[thelist] laptop purchase

William Anderson neuro at well.com
Wed May 12 09:35:36 CDT 2004


Dan McCullough wrote:
> Looking to purchase a laptop for someone else.  I have been burnt by
> laptops before and usually only go with the Toshiba or IBM Thinkpad.
> They need something that will work easy (non-tech people, somewhat
> computer literate), and not have much problem.  So I was looking at a
> Dell with Windows XP Home.  Also they have a budget.

Spend the extra $20 or whatever and get XP Professional, if you must get a 
Windows operating system with it at all.  XP Home is a joke.

> 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.

Mmm, Firewire.  My Dell Latitude X300 has onboard USB2, Firewire and with 
the Media Bay also has a DVD-ROM/CD-RW (upgradable to a DVD-RW).  The build 
quality is quite good for a Dell (actually a Samsung build these days) - I 
remember the older PII and P/// Latitudes which has flimsy screen hinges and 
felt like they should have been shipped in a mass of bubble wrap and have 
the pixels licked onto the screen by kittens.

> Any thoughts, on what I should look for and at, any experiences.  Should
> I forgo the Pent 4 HT processor and go for a Pent M processor?

If you don't mind the power supply being plugged into the laptop a lot, go 
for a P4, else go for a PM.  Intel are scrapping a suite of Pentium 4 and 
Xeon parts to concentrate on the Pentium Mobile core, as it's better at 
power management and heat dissipation than the full-fat P4 - the main 
problems they've been having lately, cf. Prescott.

-- 
_ __/|  William Anderson      | Brodie: The Force is strong with this one
\`O_o'  neuro at well dot com |    Jay: Dude, don't encourage him
=(_ _)= http://neuro.me.uk/   |  -- Mallrats, (1995)
    U  - Thhbt! GPG 0xFA5F1100 |


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