Ok, so mine just died. I'm loooking at this one...any better options?

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Compaq+-+Presario+Laptop+/+AMD+Athlon%26%23153%3B+II+Processor+/+15.6%22+Display+/+3GB+Memory+/+250GB+Hard+Drive+-+Black/1114512.p?id=1218221912484&skuId=1114512

I cant afford much over that right now. Or I could, but it would mean selling one of my guns. All I really do is surf the net anyway. Thought bout getting a netbook, but havent been to look at how small they are yet.

9/2/2010 11:58:10 PM

I bought a $350 compaq presario a couple years ago on BF, it's still running, although battery is now close to dead after 2-3/4 years or so. Great laptop for surfing, traveling, most standard everyday stuff.

9/3/2010 12:05:48 AM

personally, I'd look at the netbooks, I'm actually in the market for one and waiting till ION2 becomes more widely available. I'm liking the idea of 5-11 hours of use depending on what config I end up going with, but I'm set on a pricier netbook with dual core and ION graphics, I mean a 12" netbook that can play crysis? sold.

9/3/2010 12:27:54 AM

^^^If I were in your position I'd sell a gun or two; in my position I don't have that option because I have no guns (not anti-gun here, it was just never a priority)

I recommend getting a 64-bit laptop with a 64-bit OS (and a good GPU like the one you linked to, to take advantage of that upcoming hardware-accelerated web graphics in IE9, Firefox 4, Chrome 7, and the like), but even what you just linked to is much better than my old one that still works well...

9/3/2010 12:46:04 AM

Labor Day Sale might be a great time, but good sales have been tough to come by lately.

I echo the netbook route. I'm definitely in the market for one. But I'd also look seriously at something ION or ION2 - the older chipset is not quite as power friendly, but they're normally found in the sub-$400 range with 12" screen, full keyboard, and toys like HDMI out and full-size card readers.

9/3/2010 2:22:27 AM

That actually looks like a very good laptop...I'm almost tempted to buy one of those soon, but I'll probably hold off until IE9 comes out (it won't run on XP, so you can't test sites in IE9 on an XP machine) and then see whether Windows 8 is just around the corner (and whether Windows 7 SP1 hasn't been released quite yet) and if it's not then I'll get something (probably more like $1000 tbqh) and hope it lasts even longer than the 6 years my current laptop will have lasted.

9/3/2010 4:37:20 AM

I actually might buy two netbooks an 10 and 12 inch one. I really like the 10" sizes for it's uber form factor and a lot of them last like 9+ hours now, then grab a 12" one later on once ION2 and dual atom cpu's become more avaliable. It's killing me right now to haul this 17" dell laptop around with a worthless battery that lasts no more than 20 mins, specially now that I strained my rotator cup on my left shoulder.

9/3/2010 10:36:22 AM

How different would it be going from a laptop to a netbook? What operating system to netbooks like to run, XP or 7?

9/3/2010 10:53:52 AM

n/m, i was just going to say i don't think ION2 is worth it (but i've only compared the miniITX ion solutions for HD video playback)

other than battery life, i don't see a reason to recommend a netbook over this laptop. if you are thinking of a netbook, go try one out first, i just don't think they're as usable and certainly not nearly as fast... and 12" screen is still really small. 14.4" is ideal, 15.6" is more normal for productivity

[Edited on September 3, 2010 at 11:06 AM. Reason : .]

9/3/2010 11:00:39 AM

Quote :

"other than battery life, i don't see a reason to recommend a netbook over this laptop. if you are thinking of a netbook, go try one out first, i just don't think they're as usable and certainly not nearly as fast... and 12" screen is still really small. 14.4" is ideal, 15.6" is more normal for productivity"

For portability and even power. I had a 12" 1366 by 768 and it worked great. That's the same resolution as on most 15.6" so as long as you're not blind there isn't a difference in the amount of data you can display on the screen, just DPI.

Plus with the Ion and Ion 2 you're getting more HD/gaming power than a laptop for the comparable price. Most laptops in the $300-500 range don't have dedicated graphic cards and you won't get near the performance on them as compared to a network with a dual core atom and Ion 2.

On the Ion 1 (based on 9400m) I could almost max out most source games and play plenty of games on medium settings. With the new Ion 2 (based upon 320m?) it would even be better. HD performance is great too because the Ion netbooks typically come with an HDMI out.

So for $400-500 you get a netbook that can hold its own in games, eats through 1080p HD and acts as a HTPC with the HDMI out. Plus they're great to carry around with you. 15.6" is just too big to carry with you all the time. It's more like, "oh hold on I gotta get my laptop" compared to just having a netbook with you in your normal bag.

9/3/2010 12:49:49 PM

Uh, ok, you basically said the same thing i did... portability sure, performance <eh>, which i'd challenge you on. The CPU in the laptop is 50% faster than the atom and the HD4250 is about equal to the ION2. Gaming on a 12" screen, that's just about retarded. it's not about resolution, it's about scale. And there's no reason why the laptop couldn't be plugged into act as a Media Center either. It's 5.5lbs and 4hr battery life.

I have a dual-core atom 330 w/ ION for my HTPC, I know exactly how it performs. It's good, will play HD content, but not nearly as fast as you make it out to be and sure as heck can't play games above low settings unless their 3-4 year old games. I have MORE of an issue with screen size and keyboard size (for everyday use) than I do with the power. If I traveled a lot I'd get a netbook. But for everyday use, I'd never recommend it.

[Edited on September 3, 2010 at 1:34 PM. Reason : .]

9/3/2010 1:24:16 PM

Yeah I sold my Asus 1201n and bought a 13" Macbook Pro.

9/3/2010 1:45:25 PM

prospero, which netbook you have again?

9/3/2010 3:02:50 PM

i don't have a netbook, i have a miniITX atom/ION as a HTPC w/ Bluray playback

[Edited on September 3, 2010 at 4:32 PM. Reason : .]

9/3/2010 4:30:52 PM

Quote :

"What operating system to netbooks like to run, XP or 7?"

New computers with XP are rare now; more common (in business environments) is Win7 with downgrade rights; the crappier netbooks now come with Windows 7 Starter, which is so limited you'll be better off replacing it with Ubuntu, and some better ones come with Windows 7 Home Premium.

9/3/2010 8:24:53 PM

So do we have a netbook recomendation for around $300?

9/3/2010 9:34:22 PM

10" maaaaaybe...

9/3/2010 10:06:35 PM

what can't windows 7 starter do?

9/3/2010 11:50:45 PM

too long to list, major things = 2GB memory max, no Media Center, no 64-bit, no multiple monitors, no desktop wallpaper, no network printing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions#Comparison_chart

9/4/2010 12:01:14 AM

so if starter only supports 1 physical core, does that mean it can or can't do smp with a dual core atom?

[Edited on September 4, 2010 at 12:16 AM. Reason : ]

9/4/2010 12:15:46 AM

^can't

9/4/2010 12:56:21 AM

^can, it's limited to single cpu, not single core

9/4/2010 1:25:34 AM

notice what statement I was responding to

Quote :

"if starter only supports 1 physical core"

...but I checked and it looks like you're correct, that it in fact supports more than one core

9/4/2010 3:05:38 AM

So the netbooks I am looking at come with either XP or Starter 7. Sounds like at my price point XP would be a better choice right?

9/4/2010 7:47:38 AM

Have my windows 7 start on a network printer.

9/4/2010 9:22:12 AM

i think what it means is no network printer sharing

9/4/2010 12:19:18 PM

^^^what's so wrong about the computer you linked to in the OP? Anyway yes XP is a better idea.

9/4/2010 3:46:42 PM

I have a netbook with 11" screen and do not want anything bigger.

It is so much lighter and battery last so much longer I ended up giving my laptop away.

9/5/2010 12:42:57 AM

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Gateway+-+Laptop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i3+Processor+/+14%22+Display+/+4GB+Memory+/+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+Silver/9972848.p?id=1218202944334&skuId=9972848

Well, I shot my budget to hell. I wanted a netbook, but my fat fingers kept hitting 2 keys at once. I didnt want a big laptop, so I found this gateway that is kinda best of both worlds. Blistering fast, and extremely light and compact.

9/5/2010 10:24:08 AM

Honestly, Starter 7 is perfect for netbooks. All the drawbacks of starter SHOULDN'T be a problem if you're using a netbook for anything practical. And honestly, it's time to move past XP. I've seen criticism that if you get XP for your netbook you're going to have problems later on, but I have absolutely no personal evidence to back that up and it's not a claim I would support without knowing more about it.

As far as the most common things people say against Starter 7, things like "it's slower than XP on a netbook", it's worked fantastic for me and I haven't bothered to upgrade to 2GB RAM on this netbook--it simply hasn't been necessary. It's faster than a lot of laptops I've used. I have Firefox with multiple tabs open, Skype, Pidgin, and several other programs and it's fiiiiiine.

9/5/2010 3:24:07 PM

Brandon, there are a few 12" netbooks that have full sized keyboards, I think samsung and acer's have this, some decent ones for about the 280-350 mark.

9/5/2010 3:56:03 PM

^^^i think that's perfect, like i mentioned earlier, 14" seems to be ideal, great battery life, full-size keyboard, lightweight, full featured, performance, and portable.

^^i don't think anyone suggested it wasn't ok for netbooks.


[Edited on September 5, 2010 at 4:22 PM. Reason : .]

9/5/2010 4:20:45 PM

^Yeah, this is my first nicer laptop. The thing is blazing fast, and really light and thin. I'm really happy with it. Extra $200 well spent. However, Gateways touch pad blows.

9/5/2010 7:41:03 PM

and it is a 64-bit OS

the wave of the future

9/5/2010 11:38:23 PM

until 128 bit comes into play...

9/6/2010 5:25:11 AM

That won't happen for a long time; just think about how long it took to go from 32 to 64 and also the massive leap in the amount of memory that can theoretically be addressed by a 64-bit processor...

The i386 (Intel 80386) was invented in 1985, setting the standard for what we call the "x86" architecture (formerly "x86-32" and formally "IA-32"), but the "x86-64" revolution wasn't started until AMD released the Athlon 64 in 2003, 18 years later; meanwhile the move from 16 to 32 only took 9 years (the x86 line started off with the Intel 8086 in 1976), from 8 to 16 took 4 years (8008 in 1972), and from 4 to 8 took 1 year (4004 in 1971, the first commercially available CPU).
Although Intel and AMD weren't the first to make processors of these word sizes, they were the first to dominate the marketplace and set computing toward those various bit-numbers; to be fair the dates I mentioned weren't exactly when the bit-numbers became dominant, however (Microsoft didn't go 32-bit until 1993 in its server OS and 1995 in its consumer OS, while Apple went 32-bit in 1991; 64-bit has been on a soft launch since 2005 and only recently began to crowd out 32-bit operating systems).
Anyway I think you'll be eligible for senior discounts by the time 64-bit becomes obsolete.

Also consider the amount of memory addressable by each word size:
4-bit: 2^4 B=16B (16 bytes)
8-bit: 2^8 B=256B
16-bit: 2^16 B=2^6*2^10 B=2^6*1kiB=64kiB
32-bit: 2^32 B=2^2*2^30 B=2^2*1GiB=4GiB
64-bit: 2^64 B=2^4*2^60 B=2^4*1EiB=16EiB
Remember, 1024B=1kiB (kibibyte), 1024kiB=1MiB (mebibyte), 1024MiB=1GiB (gibibyte), 1024GiB=1TiB (tebibyte), 1024TiB=1PiB (pebibyte), and 1024PiB=1EiB (exbibyte).

Many measures of all of the data or Internets traffic can still be measured in exbibytes or the related decimal unit exabytes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exabyte

The theoretical address space of 64-bit CPUs far outstrips the memory requirements of any application known to man; by comparison, during the heyday of 16-bit, programmers were already bumping up against that 64kiB limit and devising ways to swap out parts of a program or use complicated memory mapping to work around it.

9/6/2010 1:50:52 PM

apparently someone doesn't understand sarcasm...

9/6/2010 10:37:22 PM

tell that to my 512-bit graphics card, psssh.... lol.

[Edited on September 6, 2010 at 10:58 PM. Reason : ,]

9/6/2010 10:58:09 PM

plz bisnitch, need to be at least in the 1024 or higher range to make it out in the real world dawg.

9/7/2010 12:23:03 PM

k my laptop's screen just got *another* defect (first a white-out strip back in '07, then a red line in '09, then widening of the white-out strip earlier this year, and now a blue line, all vertical) and I'm worried the screen is about to go baibai

so I'm thinking about springing for this: http://dealnews.com/Compaq-Presario-AMD-Dual-Core-2.1-GHz-16-Laptop-for-350-free-shipping/387675.html

even though it's less powerful than I was looking for, it's still a good price point; I mean it's way more powerful than my 5-year-old laptop and in real terms my current one cost about 2 and a half times as much as this one does now

9/10/2010 12:00:41 AM

I want an under $4000 laptops thread

9/10/2010 12:12:57 AM

^geez. Only the trickiest of the tricky are that pricey. I priced a dream desktop replacement W series for around that figure.

Unless you want mac, then that will get you like a Core 2 Duo or something.

9/10/2010 12:46:38 AM

about to go down to Staples (in-store exclusive deal) to see whether the laptop is as awesome as I thought and whether the keys are as squeaky as the review seems to say

9/10/2010 8:27:53 AM

Quote :

"I want an under $4000 laptops thread "

or over $4000! Those are fun to spec out. Gaming laptops/desktop replacements are never worth the money IMO though.

[Edited on September 10, 2010 at 9:14 AM. Reason : s]

9/10/2010 9:12:49 AM

what if you are a professional gamer? you need that mobile SLI with three ssd's in a raid 5 with a 980x cpu and ungodly amount of ram.

9/10/2010 3:08:48 PM

GDDR5 4lyfe

anyway I did just get that laptop I most recently linked to; it's low on peripherals (no webcam, card reader, or PCMCIA slot, and only 3 USB ports) but excellent on performance for the price, and it's expandable to 8GB of that sweet sweet DDR3

9/10/2010 4:32:55 PM

^^i'm pretty sure professional gamers don't game on 17" screens, no matter how mobile they are. hence the creation of the "LAN box"

9/10/2010 6:14:49 PM

And even then, professional gamers don't need things like SSD's. They're more for convenience. They're not going to help gaming performance were FPS is king.

9/10/2010 7:43:27 PM

they don't care, they got it for free and something to use to take over to friends lan parties to rape em. lol

9/10/2010 8:19:49 PM

^^SSD's sure help out map load times. Be the first one to load the map. They don't help out with FPS but everything loads faster.

9/11/2010 1:54:44 PM