o/t lap tops
Turbo Mini Forums

Hi i am currently looking for a lap top not got loads of money to spend about £400-£500. It will be used mainly for the internet and pictures downloading music etc Is it still possible to get a nine pin serial port as used with megajolt and my techedge afr meter. Wheres the best place to look? cheers Ron

I went with the bird at the weekend as hers has crapped out, £500 seems to get you a reasonably decent machine from any of the big high street shops, there were Toshiba and Fujitsu-Siemens machines that looked half decent at that money. I expect on the net you may get a slightly better deal, but depends if you are comfortable espending that amount of money without seeing the thing first,

Hi,
I bought a second hand Dell Latitude D800, does all that and more, cost less than £400.
P4, 1Gig ram, big screen, wireless, bluetooth .......
Cheers,
Gavin :)

Edited by Bat on 31st May, 2007.

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Thats what i am thinking, Dell seem to have some good offers but like you say it is always good to see something before you buy it! At the end of the day its going to be a workhorse so doesnt need to be too fancy!

Only thing I will say about Dell is choose your model carefully.

The company I work with has an arrangement with Dell and thus I've seen most of the recent (last 5 years or so) models. There have been several problems, most recnt with overheating batteries ... sometimes to the point of catching fire!!

There have also been some very fragile machines too ... fall apart as soon as you open the box affairs.

However there have been some very good machines too .... just do a bit of research on the Dell tech forums adn you'll be fine.

I personally would always spend my money on Toshiba, in fact I'm using my Tosh now to type this. It's nearly 4 years old, 2.8Ghz processor and 1Gb of ram with CAD workstation graphics and runs SolidWorks faster and better than my so called Design station at work!!!!
The only down side is that there is no serial port :( That said it worked fine with Rob's MegaJolt and his USB-serial adapter ... although I'd prefer a real 9D plug myself too.

As Tom has mentioned there are some fantastic deals on the net .... Google Toshiba laptops and you'll find plenty of great spec machines in your budget.

Rog

P.S. don't right off ACER machines, they are really good value for money too!!

Edited by RogerM on 31st May, 2007.

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How fast and how expensive ...... the same question...

I'd agree regarding Toshiba laptops, I've had two and when the time comes to replace my current one I will certainly be buying another Tosh, sounds similar to your Rog, 2.8GHz and I upgraded it to 1.2Gb RAM, as you say no serial port though, although I have recently bought a USB adaptor and it works with no issues.

Toshiba here too.
Regards
Dave

if you are looking mate you might wanna have a word with my dad - he supplies and maintains comps and laptops. I can have a word with him and see what kind of deal he can get you

Ant

If you want something for in the garage then i reckon you cant do better than a toughbook.

I've got one for work and its covered a few hundred thousand miles with me over the last 2yrs and its still perfect and hasnt missed a beat!!

I have a CF-73.

Its also survived many drops including a couple off the mini roof onto tarmac with no damage.

Toshiba is fine, dell -> pick one of the upper models if you are traveling alot.

At the moment my work laptop is a IBM/Lenovo thinkpad X41 which I love because of size and weight. Drawback of this laptop is the fact that it lacks a decent video processor.

5 years ago I would have said toshiba too, there was nothing better. But recent toshibas I have used have been a bit crap and nothing like the old quality. Some of the new Sony laptops are very nice, but the £500 range is not great.

Like has already been said, Dell good stuff is not bad, but the cheep stuff can be flimsy. We had some dells in work and we got them because they had serial ports to talk to PLCs. However the 5v supply to the serial port was crap and it would keep dropping off under load and hang up the serial comms.

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i bought a acer aspire recently and have been very happy with it ,you get very good components for the price.

i have heard that p4 laptops chew the battery? not sure best way would be centrino duo probly quiker and less power.

not sure if any laptops come with serialbut as said usb to serial is pretty basic.

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the cf-73 comes with a serial as we need it all the time for work.

Thanks for the replys it will dfinately point me in the right direction! I have borrowed an ibm thinkpad at the minute to get my megajolt set up! but i will be buying one very soon!