Processing Power
The Age
Monday February 14, 2005
Faster is not necessarily better when it comes to selecting the right desktop or notebook computer for the job. By Garry Barker.
GOING on to university is a numbers game these days, especially when it comes to buying the computer needed for work and communications: email and the internet.Computer store salespeople will try to dazzle you with numbers - megabytes and gigaHertz, frontside and backside caches and the read and write speeds of CD and DVD drives. They will tell you to spend up for "the best", meaning the machine with the biggest numbers. But take that advice with several grains of salt. Buy a machine that will do the job without overkill, and save your money. Internet download speeds have little to do with the clockspeed of a computer. If you are on dial-up you will get 28.8 kilobits per second (or maybe a little more) whether you have a 700MHz old clunker of a laptop or a 3GHz rocket. Chip speed has an effect on how fast data is processed in, say, a mathematical or imaging program, but it makes precious little practical difference in word processing. The demands on your brain may be similar, but the word processor is governed by the speed of your typing, and it is a rare typist whose fingers can out-pace a 1GHz processor.The truth is that faster microprocessors do not necessarily guarantee higher performance from a computer. They help, but you need to look at the overall design and performance of the machine. A 3GHz Windows machine will process numbers very quickly, but a 1.8GHz Macintosh will probably beat it in rendering a Photoshop image or compiling a video.So, the first and most important question in choosing a computer, be it a notebook or a desktop machine, is what do you want to do with it?One of the most talented electronics engineers I know used until recently a Toshiba notebook with a 700MHz processor and said he found it easily handled the tasks he gave it. Of course, he also had access to some very powerful computers at his laboratory, but the old Toshiba was his everyday machine and it did what he needed.You also need to decide between mobile and desk-bound machines. Modern notebook computers are powerful enough to be "desktop replacements''. However, again think of what you will mainly need to do with your computer.If you intend to handle graphics in a design class or work with big multimedia video files, a Macintosh PowerBook could be your best choice. Macs are dominant in the advertising, imaging and film industries. PowerBooks, and even iBooks, are often used on the run to proof TV ads and view film rushes as easily as they would be handled on a desktop machine. But the bigger desktop screen acreage of, say, a 20-inch iMac, may suit your work better and save you some money.And, right there, is the choice between Apple and Wintel. Apples dominate graphics, imaging, multimedia, and are popular with geneticists, medical scientists and biotechnologists. Wintel machines tend to be number crunching workhorses, chosen by accountants, economists and engineers. Look at both platforms, ask what software you will need to run and take non-retail advice. Think also of the cost of software. Microsoft's Office, available for both Windows and Mac, costs $289 (the discounted academic price of a package that retails for $699). Apple computers come with the iLife suite installed as part of the deal, giving you video editing, word processing, digital photo management and music for your MP3 player for free, but you might need, for example, Adobe's Creative Suite, the standard graphics package, which includes Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Acrobat, the full retail price of which is $1729 for the standard version.These days being connected to the internet is vital for email, access to class intranets and the World Wide Web itself. Many university classrooms and campuses now have WiFi - 802.11x wireless networking such as you find now in many coffee shops around Melbourne and along Lygon Street in Carlton where Telstra has modified several payphones.Telstra sells HotSpot call cards that make logging into the internet from a coffee shop simple and relatively cheap.Thus, think of a notebook with a wireless card that will allow you to log into your institution's intranet, receive email and surf the internet more or less whenever and wherever you happen to be.Think of insurance and of buying an extended warranty and, finally, buy the best quality you can afford without chasing speeds and hard-drive sizes you do not need. In my view that means a good mid-range brand-name machine from an established dealer, be it an Apple Mac, an IBM ThinkPad, a Dell, Hewlett-Packard or Toshiba. If something goes wrong, you won't go back to the shop and find it is now selling fish and chips.
© 2005 The Age