Lightweight notebooks

[mattpegher]

Wife needs a laptop. She would prefer something small but still may need to do some typing. Ideal would have a quick and simple docking station that would allow printer, mouse and full sized keyboard. Internal wireless a must, Wifi would be nice.

No heavy graphics needed. Running Office (Word,Excel and powerpoint mostly), Adobe Acrobat writer and Internet Explorer. She tends to have many documents open at once so decent RAM.

Any suggestions.

 

[TheStu]

So um... when you say internet wireless a must, wifi would be nice... Do you mean something like a card from Sprint or Cingular when you say internet wireless, something that can for all intents and purposes, connect anywhere? Or do you mean 802.11, because if you mean that, that is wifi. And I don't think there are any new notebooks out there that don't come with wifi, and that has held true for the past 2 years or so.

What is your budget? Does your place of business have deals with any particular company that would yield you a discount? Do you insist on a docking station, especially considering that you could hook the printer, keyboard and mouse into a USB Hub and then plug just one cable into the laptop. Do you have any OS preferences?

These and other questions should be answered before any useful advice can be given.

 

[hmsrolst]

I hate lugging a big laptop around and use one for similar purposes to your wife. I have a Dell D420 Core Duo with 1.5GB of RAM and am very happy with it. I picked up a docking station very inexpensively on ebay, about $50-$60. I just looked at the Dell Outlet and there are some refurbished (not scratch and dent and with 3-year warranty) for less than $800.

 

[WombRaider]

What's your price range?

I suggest the Lenovo Thinkpad X61s. Arguably the best keyboard for laptops, has an optional docking station, and is super lightweight. I bought one myself.

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILib...9B4ECB9ADAD8E72CF6FD61

Here's how to get the best deal on it:
http://lenovoforums.com/index.php?topic=11.0

 

[abaqus07]

I will prefer to compaq.

 

[BladeVenom]

You didn't mention price. Check out some of the Panansonic business laptops, small, light, and very good battery life. They are bit expensive and not that common.

 

[mattpegher]

Our company is a small LLC, so no vendor deals. The OS must be windows, we have a wireless ethernet (linksys A/G) at the house but no other networking necessary.
The size limits would be smallest package but still able to type.

The simplest hook up to external keyboard and printer would facilitate the wife actually using it.

budget about $2000.

 

[TheStu]

Well, as far as recommendations go, I would say a Dell Latitude, I think they make a 14" WS model now, and it is fairly thin and light. And unless you really need the docking port for other things (like convenience in hooking up extra monitor, the power, all that jazz) then I would go with my initial recommendation of just getting a USB hub to hook all the stuff into, and then hook the hub into the laptop. That is what I did at my dorm so I could have my printer, ipod dock, external burner, mouse, thumbdrive, and 2 external hard drives hooked up when I got home (2 USB hubs, in daisy chain)

 

[mattpegher]

Thanks