Eyeing Laptops

[William Dojinn]

Ok. I've got a bit of money, and I'm looking for a secondary computer to take with me, sit outside and write. You know, something that can do the basics n such.

Right now here's what I'm eyeballing (due to price being an object).

EEEPC: It is 'the thing' for geeks it seems. However storage appears to be an issue.

Cloudbook: gOS, from what I've seen, will have to get the ax if I want to do anything here. However it has more space which is a plus. However from what I've seen to do something as simple and necessary as upgrading the ram requires tearing the whole thing down (warentee voiding), which scares me.

gBook: Cheap, full sized laptop, Yes its far from latest and greatest. However it has a larger screen (which is GOOD given my eyesight), an inbuilt cd-r/dvd rom drive (i like watching me movies). Again, gOS will have to go. However I have seen nothing practicably approaching the extensive and in-depthness of even the cloudbook when talking about what's needed to upgrade the hardware, as I want to know how hard it will be to drop in more ram. Also with the lack of news means I'm not sure which linux would work best here (wanting either vector or kubuntu to work here, preferably vector as its what I'm more familiar with).

Anybody have anything to say here?

Looking at an upper budget of $450 either to pay all at once, or via financing (price IS an object here). I can always grab more ram later and I do NOT want to ebay a used laptop.

:popcorn:

[teet]

The "MSI wind" looks pretty promising.

-teet

[zmjjmz]

The Cloudbook's death is the 4200RPM Harddrive.
The thing about the EeePC is that it can be lightweight, fast, and conserve battery power with an SSD, but in order to stay cheap the SSD has to be small.
The Cloudbook uses a 30GB HDD, but in order to maintain battery life it's slowed down to 4200RPM and uses a really glitzy OS.
I would recommend the EeePC, because if you're just doing the simple stuff, the newer EeePC with the Atom (901) should do, _but_ I'm not sure if it fits your price range.

I'd personally get the Wibrain B1L, but it's not laptop like.
www.wibrain.com
There are a few other amazing looking Eee clones coming out in time though, so you should consider holding on to your wallet.

[William Dojinn]

Hence my having a gBook as an option.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=8224470

Cheap, and upgradeable.

[zmjjmz]

I can't say anything about the gBook, other than that it's not a ultra-portable one.
Why don't you buy it and report back on it.
(Though I'd recommend eschewing GNOME for, say, LXDE)

[William Dojinn]

Well. Given that money's not exactly something I can afford to toss around left n right so I wanna be careful. that and Everex is a 'no name' company.

[zmjjmz]

True, and it seems that this whole cheap Linux thing was a poorly implemented publicity stunt.

Everex isn't no-name though, they're (crap) Vista computers are popular at Wal-mart.

EDIT: Widescreen Display (1440 x 900)
That looks good.

[joninkrakow]

Would you consider getting an aging laptop considering it's just for beating around with? I recently bought myself a Dell Latitude running a PII at 366mhz with 160megs of ram for about a hundred USD. I have both Xubuntu running LXDE and Puppy Linux on it. It's not the fastest, but it does web and other things I need. You can probably get a much newer and faster laptop in the States. The advantage of an older laptop is that the hardware is probably more likely to be supported. :-)

-Jon

[William Dojinn]

I would. I'm just leery of buying used, especially around ebay.

Hm. Ideas?

[gn2]

If price is an issue, the soon to be released Acer Aspire One netbook will be a good option, the Linux version is the by far the best value of the new range of small ultra-mobile laptops.

If you want a full size laptop, an Acer Extensa: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/138095

Much depends on what's available in your country though.

[zmjjmz]

Craigslist then?

Ooh! Dumpsters!

[William Dojinn]

Eh. Gonna go dive through the local recyclers. Was gonna do that anyway to fish out something for my elder brother (i'm putting linux on since all he wants is myspace and his music, both things are doable within linux easily).

Edit: Reguardless of WHAT I get (gbook, dumpster salvaged prize, dell, wahtever), its going to be blogged about. This is especially so with the gbook as it shows promise as a budget full sized laptop that would do what most users want.

[kvk]

I'll jump in here as opposed to starting a new thread and wasting space. I'm also in the market for a laptop, but an older one (money, money, money- nasty stuff if you don't have a bunch of it! :) ) that I can use as a text-only machine for working while I'm on <shudder> airplanes. I only need to have a few very basic applications running on it, most likely on a stripped-down version of KDE, in which I would keep either a few text editors or else just Emacs, plus a math-modeling application.

I'd like to buy a used Thinkpad- what might be the minimum specs required for this sort of thing? I don't need a big hard drive- my only real issue is processor speed for the math work. The big price cut-off seems to be at a P III: is that sufficient to drive this sort of machine set-up? Or would it be worth it to <gulp> spend a bit more to get a P-4 machine?

William- I'm leary of buying used as well (especially on Ebay), but I have noticed an enormous number of used Thankpads on various re-seller sites and such for not very much money, and I've always found them to be very dependable machines, insofar as my limited experience goes.

[jualin]

I recently bought an Acer Aspire 4720z and everything works out of the box except the wireless but it was really easy to install after looking on the forums. The hotkeys, 3D effects and webcam worked. It cost me $299 because it was a floor sample but they sell for about $500 dollars. Greetings from Miami, FL.

[snowpine]

I'll jump in here as opposed to starting a new thread and wasting space. I'm also in the market for a laptop, but an older one (money, money, money- nasty stuff if you don't have a bunch of it! :) ) that I can use as a text-only machine for working while I'm on <shudder> airplanes. I only need to have a few very basic applications running on it, most likely on a stripped-down version of KDE, in which I would keep either a few text editors or else just Emacs, plus a math-modeling application.

I'd like to buy a used Thinkpad- what might be the minimum specs required for this sort of thing? I don't need a big hard drive- my only real issue is processor speed for the math work. The big price cut-off seems to be at a P III: is that sufficient to drive this sort of machine set-up? Or would it be worth it to <gulp> spend a bit more to get a P-4 machine?

Hi KVK, my laptop is a Dell Latitude Cpx (PIII w/256mb ram and 6.5 g hard drive). I've successfully used Ubuntu, Xubuntu, and Fluxbuntu on it. Right now, I am using it to write a 100+ page book with lots of illustrations. It runs openoffice just fine, a little slow, but tolerable.

My advice is that a PIII should be adequate for your limited needs. I would not advise less than 256mb ram; any less than that and you will have trouble with Ubuntu and will need one of the lighter distros. 512 would be even better if you can afford it. :)

[MONODA]

If I were you I would just get a cheap relatively low end laptop and put a distro on it like Arch.

[timcredible]

you can buy a new dell vostro 1000 for less than $450US. i paid $500.39 for mine, and that included shipping and taxes. my laptop specs:

2gb memory
ati 1150
15.5" trubrite screen
120gb hd
802.11b/g card
dvd burner
4 usb ports
sd card reader built-in

works perfect with 8.04, although i did have to install in safe graphics mode, then load ati driver via normal method, then load ndiswrapper via synaptic, and then point ndiswrapper to the wireless driver on the windowsxp partition - maybe 5 minutes after the install was done, the laptop was running with everything working properly (except maybe the modem, i don't use it). even the mousepad slider bars work fine. i had to replace 2 files to get the keyboard brightness up/down buttons to work also, i think the files were called brightnessup.sh and brightnessdown.sh, you can do a search and find that easy.

[billgoldberg]

I'm thinking of buying this one.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/09/medions-akoya-mini-laptop-gets-pictured-at-computex/

this one looks promising, but who knows when it will be out.

http://www.gadgetsandgizmos.org/the-rise-of-the-netbook/

[gn2]

I'm thinking of buying this one.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/09/medions-akoya-mini-laptop-gets-pictured-at-computex/


As it points out in the text, the Medion Akoya Mini is a re-badged MSI Wind so a good piece of kit but potentially much more expensive than the Acer Aspire One.

[OldTimeTech]

Another place to look for cheap laptops is at a local pawn shop...people bring them in, get the money and then can never retrieve them....pawn shops usually sell them for just the amount they loaned on them.

[kvk]

Thanks, Snowpine! That seems about right to me. I've found a few Thinkpads here and there, but they either don't ship to Alaska :( or else they're asking ridiculous prices. I'll keep looking. And yes, Monoda, Arch might be just the thing!

[jml]

Thought I would add my two cents worth. I have an Everex gBook and I can say that I am satisfied with it. However, its not for everyone. First, the customer support from Everex is not very good. Online resources at both the Everex and gOS web sites and forums are also rather sparse. If you know your way around Linux, and laptop hardware you may find the gBook a good value, I did. But if not, I would steer clear of it.

Joe

[phaed]

I understand that money is an issue, but if you're going to drop $300-400 on a laptop, why not just save your money a while longer and get one in the $600-700 range, and it will be something that you're happy with and that can cover all of your needs.

[Linuturk]

Stay away from anything Everex. I had one and it pains me still.

[damphoud]

Why don't you try to support a linux only vender? The larger linux venders can become, more hardware will be 100% compatable with linux. As much as a company like Dell says the love their linux, their cash cow is and will always be windows systems.