It occurred to me that when I first began trading 10 years ago, I began with a laptop. All of my trades over the first couple of years of my trading career were done on that handy little machine. That was my Toshiba. It did everything I needed it to do. Toshibas are reliable laptops.
Back in the 90s, I used a Toshiba. They were indeed pretty bullet proof. Now I use a MacBook Air with a dual boot setup (Mac OSX on the main partition and Windows 7 on the second). It works for when I'm on the road. Though at the home or office, I prefer a full sized, maxed out PC running Windows 7.
I don't know.. but I have a feeling that it is only ME who trade using an i---pad (sorry have to write it this way, the forum auto "**" when i typed that correctly). My broker has developed an application that allows me to trade using my device and I find it very very good. easy to carry, very light.. and the application provides the same information that I need to know and see when I was still using a laptop or desktop.
I was about to ask about i-pads and tablets until I got to owesem75's post because I still find laptops a bit bulky and heavy when moving around. I would like to know what requirements to look for in an i-pad for forex trading. How about smart phones, can they be used as alternatives too?
I think that it's not very important if it's for trading or now. You just need to get one with a good processing capacity, let's say minimum 4GB RAM, ideally 8 or 16 and with that you'll have a laptop for long years.
You can use both smart phones and tablets. But I would never trade on either, simply because a computer is much more versatile. I can have trade programs open, web browsers, calculator, notepad etc and switch between or even look at some of them at the same time. Hard to do that with a phone...
Just a query @SteakTartare... if you were to choose between a Macbook and Toshiba laptop what would you go for?!...i have heard that Mac's are damn good for people dealing with graphics...is this true?
The key factors i would consider when choosing a computer to be used for trading are; screen size: I prefer to use a wide screen for my analysis because i am a swing trader so i like seeing long term performance "the big picture". Processing speed: I also like my trade to be executed as soon as i open a position so i would use a system with a good configuration. Every other trading activity can be done from any computer or even a mobile phone.
