Hi all, I am thinking about buying a laptop and thought i would have a quick poke around on here before making any decisions. I would ideally like a small machine (around 12", although i guess 14" would be fine) for using in the library at uni and as a downloading client as this desktop is noisy! I would like something with decent enough battery life (not too old) and a couple of usb ports, other than that, i am easy. What do you guys have knocking around? I am looking to spend around £200 tops. Cheers Hugh
I hope you don't mind me butting in here... but the Asus Eee sounds like it would suit your needs perfectly Prices being bandied about just now are [slightly] over your intended budget, but you'd have a brand new system of course... and the typical 'street' price when it's released, could be within your budget
thanks hazardous, thats exactly the kind of thing i am looking for, it looks pretty nifty too! How long do you reckon these will take to make it to the typical 'street' store? The only thing that makes me hesitate is the idea of a 900mhz celeron and the fact that the screen is SO small at just 7" (i find 1600x1200 res a pain in the arse). I am going to give it another few weeks of searching around, so if anyone does have a second hand lappy that you think might fit the bill, please drop a note in here or PM me, otherwise it looks like i will be a proud Eee owner sometime around christmas!
You can pick up the asus from www.asuslaptop.co.uk (Shop based near Clappham Junction) Although, at current, it is only available to pre-order. Hope this helps in some way. Sam
Ok Nexxo, I was initially looking to buy someone's secondhand machine, and i still am, if anyone has anything better/cheaper than the Asus Eee. Otherwise, keep the suggestions coming!
a few people at work have these tablet PCs Which does sound pretty perfect for you, they seem to be going for £200-300 on ebay lately, and i'm planning to get myself one soon... Just go for the TC1100 model (pentiumM) and avoid the TC1000 model at all costs, it's transmeta 1ghz CPU is actually slower than the 800mhz via C3 on my mini-itx server PC, quite shockingly bad performance* *to put it in perspective, i've had a pentium1 300mhz laptop with 96mb RAM run XP more responsive than this 1GHZ Transmeta with 640MB RAM
That's cool. But keep the discussion on your various options here, and once you have decided on what you are looking for, put that in the Wanted ad. You may be hard-pressed to get a TC1100 for £200,-- to £300,--. They are relatively rare and still have somewhat of a cult status amongst tablet fans. The best tablets are the Motion Computing LE1600/1700 series, but they are pretty unaffordable.
would the asus be upgradable? like OC it to 1.2ghz...? not worried about the 4gb...PClOS lite runs 812mb with Org, and Firefox 2...for that small price, and those specs, it seems pretty good..
I'd have to suggest an Eee too- there are various tablet PC options out there that are obtainable for a fair price (I believe my HP TX1138 or similar can be found for under £600 on ebay every now and then) but unless handwritten notes is a must, something simple, cheap and efficient like an Eee seems your best choice, especially considering the reviews it's received so far. <A88>
Having read Tweaktown's "Dissection" review of the Eee, it seems that the 900MHz Celeron & 4GB flash HDD cannot be upgraded, but the RAM is a standard laptop DDR2 part. Extra storage should be easy with 3 USB slots for external HDDs / thumbdrives, and also a SD/MMC card reader. I have no idea if it can be overclocked, but I suspect the BIOS will be pretty well locked down.
