Apple or Microsoft?

Abe,

There are two schools of thought on that. Some say turning off and on is hard on disk drivea, but I'm not sure that isn't a carry over from older technology. My desk top never gets turned off, my laptops are off anytime I'm not using them.

I remember the tech specialist at the night school where I had a computer lab, was vehement about never turning the computers off unless it was during our break times (year-round school; on 9 weeks, off two or three throughout the year). When our principal pointed out that our building was not in the "nicest" neighborhood in town, and that closing the blinds did not necessarily keep them from being visible, he altered his instructions to turning off the monitors, but leaving the power on. His reason was that the stress of start-up was far more costly than the small amount of electricity being used when the power was on.

lol... seems like my forgetfulness about shutting the computers off has extended their life...lol... I can live with that.

@Don Yeah, I am seriously considering buying a Toshiba laptop. Nice to hear that yours are working great. Do you have the kind with the big keys that are also backlit? I really have to check what kind of model it is that the kiddo has...lol

Huggles,
Katja

Katja,

Both of mine are Satellite's. Full keyboard, no backlite on keys.

Abe,

There is something to be said for shutting down your computers at least every few days--or at least forcing a restart on Windows PCs in that many updates will not actually be loaded until a computer is either shut down/rebooted or Windoes is restarted. With notebooks, i won't think there is any significant wear and tear from shutting down, though the longer boot time is the reason I seldom shut down my computers. More damage is done to them from the spikes/drops in voltage that happen very frequently from various reasons ranging from lightning strikes to overuse during particularly hot days when AC is in full force everywhere. Invest about $30 or so in a decent surge protector if concerned about damaging a computer because of power spikes.

I've had good results from HP and am partial to the brand. I've also been happy with IBM/Lenovo and Toshiba. Even an old, inexpensive eMachines served me well for years, and that is at the low-end of the reliability spectrum.

To D.K. and others using inexpensive Netbooks, these are terrific little machines though limited in capacity and processing speed. Hooked up to a monitor or even a modern TV and using a wireless full size keyboard and mouse, they really rock when used at home. I've used several in this way and they are terrific for browsing the web and word processing apps as long as you don't run video on them on a regular basis as they don't normally have good enough processors, graphics accelerators or RAM to deal effectively with streaming video.

I store all my work in Dropbox, so I don't run out of space. It isn't great for video, but I mostly use it for email and writing wherever I drop. I would be lost without it. In fact, my son took my first one and I ran out and bought another one - luckily on sale for $150. His has long ago crashed.

Thank you for all of your great input.

FYI-- A beautiful HP 23 All in One is on its way. I got it on a wonderful Black Friday deal online and figure if it is not good, I can get another for the cost of one Apple.