[thelist] laptop purchase

[Ken Schaefer]

For piece of mind, on the Intel front, I'd get a Dell, and get:
a) three year onsite warranty (next day should be fine)
b) optionally, the accidental damage cover (which covers drops, liquid
spills) etc.

Onsite warranty is much better than having to take something back to a shop,
where it might disappear for a week whilst they wait to get the correct
parts. Three years should cover the machine until it's time to get an
upgrade.

I'm partial to the Inspiron 600M/Latitude D600. I think it's an excellent
tradeoff between power, size and features. Weight is about 2.5 kg, you get
access to all the D-series accessories (they work in the Inspiron if you wan
to get the cheaper Inspiron line), like the removable drives,
port-replicators, monitor stands etc. Pentium M processors have plenty of
grunt for a home-user but also allow for plenty of battery life (you can get
an optional battery that will fit into the removable drive bay - something
you can't do with an Apple iBook). If you decide not to get a DVD burner at
time of purchase, you can always upgrade later (since the optical drive sits
in the removable drive bay).

Cheers
Ken

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <evolt at mccullough-net.com>
To: <thelist at lists.evolt.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 11:30 PM
Subject: Re: [thelist] laptop purchase


: Thats what we use now, but they seem to be pretty closed to the idea.  I
will
: try and get them to change their mind but that will be difficult.
:
: Any Windows laptop thoughts?
:
:
:
: Quoting Geoff Sheridan <evolt at premonition.co.uk>:
:
: > They should get an Apple iBook.
: >
: > If they are interested in audio recording they would be well advised
: > to check out Apple's new consumer music sequencer, GarageBand. If
: > they do a fair bit of consumer level music stuff they won't want to
: > miss this.
: > GarageBand is free with new macs, I'm off to get a MIDI keyboard to
: > play with it more today!
: >
: > If DV is interesting to them they'll be very pleased with iMovie.
: > Also free with a new Mac.
: >
: > PowerPoint is available for Mac. It is not free.
: >
: > The iBook is gorgeous and really quite reliable.
: >
: > Geoff
: >
: >
: >
: > At 8:54 am -0400 11/5/04, Dan McCullough wrote:
: > >Here is what they need it for.  Audio recording and burning, power
point
: > >presentations and a few other small things.  They would also like to
: > >possibly burn Digital Video.