OT: Laptops/Notebooks and Travel Thread XXIII

[Rizon]

I'm going to NY and SD the next couple of months, and I'm going to be bored as hell flying solo. So I wanted to buy a laptop so I can play OOTP and FOF while monkey-children hop all around my seat.

I don't want some kind of super coffee-making laptop that has 5.4 ghz and 1900ram and 474,000 gig of space. I just want something that can run OOTP and FOF (and of course MS Excel), and maybe play some DVDs. I don't think I want to spend over $1000.

I read a bunch of Laptop threads, but I have more questions:

1) What is a fair price for a basic laptop that would do what I described above? (I see some online Dells that are 2.4ghz, 256ram, 20gig HD ... some other bells and whistles for around $1000)

1a) What type of minimum specs/addons should I get?

2) How long do batteries typically last for laptops / can I recharge them in an airport socket / should I buy a 2nd battery?

3) Is there a problem with space on your food tray with a laptop if a 9ft tall dude/fat chick/40 children lean back?

4) I'm going to have to transfer files from my home PC to the laptop ... I guess I can just do this through USB? (same with licensing OOTP and FOF on the laptop).

5) Anything else I should know (batteries / wires / whatever / porn)

[Young Drachma]

Sony Vaio has an affordable set of laptops in their now semi-extinct FRV series. You can find a good deal on them, either on the web or through Best Buy (where I got mine on sale...for like $300 less than list price..)

If you can find a laptop with 512 MB of RAM, get it, you'll be glad. The processor speed is pretty irrelevant if you're Word processing and playing OOTP and FOF. I mean, I even play Madden and other sports games on mine and its a 2.4 Ghz Celeron and the games cruise just fine.

Yeah, you can transfer your file via USB. In theory, you could network the laptop and desktop and move the files that way too. Either way, its not a huge deal really.

The Vaio laptop battery sucks pretty bad, though. It only lasts about 3 hours, so long as you're not playing any games.

[Tasan]

1) What is a fair price for a basic laptop that would do what I described above? (I see some online Dells that are 2.4ghz, 256ram, 20gig HD ... some other bells and whistles for around $1000)

1a) What type of minimum specs/addons should I get?
Don't worry about a whole lot of extra crap if you are just going to play some fairly basic games. Get as much ram as you can though. You'll thank me a year from now ;- )

2) How long do batteries typically last for laptops / can I recharge them in an airport socket / should I buy a 2nd battery?
Buy an airplane adapter for it. Most major brands sell plane adapters for their power supplies, and you can also find them sometimes in Best Buy, etc.


3) Is there a problem with space on your food tray with a laptop if a 9ft tall dude/fat chick/40 children lean back?
Generally from my experience, you'll just want to keep it in your lap. Careful not to roast the family jewels though!

4) I'm going to have to transfer files from my home PC to the laptop ... I guess I can just do this through USB? (same with licensing OOTP and FOF on the laptop).
You could do it with a little inexpensive USB keydrive, or buy a small hub and do it via network.

5) Anything else I should know (batteries / wires / whatever / porn) I play FOF and OOTP on my 1.5ghz, 512mb Dell right now, and its fine, a tad slow on the sim speed, but hey you are looking to burn time anyway, and its definately not FRUSTRATINGLY slow by any means. You may want to scour E-Bay for a deal, thats where I picked this up and I've been happy with it. Definately find some source other than battery for the long flights though. You'll generally only get 2 or 3 hours out of a battery, sometimes a lot less, and you also get processor slowdown in some machines when on battery power. Anyway, good luck!

[sooner333]

What's an airplane adaptor?

[cartman]

There is a great power adapter from APC. It has a normal 12 volt car plug that changes to an airplane seat power plug. The other end is a normal three prong outlet. I love this device because it can be used for anything, almost anywhere, and it was half the price of comparable devices that were custom made for a particular laptop. Here's a link to it: http://www.apcc.com/products/family/index.cfm?id=9&fs=Mobile%20Computing

[Marc Vaughan]

If you're only going to be playing text sims then go for a decent value portable with a portable CPU (ie. not one of the faster ones with a desktop processor) ....

This will mean the battery will last longer and to be honest there's naff all difference in the performance speed while running on a battery anyway.

Its worth ensuring its got a second battery (and a bay so you can have two in at once).

I personally tend to get DELL's - but most brands are much of a muchness unless you're hammering them heavily (my DELL has been used near enough 20 hours per day for around a year and a half and only fried itself once - which was fixed under warrany).

[SunDancer]

I wanted to bump this. I am a college student, going into my sjunior year, and want to get myself a laptop. Basically, I am looking for something that I can surf the net with, maybe install FOF, and use the word, excel and powerpoint programs very well. A crusing (doesn't have to be "blazin" speed) with sufficient memory and speed is important. I dont want to spend more than $1000, give or take. Also, I need a floppy disk drive as well. MP3s aren't my thing, I like to play cds and listen to them through the headset. Any advice?

[sooner333]

I wanted to bump this. I am a college student, going into my sjunior year, and want to get myself a laptop. Basically, I am looking for something that I can surf the net with, maybe install FOF, and use the word, excel and powerpoint programs very well. A crusing (doesn't have to be "blazin" speed) with sufficient memory and speed is important. I dont want to spend more than $1000, give or take. Also, I need a floppy disk drive as well. MP3s aren't my thing, I like to play cds and listen to them through the headset. Any advice?

Dell Inspiron. I have an older model and other than the time I spilled water in the keyboard (and it fixed itself), its been great.

[EagleFan]

I'm going to NY and SD the next couple of months, and I'm going to be bored as hell flying solo. So I wanted to buy a laptop so I can play OOTP and FOF while monkey-children hop all around my seat.



Dam, most people just buy a book to read. ;)

[Rizon]

Dam, most people just buy a book to read. ;)

Nope, I always get seated next to 474,000 kids who won't let me read. I'd rather get interupted playing OOTP/FOF than get interupted while trying to read. That's just going to piss me off and cause me to get arrested for smacking kids up and down the isles.

[SunDancer]

Dell Inspiron. I have an older model and other than the time I spilled water in the keyboard (and it fixed itself), its been great.

Thats what I was looking at. The Inspiron 1100:

Processor/Display
Mobile Intel® Celeron Processor 2.30GHz, 14.1" XGA TFT Display
Operating System
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
Memory
256MB Shared DDR SDRAM
Hard Drive
20GB Hard Drive
Optical
8x DVD-ROM Drive
Integrated Intel Extreme Graphics

Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options
1 Year Limited Warranty3 plus 1 Year At-Home Service This starts at $1049...I will upgrade to 512 MB, and add a External USB Floppy Drive. Price Tag: $948

[k0ruptr]

sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

you might wanna check out ebay for a bit just in case tho

[SunDancer]

Thanks,
I decided to hold off til the end of summer, when I have alittle more money to invest in something better. I do not want to a Celeron Processor, I want a Pentium 4. Big difference, its alot more modern. What companies are good? Dell I know makes decent products, but I don't like how "hyped" the customer service is to the quality. Gateway, is not very good and customer service is not great. Apple (dont want a Mac system). Any suggestions? Is anyone really good in serving customers?