How to buy a cheap laptop ?

[Zaphod]

Why. Whats wrong with the Thinkpad? Is the RAM not enough or is it the side bus speed.

An old Thinkpad is a good choice as a notetaker, for presenations, and everyday on the road stuff. The're small, can be had cheap, are built like a tank, and often have decent battry life. Most users of subnotebooks/ultraportables doesn't need great multimedia capabilities or raw performance, so for these users an older model can make good sense (preferably with an extra stick of RAM).

However, you mentioned games and movies, and for that a machine like this is sub-par. A 4:3 XGA screen is bad for movies. The CPU and graphics are bad for virtually *any* game.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Don't forget the thimble-full of ram Zaphod, that would make it suck for gaming even more.

You want 1Gb of RAM to have a prayer of gaming decently, IMHO.

 

[sandy]

I am not sure that I require 1 GB of RAM. How about this laptop at ebay ?

 

[KimB]

Ugh, P4's make nasty laptop processors, and that'll just end up getting hot. For that price, you might as well just buy a new one anyway (notice $80 shipping, you can get many laptops with free shipping online, such as at the hp store).

 

[Frank]

At the moment, Toshiba has the best laptops for the best price, with ASUS being a close competitor. For non-gaming, anything with at least 512 MB RAM works, but if you want to play games as well, you need a decent GPU as well.

If you can be a bit more specific about the games you like to play and if you care about maximum settings and high framerates, we can tell you what the cheapest one is that would work. And it would also help to know if you will be using it on battery power a lot.

 

[Snyder]

At the moment, Toshiba has the best laptops for the best price, with ASUS being a close competitor.

Sorry, but IMO the notebook market and its requirements are far too diverse for such an absolute statement to make sense. (Well, in fact it would make sense, if Toshiba/Asus would have the best offers for most/all notebook kinds/configurations. But that is definitely not the case.)

 

[Frank]

Sorry, but IMO the notebook market and its requirements are far too diverse for such an absolute statement to make sense. (Well, in fact it would make sense, if Toshiba/Asus would have the best offers for most/all notebook kinds/configurations. But that is definitely not the case.)

Agreed. You're best off browsing reviews for each and every single model you come across. Barring that, for people who want a simple recommendataion, what would you offer as criteria?

 

[KimB]

No point in browsing every review, but if you can narrow your choices down to some specific criteria, the choices become limited quite fast.

Anyway, here's another site for pretty good notebook deals:
http://www.discountlaptops.com/

 

[sandy]

Excuse me guys, I am not as well informed as you. Which is why I posed this question to all of you. Ok let me just rephrase my question...

What are the aspects that I should look to while buying a refurbished laptop ? Dos/ donts ?

 

[KimB]

1. Check for the amount of memory. Too many cheap laptops have far too little. 512MB is an absolute minimum, with 1GB preferred.

2. If you're into games, take a good look at the GPU. The amount of RAM in the GPU is almost totally meaningless, it's the GPU itself that is important. There's too many GPU's out there to list a simple summary here, but a good rule of thumb is that for games, stay away from integrated video.

3. The CPU determines a lot about the heat a laptop will put out. As far as Intel goes, the Pentium 4 is crappy, the Pentium 3 is halfway-decent, and the Pentium-M and Core processors are good. As far as AMD goes, I think their Turion line is pretty good, but I'm not certain about their older lines. Transmeta's Crusoe processors, while a bit slow, are excellent for battery life.

4. Old laptops will often come with old batteries. This means that you can't expect a refurbished laptop to have good battery life, unless you purchase a new battery, which can be expensive. If battery life is important to you, you're usually better-off buying new.

5. The size of the laptop is an important consideration. No one size is best for everybody: larger laptops have larger screens and easier-to-use keyboards, but are more cumbersome to carry around. Smaller laptops often have longer battery life and are much more convenient for carrying around.

Anyway, those are just some basic considerations.

 

[Frank]

And, as Windows scales text pretty bad, you might want to avoid laptops with a resolution above 1280 pixels, unless it's 17".

 

[Snyder]

And, as Windows scales text pretty bad, you might want to avoid laptops with a resolution above 1280 pixels, unless it's 17".

Or, face the facts and finally get some glasses.

(Seriously - I find 1600x1200 on a 15"-Notebook great! Can't have enough vertical resolution when coding... )

 

[Frank]

Or, face the facts and finally get some glasses.

(Seriously - I find 1600x1200 on a 15"-Notebook great! Can't have enough vertical resolution when coding... )

No, my vision is 20/20. It depends on personal preferences. One of my co-workers also has a 1600x1200 15" screen, which he fills with many, smallish windows. I get a headache watching him work. And I like things full-screen and easily readeable.

 

[sandy]

1. Check for the amount of memory. Too many cheap laptops have far too little. 512MB is an absolute minimum, with 1GB preferred.

2. If you're into games, take a good look at the GPU. The amount of RAM in the GPU is almost totally meaningless, it's the GPU itself that is important. There's too many GPU's out there to list a simple summary here, but a good rule of thumb is that for games, stay away from integrated video.

3. The CPU determines a lot about the heat a laptop will put out. As far as Intel goes, the Pentium 4 is crappy, the Pentium 3 is halfway-decent, and the Pentium-M and Core processors are good. As far as AMD goes, I think their Turion line is pretty good, but I'm not certain about their older lines. Transmeta's Crusoe processors, while a bit slow, are excellent for battery life.

4. Old laptops will often come with old batteries. This means that you can't expect a refurbished laptop to have good battery life, unless you purchase a new battery, which can be expensive. If battery life is important to you, you're usually better-off buying new.

5. The size of the laptop is an important consideration. No one size is best for everybody: larger laptops have larger screens and easier-to-use keyboards, but are more cumbersome to carry around. Smaller laptops often have longer battery life and are much more convenient for carrying around.

Anyway, those are just some basic considerations.

This has got to be one of the best replies I have seen in a long time. Thanks so much to everybody who have given informative advice. Ok so how do you choose a laptop with a good GPU. What constitutes a good GPU ? And generally, are normal laptops robust enough or should you be looking for a rugged laptop in particular. You know us students are notorious for manhandling ( !!!! ) of laptops.

 

[KimB]

Well, for gaming, I wouldn't go for less than a GeForce Go 6600 or 7600 on the nVidia side, and I wouldn't go for less than a Radeon X1600 on the ATI side. But any of these choices would require you to buy a pretty new laptop. And if you're willing to deal with lower resolutions and/or lack of SM3, you could go with other hardware.

 

[sandy]

Okay. How about the sturdiness , durability or whatever of a laptop. And where can you specify all these requirements and get the laptop of your choice ? Other than ebay

 

[Snyder]

No, my vision is 20/20. It depends on personal preferences. One of my co-workers also has a 1600x1200 15" screen, which he fills with many, smallish windows. I get a headache watching him work. And I like things full-screen and easily readeable.

Of course, I wasn't completely serious. (the smiley should've been a hint )
I know that's possibly not a majority preference - my coworkers watching me code on my old Inspiron 8200 (awesome display!) regularily went "how on earth can you work with that thing?!".

 

[sandy]

Repeat question

How about the sturdiness , durability or whatever of a laptop. And where can you specify all these requirements and get the laptop of your choice ? Other than ebay