all over India so it can't be that rare. ╟─TreasuryTag►inspectorate─╢ 09:13, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

No luck with Identifont, either. I refused to answer any questions about serifs, though, since I couldn't tell whether the enlargements at the ends counted as serifs or not. Maybe going back through and trying both possibilities would help -- I think it gives a maximum of 30 suggestions, regardless of how many possible consistent fonts there are. Paul (Stansifer) 13:54, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Serifs. ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:18, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Pretoria (Identifont gave Davida as a possibility, and since the elements were close, I checked the "Similar fonts" bit and "Show more similar fonts..." link near the bottom, which led to Pretoria) ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:45, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Screen Width Problem

The ratio of width-to-height in new laptops is considerably different than traditional desktops. Does that mean that everything will appear deformed i.e. stretched along horizontal axis ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.253.140.239 (talk) 12:01, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

No. On both 4:3 and 16:9 monitors the pixels are (approximately) square. For example, 1024x768 is a common (low) desktop resolution. On Wide-screen monitor, this is 1280x768. You can play with displaying a 16:9 desktop on your 4:3 monitor by (assuming you use Win XP),

1. right-clicking on the desktop
2. select "properties" on the pop-up menu,
3. select "Settings" in the dialog box.
4. press 'Ok', and accept the change if you monitor is displaying the squished image. (Windows will restore the current layout if you do nothing for 15 seconds).
5. drag the "Screen resolution" slider until the preview box just above the slider is showing a wide-screen rectangle.
6. Remember to undo the change before you leave the machine.

CS Miller (talk) 12:48, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

If your desktop monitor does happen to be a weird size, there is always a setting for its native pixel resolution, which is square. They are not stretched at all. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:47, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Have tried that. That way everything becomes too small to be seen clearly. Tell something else please... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.253.131.136 (talk) 18:19, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Try each resolution (using the above method) to see if any of them work for you. In some cases you may get more choices for resolution if you reduce the number of colors and refresh rate (I think refresh rate is for external CRT monitors only, though). If none are acceptable, then you need and new graphics card and/or an external monitor. The combo of those two determine which resolutions are supported. If everything is too small to read, you likely need a larger monitor. StuRat (talk) 18:32, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

It's, in fact, a Toshiba Satelite Laptop with

Screen Size 15.6 Inch

Resolution 1366 X 768

Screen Type HD LED CSV Screen —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.253.131.136 (talk) 18:51, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

When you have a choice of video modes, they tend to be the native resolution (1366×768) and a bunch of standard resolutions (1024×768, 800×600, ...). The standard resolutions are all 4:3, and they are usually stretched horizontally to fit the screen. Options:

• You can usually configure the graphics card to preserve the aspect ratio, instead of stretching horizontally. But then you will only be able to use part of the screen—there will be black bars on either side.
• There may be lower resolution modes with the correct aspect ratio. For example, my 1440×900 screen has 1280×800 and 960×600 modes. But the lower resolution modes will not be as sharp as the native resolution.
• There is probably a way to add custom video modes, though it may not be easy. Here's a page specific to Intel GPUs.
• You can configure Windows (or Linux or whatever) to use larger fonts and icons. This is probably your best option, if you're just having trouble seeing things.

-- BenRG (talk) 23:30, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Forwarding lots of e-mails

I have hundreds of e-mails in my ATT account which I would like to forward to my new gmail account. Is there a simple way to do this globally, or do I have to send them one at a time? Hemoroid Agastordoff (talk) 18:54, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Probably the easiest way is to set up a mail client like Thunderbird with POP3 (set to "leave copy on server") for both accounts. Then you can drag-and-drop emails from one server to the other. You can certainly configure Google Mail to use POP3; I don't know about ATT mail. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 19:22, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

If it supports POP3, then you could just use Gmail's interface (Mail Settings->Accounts and Import->Check mail using POP3) to get them directly from ATT to Gmail, skipping the intermediate step. Invrnc (talk) 22:02, 15 April 2011 (UTC)