another technical complaint

[aventurine]

i desperately need a laptop. i am at a serious disadvantage at school without one. the professors set rules like, "the test is open notes, but it should only be an outline you create. you can't use your regular class notes." so a person who has taken their notes all semester on a computer can just print those out and use them, but i can't bring

Comments

[whtyger97]

Well if money was no object, I'd say get a little mac one, because size wise i don't know anything comparable.
I won a Dell 5150 from a radio station, and i'm quite happy with it. It gets great battery life, about 4 hours (but you'll use battery life if you burn cds/access the hard drive alot/etc). You could always buy a second battery if battery life is really important to you, but they are normally over $100.
If you're looking for the bare minimum to do what you describe you could look into used laptops, I know a place in Stow/Kent that has a nice varity of older laptops in the $200-$400 range but they are fairly old.
Personally I'd look around for rebates and such over getting a refurbished one, just because for me the price difference isn't worth not buying it new (and likely getting a better warrenty).

Your welcome to come over and visit to test drive my laptop, and see if something simiular would fit your needs. Oh its got built in wireless, which is a feature i REALLY like, no need to remember extra cards.

[surrealtime]

If your not concerned about buying a brand name (dell, sony, etc...), I use this site alot when I'm getting new equipment or building a new machine:

www.pricewatch.com

They have a large number of different vendors. Basically mom and pop shops or small businesses. You can click on a link for any part or full system you want.

I took a look at notebooks and they listed over 70 different processor types.

here are some...
Pentium 4 2.0Ghz from $669
Pentium 4 2.8Ghz from $740
Pentium 4 3.4Ghz from $1225
Celeron 2.0Ghz from $867
Athelon machines starting around $875
Pentium III machines starting at $409

[aventurine]

those prices sounds pretty reasonable. any suggestions on what system specs i might require for my needs?

[surrealtime]

From the specs you layed out (primarily for word processing), I think you'd be fine with any processor. I'm using a IBM ThinkPad right now with a Pentium III 750, writing code in visual studio and its fine. I'm sure for running Word, you'd find no problems or lagging with a Pentium III.

Battery life is another factor. I've saw notebooks stating they had 5+ hours of battery life. I think its all going to depend on the battery and what kind of equipment you have drawing power. You could always get a second battery as well, and just change them inbetween classes.

Otherwise, everything else you were looking for is pretty much standard issue in notebooks these days.

[jjjiii]

Look carefully at what type of laptop you're looking at. There are a number of sub-types now: desktop replacements, which tend to be bulkier and heavier and have higher power requirements and thus lower portability and battery life -- ie, probably not what you want. Then there are ultra-portables, which tend to be very light and small, but more expensive.

Since pricewatch is essentially a "reverse auction" website, most vendors advertise bare minimum systems or skeletons that you need to build up from, and the advertised price isn't what you'll actually pay, ultimately. Likewise, you might get a fully assembled laptop, or you might get parts that you need to connect together. Or, if you're not careful, you might get something and then find out that you NEED parts, which would be bad.

[eurgeht]

Go to tigerdirect.com and look up refurbished/off-lease IBM ThinkPads. They're the best, most affordable laptops ever.

Your battery life sounds...optimistic. As I understand it, batteries eventually get shittier and shittier until they're less than useful. But I might be wrong.

[aventurine]

well that's pure craziness. it doesn't seem like asking for four hours is all that much. i have two two-hour classes every night, and there aren't any outlets in the rooms so it's going to have to be able to live at least that long. i could charge it fully beforehand, but it still must last at least four hours. how can i solve that problem?

[jjjiii]

A few options

[jjjiii]

What kind of price range are you talking about?

[jjjiii]

Overstock.com has some pretty good prices on older/discontinued model laptops, some of which are refurbished, some of which aren't -- including some nice IBM Pentium III era machines