Designing a notebook computer?

[dreaded_beast]

I purchased a refurbished laptop on-line.

I shopped around everywhere: the local stores, Amazon, E-Bay, NewEgg, more on-line vendors that I can count, since I'm a poor student, hehe.

I finally found a good laptop for a little over $300 which was selling around $800-$900 elswhere on the internet.

Check this vendor out, in my opinion, the best place to buy used desktops/laptops:

www.retrobox.com

 

[naloomi]

I would disagree with the thought of trying to get the heftiest HD you can buy. My recommendation would be to spend the $$ your spending on a hefty HD on a DVD-writer. You can get these for a desktop computer for a decent price nowadays.

Ensure that your laptop can read DVD's.

Once you do that, you can just burn all your ESD's to DVD and have them with you anytime. Also, if you burn them to DVD-RW, you can update, the disk as needed so that you only have to carry a single disk with you at any time. (DVD-R's hold nearly 4 gig of data) The DVD's can even hold your MP3's so you can store your music on DVD and have it with you.

These are just my thoughts.

Naloomi

 

[Greyhawk_DM]

Just a bump because I'm thinking of getting a laptop soon too.

Edit: my needs are as follows:

wireless use in my home -- want to use it at the table while running games, or surf internet in the living room.

read PDFs on trips

use eTools to generate characters, monsters, etc.

Word processing, spreadsheets, etc.

Some gaming (I have not been doing a lot recently but still might like to play a game like Half-Life 2 when it comes out).

I'm also considering getting a laser printer instead of my old inkjet -- any suggestions there?

I recently bought a HP Laserjet 1012 from the local Staples for 149.99 [on sale] normally 199.99. It is an awesome printer...will print double sided..14 ppm but it is black and white only though...if you are looking for a color laserjet..the decent ones start at about 700.00

 

[Ged]

I just recently bought a laptop for myself. It is an eMachines M6809 and I am really happy with it. Do as much research as you possibly can before you make your final decision.

The M6809 uses a Mobile AMD Athlon 64 CPU running at 2.0 Ghz (rated at 3200+) and an ATI Mobility 9600 video chipset equipped with 64 MB of dedicated video memory. It comes with 512 MB of DDR RAM, an 80 GB hard drive (4200 RPM) that I am going to replace with a 7K60 Travelstar drive as soon as possible, and a 4x DVD-RW burner.

I am using it right now to wirelessly send this message (thanks to one of my neighbors with a wide open WAP) from my living room. I should have my own WAP pretty soon.

Whichever laptop you decide to get, make sure that you are familiar with its' shortcomings and limitations. My notebook is more of desktop replacement machine than a real travelling notebook, but I knew that going in and didn't mind.

It handles Acrobat 6 Professional, Office XP, and Etools without breaking a sweat. It is also a decent platform for playing Civilization III, my Neo Geo emulator (WinKawaks), Star Wars: KOTOR, and Warlords III.