Laptop help

Clay Pigeon · Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2005 1:46 pm Post subject: Laptop help

I am currently looking for a laptop for law school, but most of my hardware knowledge is limited to desktops and workstations. I would appreciate any help that you could give.

I am looking for something light, with lower power consumption, but a large amount of physical storage. Graphics performance is not that important (I have a monstrous tower for gaming).

John Doe · Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2005 5:19 pm Post subject:

CP, there are various ways to go with laptops and I will try to share a few thoughts.

The last laptop I had was a Dell Inspiron 8200, great laptop, 15" screen, very nice, but after lugging it around the 10+ pounds of laptop, power brick, and asst. cables got to be a pain.

I have used smaller and lighter Dells such as the D610 (current model) which weighs about 4 pounds not including extra bits and thats better but still annoying at times.

So my latest toy that I am going to try this week is a Dell X300. Its a sub 3 pound laptop with a 12.1" screen, no optical drive in it, and I think it may be perfect for portable computing but it has a downside. It only has a few hours of battery life (2-3), but I dont run on batteries all that much so it wont be a big handicap.

The 8200, and the D610 had better battery life, but only perhaps 4 hours worth at the most.

So, if battery life is your biggest need I would suggest getting extra batteries for whatever you choose. If weight is a huge concern, then I would say smaller is better, also if you can get it without an optical drive (Thats CD, DVD for those that dont know) then that will save both weight and battery draw.

Now for storage.....Pretty much any laptop out there can be had with 40-60 gb drives, some manufacturers offer 80 and 100 gb drives. My thoughts are to not spend money on anything bigger than a 40 GB drive due to the cost. For example, when I configure a Dell laptop on their website to go from a 40 to a 60gb drive, they want over $100 for the upgrade, I think thats nuts. I would rather take that $100 and go buy another 40GB drive for $80 cdn, and a external 2.5" USB housing for it for another $20. Then for that $100 I have 80 GB of storage and not 60. I also have a removable device that I can use for backing up the internal drive and for moving data to another system.

Thats my two bits worth for now, if you have any questions CP please PM me as I will be away for about a week and I will most likely have limited internet access.

JD
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Simpleman · Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2005 5:29 pm Post subject:

Yeah I did what JD did with the external drive. I bought a 250GIG WD Sata Drive on Sale for $99.00 and a USB external housing for it just for backups of all 4 of my computers. Just the main stuff of course and some of the bigger programs that have to be D/L online just so I don't have to search for them again...lol.

I have a ACER laptop and have no problems with it the 3 years I have had it and they seem to be getting much better with there Laptops.

The best thing is kind of get a idea what you want and what programs you will be using to get an idea on what you need.

What price range are you tring to stay within ?.

This is basically the same as mine

http://www.digitalspyders.com/canada/product_info.php?cPath=1_2_453&products_id=11446

These are cool

http://www.digitalspyders.com/canada/product_info.php?cPath=30_36&products_id=4348
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Jfet Zener · Server Admin Joined: 19 Feb 2003 Posts: 3353

ive used the sony vaio's before. they have some really small ones that have a good battery life (and spare batteries are relatively small).

if you go dell, check out their refurbished equipment - great stuff, and big discounts. my last job only used refurb dells and we had zero problems.

FingerDemon · Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2005 8:03 pm Post subject:

Don't forget durability as an important criteria for a law school laptop. My wife went through law school with an IBM Thinkpad and it was quite reliable. She really lugged that thing everywhere, but it held up well. Many of her classmates with other laptops had a lot of trouble with HDs dying and other wear and tear items. Since IBM is selling their PC division, I don't know that I would go IBM now, but I would think twice going with something really light, if it also looks like it couldn't take a few bumps.

Good luck in school man! She says the first year is the toughest, so don't get discouraged!

Brick wall

followed by #Beer

followed by Applause

FD

Mike · Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2005 10:06 pm Post subject:

http://www.g4tv.com/videos/index.html?video_key=8935

some of the are realy expensive tho. that video is kinda old too.
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Crankenstein · Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2005 11:15 pm Post subject:

Right now, the Centrinos are the way to go for decent performance with low power consumption. I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 and get good battery life and has good enough hardware to be reasonably fast.
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Clay Pigeon · Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 5:10 pm Post subject:

Well it turns out that my mom and stepfather got me a laptop as a combined college graduation/birthday present. They got me a Compaq Presario with an AMD Athlon 64 3800+ processor and 1 512 stick of ram. It also has some graphics chipset I have never heard of. What is a radeon xpress 200m? What does it compare to in desktop hardware?