Advice needed for laptop purchase - easy requirements :)

[pookiekun]

Hiya, I've only posted here on the forums a few times, but am looking at probably buying a laptop this summer. There are five basic requirements for it:

Portable and Long Battery Life
PCMCIA expansion
and/or USB
Inexpensive
Reliable

I don't necessarily want what is just coming out now. I also don't really want something that's ten years old: I'm planning on loading linux (debian, fluxbox) on it, and using it for word processing and internet only (ergo the pcmcia or usb - i can get a wireless connection through either one of them).

Any suggestions? I was browsing ebay, but I've never really been into the laptop scene before, so I don't know how different companies' track records on reliability and battery life are. By cheap, I mean below 250 dollars. I'm a poor student, after all, and hopefully upgrading my desktop before I get this... I just want to know what I'm getting before I get it, you know?

 

[dsaewra]

Portable and Long battery life, Reliable, and inexpensive (<$250) are in conflict with each other.

Well, depending upon your definition of portable and long battery life.

 

[Hellblast]

Let me give you some pointers, hope they help:
1) Do a search, there are many topics like this in this forum that'll give you an idea what people recommend here.
2) shopper.cnet.com has, once you click on notebooks, a filtering system that will allow you to put in basic preferences and it will filter for laptops that it has in the database. That does not mean that they have all conceivable laptops in their database. Other places may have this, too.
3) Long battery life usually means Centrino these days, they're not too cheap. Go to www.centrino.com for Intel's website and they have links to all manufacturors of Centrino laptops.

I love my Acer Travelmate 800 series laptop. It lasts more than 4 hours easy, has 4 USB, 1 Firewire, PCMCIA and a 15" screen at 1400x1050.

Hellblast

 

[pookiekun]

Definition of portable? small, and under 6 lbs.

Long battery life? 2-4 hours.

Performance? <500mhz probably.

The major performance requirement is >32mb of RAM, and a >4gb hdd.. Like I said, I'm not looking for a monster (or even a performer).

I was looking at sony Vaios on ebay, and saw some deals for, say, a 366mhz with 64mb of RAM and a 5gb hard drive for around 130. Including two batteries... like I said before, though, I don't know the reputation of different laptop manufacturers. Before now, I've always been a build-it-myself desktop guy...

 

[preslove]

i would go with an ibm 600_ series.

 

[pookiekun]

One thing I noticed about the 600 series, is that the models that go up to 1024x768 only support 64,000 colors at that resolution. Is this typical of the 1024x768 Vaios as well?

 

[Frightcrawler]

the difference between an IBM and a sony vaio is that an ibm is actually worth the extra amount of cash you pay.
when you buy a sony laptop, you are just buying a name.

 

[UltraWide]

Originally posted by: Frightcrawler
the difference between an IBM and a sony vaio is that an ibm is actually worth the extra amount of cash you pay.
when you buy a sony laptop, you are just buying a name.

 

[preslove]

Dude, when you are looking to spend ~$250 on a laptop your main concerns should be those that you listed as well as "not mind-numbingly slow," in this order: Reliable, not mind-numbingly slow, Long Battery Life, PCMCIA expansion and/or USB, Portable. If you want a pretty screen then you need to at least twice as much $. I have used ibm 600's and a friend of mine is in love with his, because it dose what it needs to do reliably.