Desktop or laptop or netbook?

[2manyrocks]

The Mrs.is using a 2.4 mhz Pentium 4 and has asked about getting a laptop a couple of times now. For getting a few things off the internet, writing letters, keeping finances in quicken, and simple photo editing, will one of those Intel Atom powered netbooks actually work or should I be looking at laptops? We want to stay with Windows XP. I don't want to spend more than $500 and would really prefer to keep it to about $200-$300. It'll probably get dropped and broken or something else happen to it being portable so I don't want to put much in it.

 

[LMTC]

Just bought my 4th Dell P4HT, 3.0ghz, 2gb RAM, huge HD (HD was an add on), an Optiplex 280...probably 4 years old. I've paid between $165 and $175 for each of the WITH shipping, all on ebay. They perform very well, and the investment is minimal. The first 3 have the original 80gb HD, but still plenty adequate for my purposes, and were bought last summer.

BTW, all had Windows XP, which was a requirement of mine.

 

[Wombat125]

Check out the Lenovo SL400 and SL500. They're built like tanks and are right at the $500 price point. My wife just bought a flock of them for the library district and they've held up well. If you get on an airplane, you'll see that almost all of the hard core road warriors are running Thinkpads. I've worked for two large companies who have tried Dell laptops and then switched back to Thinkpads just because they're more durable.

We got rid of all of the desktops in the house because laptops are just too handy.

I wouldn't get a netbook as her primary machine. We have a little Asus Eee PC. It is cute and ultra portable, but not really much fun for any legitimate work. Horsepower is not the issue. The keyboard and screen are just too small.

Good luck shopping.

 

[dgl24087]

Check out TigerDirect.com - Computers, Computer Parts, Computer Components, Netbooks & Electronics

 

[BigE_]

The higher end Lenovo's are still nice, but watch out for the lower end ones. When it was IBM, they were designed rock solid, but since Lenovo bought them out, well, quality has gone down hill, especially for support.

I know that Intel has since switched over to buying the higher end HP laptops for the road warriors. Actually, just about everyone that works there has a laptop now. The new ones are HP, the old ones IBM or Lenovo.

The little netbooks will work just fine if you hook up an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse for normal use, and then you'll have all your data with you if you go on the road with it. My brother is going over to Iraq (National Guard), and while he has a normal sized notebook, he went out and bought one of the Atom based netbooks for use over there.

Caveat - I am biased - I worked on the concept design of the Atom based netbooks.

 

[smfcpacfp]

I have both. I have laptops for over 10 years and never dropped one.

 

[2manyrocks]

I figure it's portable, one of us will find a way to drop it at some point.

We used to hook up laptops to a real monitor and keyboard at work. So that part makes sense.

As I was looking at these, it seemed like there were some refurb netbooks in the $200 range, but they were linux systems. My reservation with linux is the learning curve with a new OS and software and sometimes getting linux to work with your printer or other hardware can be not so easy. I guess if you want an XP system, you have to pay the MS premium.

I don't want vista.

I remember the days of typewriters, IBM mag cards, etc. Even the netbooks are light years ahead of those days.

 

[Tig]

We have lots of ThinkPads and Lenovos in my extended family. All have performed well. My son did get a Linux Intel Atom powered netbook with solid state storage last year. He loves it. Windows on the other hand is a very resource hungry OS. I would want to test drive it before buying and also hear from people that have owned one for several months.

 

[zzvyb6]

I run a laptop on the side and have a wireless keyboard, mouse and monitor attached. This gets everything out of the way and leaves plenty of room for desktop space. You should see a 47" HDTV as a display !

WOOF !

 

[funkydaddy59]

I use several desktops at work and a laptop and desktop at home. I find desktops more powerful: faster booting, quicker frame rates, better game play etc. I also enjoy upgrading destops, they are easy to work on. If I had to repair or upgrade something on my laptop I would leave it to a pro.

 

[czechsonofagun]

I remember the days of typewriters, IBM mag cards, etc. Even the netbooks are light years ahead of those days.

In old days I worked as an operator on IBM 370. It was a great hall full of computer, hard disks size of oil drum, floppy readers big as cloth washers, chain printers - and it all had less computing power than today's notebook.

 

[2manyrocks]

I forgot, but I also remember punching cards and waiting my turn to use the Burroughs computer. One wrong punch meant throwing the card away and doing the whole card again.

But as I was looking at these netbooks, it finally dawned on me that I'd need an external CD/DVD drive to load our software.

There is such a glut of used PC's, that it's amazing that any new PC's get sold.

 

[dgl24087]

Best Buy had a Toshiba laptop for $379 or 399 in this weeks ad.

 

[Tig]

and it all had less computing power than today's notebook.

A 370 even has less of everything than an average cell phone or IPOD.
Rocks, I still have a some Hollerith cards and card punch pieces kicking around from when I used to fix them.
Power is relative. For anyone who only wants to surf the web you can't beat Linux. IMO It will even run great on a P1 with 200 MB of memory.

 

[2manyrocks]

The main thing holding me back from Linux is I like to scan documents in Paperport which runs on XP and I haven't figured out how to get my brother mfc-7220 to run on Linux.

Otherwise, Linux is easy to install, stable, and cheap. I haven't totally got the hang of it, but it's got some things going for it.

 

[riptides]

I do Linux, I do Windows. I base buying on needs. If I can get a laptop for 200 bucks, but the O/S has issues with my printer setup, well do I spend another 100 dollars swapping my O/S or do I go buy a 30-50 dollar printer that is complimentary to the set up? By the time I figure out issues with compatibility, I have wasted time and money.

 

[2manyrocks]

Absolutely. I have wasted huge amounts of time on both XP and Linux. I wish the OS came on a memory card that plugged into the PC and could never be messed up and everything always worked instantly with no messing around and no having to reinstall to clean things up. PCLinuxOS on a usb flash drive comes closest to it, but we're still stuck in the XP world mainly because of application software.


The Mrs. mentioned wanting a laptop again this a.m. I sort of think the netbook is enough for her wants (a pencil and notepad would work), and anything that needs the faster operating system can be done on desktop at home.

 

[Tig]

Ubuntu Live is pretty good for turnkey OS on CD. Wireless cards can be hit and miss but it only takes 5 mins to boot and test before you buy.

 

[BigE_]

Some memory sticks have a write protect on them. Put Ubuntu Live on that and you're all set to go. As long as you can boot from the USB port, any PC (and some Macs) becomes your friend...

Another very viable option is to just use virtual PCs. VirtualBox is one free program, and M$FT has their VirtualPC program. Gotta run a program you're not sure you want to keep? Boot up the virtual PC, install the program, try it out. If you don't like it, just hit the undo button on the virtual disk drive, and you're back to ground zero.