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Laptop Query - What to buy, what to buy....

  
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:31 / 19.07.03
OK, so my beloved, albeit somewhat cussed, old laptop - a Dell Latitude CP series with a P3 366 processor, 6GB of ROM, 64MB processor and Win2000 - looks like it is finally dead - the casing has cracked around the fan, and the "i" key is now not just erratic but mushy. Time to move, I think to myself. But, as you can tell from those stats, it's been a while since I had to think about getting a laptop (in fact, never - that was salvaged from work).

So, two questions. First up, how do I sell off a bunch of latitude docking stations, Li-ion batteries and ethernet cables, and second up what do you recommend.

A couple of things:

1) I'm getting a PC, not a Mac. Sorry, I know how great Macs are, but I just can't justify the expense. I am probably not going to spend upwards of $1000 on this, and if possible less - my original plan was £750, which has been revised upwards as I have realised that comparatively minor increases in price bring fairly significant benefits..

2) OS - if I am junking my current laptop, I could always install Win2000 into the new one, but it may be time to upgrade. I'm half-tempted to use Linux, but it will probably be networked with my desktop, which, alas, is still running WinXp and at this point probably will be for quite some time.

3) Chips. This is where I get completely lost. What shoudl I go for? People have spoken very highly of the PAMD Athlon XP-M, but how do the numbers actually compare for Pentium, Pentium M, Athlon XP-M, Celeron , Celeron-M and Centrino?

4) Stuff. I think I need an ethernet connection and a CD rewriter. A DVD player and TV-out would be nice, (you can use your PC as a DVD player then, yes?).

Now, right now I'm a bit torn - for just over £1000, Time is offering an AMD Athlon XP-M 2600+ processor, 60GB hard drive, ATI Radeon 64MB graphics, 512MB DDR RAM, CDRW, DVD-ROM and floppy drives, TV-OUT, ethernet connectivity and Windows XP. This is probably absurdly overpowered, but somebody suggested that I shoudl get the best machine I can now, because laptops are a bugger to upgrade. On the other hand, there's a perfectly good refurb Toshiba 1900-303 for £822, with WinXP and Works 2002, has a P4 2Ghz processor, 256 MB ram, 16MB graphics... its perfectly good, basically. Or even another refurb Toshiba Satellite 1110-Z14 w/ Celeron 1.5Ghc processor, 256MB Ram, 20GB HDD, CD-RW/DVD, and 10/100 interface for just £704....

So, should I go for a balls-to-the wall machine, or something basic on the grounds that I can always upgrade my desktop computer reasonably cheaply, and will probably carry on using that as well? Then again, the Time offer sounds insanely tempting, and I could use the Office software (Office 2000 and OpenOffice) from my old laptop...

Help me, you Barbelith techno-bods...I'm drowning in a sea of expensive technology...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:41 / 19.07.03
PS - I realise that, within that proce range, *nothing* is going to be actually balls-to-the-wall, and I would love a high-end VAIO or Crusoe or TiBook or Toughbook (is anyone else oddly excited by Toughbooks?) as much as the next man, but bear in mind that Barbelith is about the most complicated thing I do with computers, so my needs are comparatively small and my perspective fairly bumpkinish.
 
 
netbanshee
22:14 / 19.07.03
The Time offer seems pretty good Haus. Will be good to have room to play and 512mb should be enough for your endevours.

Basically, you should buy what you could afford and get a machine that will last the longest. The cost will justify itself over time. And continue to look around. Maybe there's a deal website or two around that someone else around here could help you out with. I don't know if it works the same way where you're at, but how you purchase it can make it cheaper as well. I know in the US there currently isn't a tax on internet purchases so you could save more.

I'm currently paying off my Tibook in one fell swoop, but planning around the price drop it got (cheapest high-end laptop Apple ever sold) and getting a loaded machine with free-shipping/no tax (internet purchase) made sense for me. Was able to save a few $ and got a 6mo no interest loan to get it and have time to save for it. Just had to nose around for about 2-3 weeks to get an idea of what worked best for me...

Best of Luck...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:35 / 19.07.03
The main problem with the Time offer is that it expires on the 23rd, so I need to get a wiggle on if I do do it. also, I'll need software, although probably not too much...for another £99, they'll throw in a bunch of software, including a "full office suite" (not loving *that* terminology) Kaspersky Antivirus and Dragon Naturally Speaking, which could be cool, but also a printer and digicam that I prolly don't need...
 
 
tom-karika nukes it from orbit
23:13 / 19.07.03
Time's laptops are notoriously:
1. Unreliable (I've read that about 50% of them are returned within the first three months. They tend to have faulty batches a little too often.

2. Poorly built- you know, loose hinges, cheap keyboards, cheap batteries. They skimp on all the bits that don't show up on the spec sheet, so that they can put in big-number processors and hard drives on the adverts.

3. All round crap.

About a month ago ordered one, opened the box and sent it straight back to them. It was built like they'd given the workers a case of Super-Strength Vodka, then tied their hands to their ears before starting up the production line. The closing mechanism on the lid allowed the screen to move about an inch when it was closed, and the hinge was so loose the screen wouldn't stay upright without a support. The keyboard had jumped it's mounting and so had peeled away at the corner, and the battery kept disonnecting. Could be transit damage, but looked more like a badly built machine to me.

That machine is very high spec on paper, but I advise very strongly that you try it out and have a good look at it before you buy it. Much Time stuff looks fantastic value on paper, but then turns out to be duff when it arrives.

Their bundle packs are not good value. Antivirus software is all inherently obsolete nowadays, Dragon Naturally speaking doesn't work, and the printer and Digicam will be the very cheapest available, guaranteed. 'Complete Office Suite' could be anything, but it won't be Microsoft Office. Check if you get the actual CDs as well.

A good place to look for laptops is europc. They get lots of Dell refurbs, and are quite cheap. You won't get a lot of bundled software, but plenty of them have good upgrade options on them- DVD writers, lots of RAM etc. Watch out for the warranty on refurbs though, as some only give 3 or 6 months of it. Those Toshiba refurbs don't sound like bad value, and their laptops always used to be very durable, and I've seen them still working nearly ten years old, albeit with duff batteries. I can't vouch for the newer ones though. The Celeron will feel slower than the other one. Celerons are NOT fast chips, but they are cheap and robust.

If you don't want to do anything complicated, then why not stick with an older model, refurbed? Every site still has the occasional Win Me/2000/98 machine knocking around, and they are ofen only around £500, but still work.

I would be absolutely amazed if anyone could disinguish any difference between AMD's and Intel's mobile processors in terms of speed. AMD's are (generally) cheaper, but run hotter. Intels are (again, generally) a little more expensive for the same speed, but run cooler, which is important in a laptop. But don't get hung up on chipsets, as us normal humans can't usually distinguish between them. Clockspeed and front side bus are just numbers people latch on to for some reason. If it comes down to a choice between two or three machines, look for comparative reviews of the actual laptops themselves, not the chips.

About Linux- you can network it with Windows XP just fine via. Samba. It can be a bit tricky to install on newer laptops though, as display systems tend to get released a bit quicker than the linux display system gets updated.

Oh, and if you've got a load of Dell Latitude gear still, why not buy a new Dell Latitude. Stuff might still fit it.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
01:25 / 20.07.03
Primarily because Dell are the preferred OEM for Microsoft govt. contracts in the US, and because Latitudes are strangely expensive for their spec, due to being aimed at the business market...

Thanks for the warning on Time - it did sound rather too good to be true. How do people stadn on Dabs.com?
 
 
videodrome
02:28 / 20.07.03
(...been waiting for this for ages...)

Haus, where's your topic abstract?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
02:50 / 20.07.03
In the post. I think my computer suspects that I am plotting to replace it...
 
 
Lurid Archive
12:50 / 20.07.03
A word about software, the least of your worries, I realise, but...

What do you actually need? Word processing, bit of picture drawing kind of thing? Star Office 6.2 is free, at least. I've used previous versions and they seem ok.
 
 
.
13:09 / 20.07.03
I'd also recommend against buying anything from Time- at least two of my friends have bought a Time PC only to find it badly made and just generally pants. One of them had to send their one back. As for the "too good to be true" offers that last a limited period, all I can say is watch the adverts- in a month the current offer will be replaced by another one offering an "even better deal" (in other words even more cheap printers and useless software)... I wouldn't call it a scam exactly, it's more of a hustle.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:24 / 20.07.03
Yeah - I checked a few consumer sites and they said much the same thing - it was always goign to be too good to be true.

Lurid - yeah, StarOffice (and the open source version, OpenOffice.org, which rocks and is free and open source and generally great) is cool - and I will have a spare copy of Office 2000 lying around, which should do me fine anyway. I will probably get an OS put in, just becasue I can't be bothered for a £60 saving to install Win2K and get all the drivers..

I have heard nice things about these guys - A P4 2.66 with 60GB memory and a 64MB graphics card would come in at a bit over £1100; although I am a bit concerned about some other stuff - again, help out the laptop neophyte - could I replace batteries, for example? Are there generic Li-Ion batteries?

Also, given that I am going to have an obscene amount of money's worth of kit tucked under my shoulder at the end of this process, do people insure their laptops? How do you do it? Theft and breakage?

This is so confusing... you are absolutely right, though; there is *always* another once-in-a-lifetime offer...
 
 
The Strobe
13:53 / 20.07.03
Well, I'd jump up and down and point out an iBooks is c. £900 or less these days, but you're getting a PC. (Oh, they're £1049... but the bottom-line, CD-only one, is £800 which for a laptop is CHEAP. And you can put wireless in it for about £50, iirc. And it's light and small and wellbuilt and you could buy a firewire burner later).

Anyway.

Well: lots of manufacturers, Toshiba et al, are doing pretty impressive £999 machines. Also, I'd really recommend Centrino if you can stretch to it - decent battery life, wireless, light machines. But they're not entirely bargainous at the moment. The current PC World has a group test of low cost laptops - nothing more than £999 exc vat.

The refurb Toshibas sound good. Do bear in mind that the chunkier the processor, the crapper the battery - and given you have a desktop too, you probably want portability. As well as being unreliable, that Time will be big, heavy, and last probably about an hour. The only reason i say cheap ibook is that it does tv out, is light, and has decent battery - my PB12 gets 4 hours if i go easy on the screen. But yeah, refurb toshes sound like a good bet.

Dells and Toshibas, really, if you want a PC. Or Sonys, but not at your price. Does that help?

As for the old kit: eBay. It's your friend.
 
 
tom-karika nukes it from orbit
14:52 / 20.07.03
The one problem with the iBooks is the screen size. Doesn't matter if Apple dress it up as a super-crisp lightweight high-tech screen, a small screen is still a small screen. 12" looks and feels small by todays standards, very small. They are genuinely portable, but if portability is a real issue, why not look at sub-notebooks?

If you can find something with an Intel Centrino chipset that you can afford, get it. They are genuinely very good chips, they run cool, use less power and have lots of fun wireless networking add-ons. They are better than anything else for portability, and Wi-fi is fun.

Watch out for big hard-drives. They use more battery power, and are less reliable. Replacing the hard-drive on a laptop can be expensive, if not impossible. 20-30 Gb is plenty at the moment, and you pay a lot more for a 60 Gb drive and suffer a battery life cut.

Try to get a fire-wire port. If you want later upgrades, this is the best way to add external storage, cd-burners and drives.

I also have heard good reports of nethighstreet. The generic cases they use are nothing like as flash and shiny as a Dell, Sony or even a Toshiba, but they are just as robust. A bit heavy though, and large enough. You do get a good spec for the price, and you can order upgrades for some of the parts they might skimp on in order to use big-number processors.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:30 / 20.07.03
It has occured to me that I could get a bigger HDD in my desktop and just port stuff over if I needed to... Centrino is interesting. How do they bench against normal Pentium chips? I think the main prob is that Centrino laptops tened not to have RJ-45 ports, yes? I am liking the nethighstreet idea more and more... but have promised myself not to rush into this, no matter how annoying not having a laptop is...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
16:27 / 20.07.03
Oh....knackers. The CD-rewriter on my desktop has just died as well.

So, techno question the second. I get a new CD-rewriter. While I'm there, I may as well replace my geriatric Celeron 2Ghz processor. And upgrade my hard drive, and add some more RAM - maybe bring it up to 512MB...so I'll prolly need a new fan as well...can you put a graphics card into a machine with integrated graphics? Becasue if so I could do that too...

Then I could get a v. basic laptop and just use it to port stuff, in which case the Toshiba P4 2Ghz or one of the low-spec nethighstreet (as long as the case is solid, I don't mind if it isn't pretty) numbers would be fantastic, I would have spent probably about the same and I wouldn't have such an expensive piece of kit under my arm to shatter...

Yay! So, the question is, can I put a graphics card into my PC? And if so, what would you recommend?
 
 
Ariadne
16:29 / 20.07.03
Have a look here: PC Advisor reviews

They do seem to know what they're talking about, and it'll give you some ideas. If you PM me your address I'll post you a copy of the mag, there's usually more info in there.
 
 
The Strobe
17:30 / 20.07.03
You might be able to put a graphics card in; the machine will need an AGP slot, though, given 99.9% of graphics cards are AGP. There's probably a BIOS option to disable the onboard; old integrated ones didn't have this, but modern integrated motherboards tend to allow you to upgrade.

Re: laptops; looking at a Dabs catalogue, they have a Toshiba Celeron laptop for about £600, new. Looks quite nice, really - good screen, good build quality, think it has DVD but not CDRW.

Tom: whatver. My 12" screen is fine, and on the PB (but not the iBook) I can span it onto external monitors. Yes, you need to hide applications occasionally, but it all seems to work fine. The only thing I'll notice it with is my music software... big screens are luxury; the 1024*768 resolution is fine and it's very crisp. It is sub-notebook size, but does proper-notebook stuff. No external disk drives, great battery life, convenient port layout. I'm having difficulty faulting it.
 
 
*
17:33 / 20.07.03
Must gloat...

My mother, who is among the coolest technogeeks I know (how uncool is it to think your mom is cool?) has just found and purchased the 15" apple G4 powerbook for $500 at a pawn shop. The only flaws appear to be cosmetic scratches on the case indicating a past history as property of a careless student. The 15" screen is really effective.

I must confess to being a big fan of Apple right now.

*wanders to the Apple site to drool over the specs of the new G5.*

Oh, and PS: always good refurbished Apple stuff with factory warantees at http://www.smalldog.com.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
18:15 / 20.07.03
Of course, some would say that what I really *don't* need is a graphics card, and should try to remember that I am getting this for *work* and for *writing*. Some are killjoys.
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
22:40 / 20.07.03
One problem with iBooks: many of them develop screen problems. Apparently the monitor cable is quite close to the hinge on some models and can get worn through quite easily, causing really odd display problems.
 
 
w1rebaby
00:05 / 21.07.03
That would explain my 12-incher developing a screen flaw. Well, the screen just stopped working, which was a tad inconvenient. However, I did get it back within four days of sending it off.
 
 
Sax
06:01 / 21.07.03
Haus, I also have a Latitude. I might be interested in buying all or some of your left-over gubbins - particularly your batteries - if you get a completely new model.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
08:16 / 21.07.03
Haus - I've got an Acer, which I've never had any problems with. I use my laptop a lot when I use it at all, so the keyboard is particularly important to me, and the Acer feels responsive and well put togather, and the keys are well-spaced - though the machine is not large and weighs relatively little. It's tough enough to have survived a certain amount of abuse over the last couple of years without complaint. Only one word of caution, which probably applies across the board: battery life estimates are optimistic.

The other company I nearly chose was Elonex. They're not a big outfit, so they don't have the benefit of Acer's network of dealers, but on the plus side you can go to their warehouse on the North Circular and play with all the toys before you buy. To do that for the Acer I had to track one down in a shop and pretend I was interested...

Good luck.
 
 
yawn - thing's buddy
10:09 / 21.07.03
fujitsu-seimens amilo d range and above.

nae fuckin competition.

http://www.nicepc.co.uk/BestBuyFujitsuSiemensLaptops.asp

all unner 12 hunner pun.

Intel ® Pentium ® 4 Processor 2.80 GHz
60GB hard disk
512MB DDR SDRAM
Integrated DVD-CDRW Combo Drive
64Mb ATI Radeon 9000
10/100 LAN Module
Li-Lon, up to 2 hours battery life
16-bit On-Board stereo sound
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
-(pre-installed) operating system
15.1" TFT-SXGA display
FREE 12 Months Collect and Return warranty

£1149.99 Amilo D8820 2.8Ghz 512DDR 60GB

if you want a dvd rw (yes fuckin please) then fork out a wee bit more:

Intel ® Pentium ® 4 Processor 3.06 GHz
60GB hard disk
512MB DDR SDRAM
Integrated DVD-RW
64Mb ATI Radeon 9000
10/100 LAN Module
Li-Lon, up to 2 hours battery life
16-bit On-Board stereo sound
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
-(pre-installed) operating system
15.1" TFT-SXGA display
FREE 12 Months Collect and Return warranty


£1299.99 Amilo D8830 3.06Ghz DVD+RW 512DDR 60GB
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
13:15 / 21.07.03
No, no, fuck no.

Avoid Siemens stuff like the fucking plague. The way they're put together is fucking weird - and if you want it serviced, chances are you'll have to send it to Germany. I'm not kidding. Mine was a sack of shit - avoid 'em.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
13:54 / 21.07.03
That's another reason why I came down to Elonex and Acer. The former has an actual place of business - you can go and bang on the door and it's a factory. The latter is just huge, and they have outlets all over the place.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
13:57 / 21.07.03
Oh, incidentally, I rejected Elonex for the single simple reason that I didn't like their keyboard as much - though it was pretty good - and it made a loud noise when I typed.

You know, there was a time when laptops all had little feet to tip them up towards you for a little extra ergonomic bliss. Now, they all seem to be flat. Go figure.
 
 
yawn - thing's buddy
14:29 / 21.07.03
th
 
 
yawn - thing's buddy
14:35 / 21.07.03
thats a shame rothkoid - I've had mine for a while now and it runs like a dream. My old man has had one for over a couple of years too and is well happy.

I'd say they are a trusted brand and having done a fair amount of consumer research before I bought it (best buy in computer active etc. blah)I'd say this information is of sufficient worth to pass on.

I would also say, I use it for intensive graphic heavy applications and it copes very well.

As for it being put together 'weird' I've not found that to be the case.

As you can tell, I really want Haus to buy a Fujitsu-Seimens laptop.
 
 
w1rebaby
15:00 / 21.07.03
I would seriously check out an actual model for weight, handiness, keyboard etc before buying. Don't just buy something off the net. The physical qualities of a laptop are really more important than the power - particularly if you have a desktop already. You don't really need power that much if it's not your primary machine, and as people have said, the higher the power the lower the battery life and the hotter it gets, both of which will ruin your laptop experience far more than it running games a bit slowly.

Make sure it's got plenty of memory and a DVD/CD-RW drive though.
 
 
The Strobe
16:04 / 21.07.03
I'd also recommend Acer. At the moment, I work in a school with a very large network and many many laptops for the pupils; each year, we have to buy a new laptop model for the school to use.

For three years, we always got it down to Acers on price, weight, and value (the three main contenders); each year they've been superb. Last year we went with Samsung, who were not really that impressive - we're buyinga couple of hundred, remember, so good means good here. This year we're back with Acer. They're nice machines, well designed, and pretty good on the whole portability issue.
 
  
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