Cheapie Net Surfer.

[Ninjahedge]

Hey all,

Just a question. My mother is a school teacher, so for 10 months out of the year she has a laptop that she can also check her personal mail on.

But, summer comes and that goes away.

I have tried setting up a hand-me-down from my own PC collection, but that has never really gone over well, so now I am looking to set her up with a portable notebook/netbook that can handle some simple surfing and mail.

If anyone has a direction I should look (I am shooting at about $300...give or take), PLEASE let me know. I woud like to log on over the 4th and pick it up if there are any good sales...

TIA!

 

[dpodblood]

If you are just looking for something basic I would recommend a cheapie Acer laptop, or maybe a nettop with a dual core atom if she prefers to sit at a desk. That said why are the hand me downs not working? I also give my old PC's away to family and find they regularly mess them up by getting viruses or failing to do proper maintenance. You could try locking down so she can't install programs, or if she's only checking email, etc, just install Ubuntu.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Atom is a little slow for surfing but it's easy to find small and light models under $300.

Most 15.6" dual-core Pentium laptops are $300-400 unless you buy refurbished. They should have 3-4 GB and a big hard drive though, and will make surfing much smoother.

Circuit City had a Gateway refurb for $299 yesterday but it's probably gone by now.

Dell Financial services has off-lease and closeout laptops cheap but with warranties. A friend bought 2 of them a couple of years ago and was happy with the condition:
http://www.dfsdirectsales.com/

 

[VirtualLarry]

What about a mini-ITX Zacate rig?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2174663
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2168147
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2144118

I saw a Pentium 6100 dual-core with 4GB RAM and a 500GB HD for $400 at WalMart B&M the other day, that might be a solution too. I think it had Webcam and HDMI.

 

[Ninjahedge]

Good suggestion, but I would like to avoid the WAL. (It ate my son).

I would probably be looking for a delivery (Newegg, MWave, Surpluscomp et all).

I am taking a look at the DFS now.

The key is just something functional to fill the Apple Gap while she is at home (GENIUS on the part of Mac to give schools cheap macs BTW...). I don't think she will mind an XP Home or 7 machine if all she is doing is surfing, mailing, printing the odd coupon....

Keep 'em comin while I take a look at Dell....

 

[Ninjahedge]

If you are just looking for something basic I would recommend a cheapie Acer laptop, or maybe a nettop with a dual core atom if she prefers to sit at a desk. That said why are the hand me downs not working? I also give my old PC's away to family and find they regularly mess them up by getting viruses or failing to do proper maintenance. You could try locking down so she can't install programs, or if she's only checking email, etc, just install Ubuntu.

2 reasons, really.

1, I have 2 generations in house (one being used as gamer/main, another as the server w/3ware raid)

2, as said in my other post, mother is a school teacher. They buy apples for them. So anything I get would probably only be used for convenience not as the main machine during season (and that is why I am looking in the cheapie range).

BTW, anything that has a decent 480I (composit vit) output would be handy as well so they would be able to hook to their TV (I might just get them a Roku or WDLive just to make things easy...)

 

[Ninjahedge]

OK, got back from Dell....


Very few with decent options. All the $300 machines were about 80 gigs, no OS (or Vista!!!), 2G memory and blah.

I guess you need to check often to score....

 

[Ninjahedge]

Question on the ZACATE.... What is the diff between that and what I was researching on the other thread (A silverstone mini ATX gamer rig)?

Aside from the obvious of course.....

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2154512

 

[dave_the_nerd]

(GENIUS on the part of Mac to give schools cheap macs BTW...).

I work in a school - just want to point out that they don't give us cheap macs - Apple's educator discounts are about on par with everybody else's as a %, which means the computer still cost a good chunk more.

But their support is excellent, and we can get by with about half as many IT staff.

So... myth dispelled.

In your position I would probably be looking for a used Thinkpad T60 or something. They can be had for not a lot of money ($200-$300, seems like) and are excellent laptops.

 

[Zap]

OK, got back from Dell....

Very few with decent options. All the $300 machines were about 80 gigs, no OS (or Vista!!!), 2G memory and blah.

I guess you need to check often to score....

Yup. There's a difference between a hot deal and regular price.

Question on the ZACATE.... What is the diff between that and what I was researching on the other thread (A silverstone mini ATX gamer rig)?

Zacate is designed to compete against and beat a dual core Atom with ION. It is fine for "normal desktop" usage, but in anything CPU intensive it will be very slow compared to traditional desktop CPUs. It also is not fast enough to take advantage of graphics cards, even though most desktop Zacate boards have a PCIe x16 slot (electrically x4).

Zacate excels in power draw. A desktop Zacate with a desktop hard drive probably will draw 30-40W of power from the wall. Knock off 5W+ if you use an SSD.

 

[Ninjahedge]

Sounds like a great HTPC.....