Laptops or Notebooks

[nightshade]

I am still trying to make up my mind wether or not it is worthwhile to buy a laptop for travelling and what sort of spec. My main interest would be to view and store photos with wireless e-mailing as another feature obviously
price is a consideration.
What do you use and how do you rate it?

[Tormentil]

Which ever one you buy, make sure it is easy to replace the CD/DVD drive should it fail.

The one in my daughters Acer Aspire failed a couple of weeks ago. No problem I thought, buy a new one (£28) and slot it in (they're usually held in by a screw on the bottom and just slide out when this is removed). Not so this Acer !!! I removed the base completely just to find that the drive was held in by 2 screws, one of which I could n't get at !! Ended up taking the whole kit and caboodle to the local shop for them to fit the new CD rom drive.

[Mr Mag00]

i use lappy for work and at home and have access to 4 in all. all excellent and have v little problem with them.
the company i use is Novatech have used for 8 years and excellent service all through. the businesses i deal with all use their desktop machine too in total 7 machines from them and past businesses ahve used 4 of their machines.
I know it sounds like an advert but honestly when you find a company you are happy with, an independent too i feel strongly about promoting them.
They have a wide range of laptop specs to choose from and all from the basic model will do what you want.

[m1.carson]

Hi,

Most laptops have a removable CD rom/DVD drive, but notebooks usually have an external drive, makes them smaller...er, same amount to carry, Dell were doing a laptop for just under £400-00, good maker, an awfull lot of firms seem to be going totally Dell, but as normal you seem to pay more for any extra kit that will only fit their machines, ditto IBM.

Battery life is even more important, most say up to four hours, but "up to" can be two hours sometimes, my three year old IBM with 100% battery last's approx. 100 mins, and has never lasted much more, the onus is on you for not charging it correctly in the first place.

Max.

[ron1863]

I prefer laptops to notebooks myself but m1.carson makes a good point about battery life. Mine claimed a battery life of up to 4 hours but I was lucky to get half that

[Hobjob]

Originally Posted by ron1863

I prefer laptops to notebooks myself but m1.carson makes a good point about battery life. Mine claimed a battery life of up to 4 hours but I was lucky to get half that

But battery life is very dependent on what you do.

If you are writing a world shattering novel with virtually no
hard disc access it will be good,

If you are downloading photos, and editing and re-saving,
listeing to music at the same time etc., then you will hammer
the battery.

Most laptops also dim the screen when on battery - my ageing
eyes can't cope with that, so up the light and hammer the
battery still more.

[m1.carson]

Hi hobjob,

You can stop them dimming [conserving power], in :control panel ower management, or, if you know your way around, usually in the bios.

Max.

[Neil]

For my input I would recommend the Toshiba laptop. The reply above about the battery life is very true, I carry three and it makes the weight a bit much. You can get a car power adaptor ( I have not tried one myself) of Maplin, Ebay and others for little outlay, if you are not too far from your car.
Neil.

[Ukwildlifeo]

If you get one with vista (not really much option these days ) make sure you have 2gb of ram (memory) or it will run slow. Or you could just go with a macbook....

[BillyPilgrim]

Originally Posted by Ukwildlifeo

If you get one with vista (not really much option these days ) make sure you have 2gb of ram (memory) or it will run slow. Or you could just go with a macbook....

I recently bought a Dell Vostro 1000, mainly because you can get XP pro instead of Vista and it runs very well with the 1gb ram which was also included.

You also get a 120gb hard disk and it costs less than £350 inc. delivery.