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Multi-purpose laptop

Mason

Critical Thinker
M
Joined
Jul 23, 2004
Messages
266
Going to school out in Texas for a few months, and bringing my PC isn't an option. By the time I get finished with school and get settled at my new station, it'll be time for a new, updated PC anyway, so I can at least put gaming on the bottom of the list for the laptop.

Also, I need to get an MP3 player at the same time, so feel free to bill your favs as well. Being pretty well tech-retarded, I don't really know what features I'll need, just what the end result needs to be. Sales clerks either have just as little clue, or want to sell more than I need to buy. Bottom line, the laptop will be used for the basics...

Internet access at whatever random phoneline I can find in whatever free time I can find, even better if this can be combined with a cellphone or a built-in device that functions as one...

DVD player...

Downloading music for an MP3 player...

Substituting as a stereo...

Finally, I need to get a new cellphone, and if the laptop can't have something built-in that will get me to the internet, maybe there are cellphone models that the laptop can plug into? Like I said, tech-retarded, so use small words please. ;)
 
Pretty much any new laptop you get will do the things you want. I don't know about cell phones/ Internet access in the US so i cant answer that question, but If you get a WiFi capable laptop you should be able to connect from coffee shops etc.
 
http://www.cnet.com.au/laptops/laptops/0,239035649,240060340,00.htm
Here's one, the Qosmio. Heavy, for a laptop, but that's because it's a desktop replacement.

The notebook is based on Intel's Centrino Duo platform. Under the hood lies a 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo T2600 processor, 1GB of DDR2-533 memory, two 100GB hard drives and an Nvidia GeForce 7600 graphics chip. All of the major wireless standards are supported, including 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) LAN, 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0.
Click to expand...
 
Mason said:
Going to school out in Texas for a few months, and bringing my PC isn't an option. By the time I get finished with school and get settled at my new station, it'll be time for a new, updated PC anyway, so I can at least put gaming on the bottom of the list for the laptop.

Also, I need to get an MP3 player at the same time, so feel free to bill your favs as well. Being pretty well tech-retarded, I don't really know what features I'll need, just what the end result needs to be. Sales clerks either have just as little clue, or want to sell more than I need to buy. Bottom line, the laptop will be used for the basics...

Internet access at whatever random phoneline I can find in whatever free time I can find, even better if this can be combined with a cellphone or a built-in device that functions as one...

DVD player...

Downloading music for an MP3 player...

Substituting as a stereo...

Finally, I need to get a new cellphone, and if the laptop can't have something built-in that will get me to the internet, maybe there are cellphone models that the laptop can plug into? Like I said, tech-retarded, so use small words please. ;)
Click to expand...

For the laptop, there are lots of tradeoffs. I suggest a screen that has a resolution of at least 1280 x 1024 - the ones that are smaller than that are harder to use. The actual size of the screen in inches is up to you - larger is heavier and pricier.

Built-in WiFi is nice because it gives you better range and you don't have to carry around a separate card to use it. I would be surprised if your campus didn't feature easily accessible WiFi and hard-wired fast network connections - most networks still come with modems but most people never use them.

For MP3 players, the iPod owns the market. iTunes is fairly easy to use, and there are tons of accessories for it. Unless you have a real reason to buy something else, go with the iPod. The Nano is a decent entry-level player. It's very light, but only holds a limited amount of music. If you need more space, the bigger ones hold a ton of music.
 
For laptops, 15" or 15.4" screen size seems to be a sweet spot in terms of size, weight, and battery power. Any smaller and the batteries for the laptop must also be small and therefore don't hold much charge. Any larger and the large screen sucks the juice from the battery very quickly. Built-in wifi is a must, it's one less addon to worry about when carrying your laptop around, and the wifi can easily be disabled within windows if you don't want your PC connecting to anything.

If you ever want to play any games at all made in the past 4 or 5 years, I would suggest getting a laptop with a mobile video card. The video card will have its own memory instead of sucking off main system memory and even the cheapest of them will be able to do things that integrated video chip cannot. If you are only going to use it for internet and some office applications and the occasional game of solitaire, by all means, go with an integrated video chip.

As for mp3 players, ipod does indeed own the market. I don't own one myself, but one observation I have made is that a normal sized ipod can hold many more songs than a nano, for not that big of a price increase. Something to think about.
 
Thanks all. Ended up with the ipod nano 2 gig for the mp3 issue, and for the laptop I got a gateway. Was pressed for time, so I couldn't shop around as much as I'd have liked to. It's a dua-core with 2 gigs of ram and an integrated graphics card, 15" screen, and will serve my purposes well enough.

Thanks for the input everyone!
 
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