Thread: New or Second Hand Notebook !

I don't know what sort of spec you are after in a notebook, but Office First National here is advertising with an Acer 5020 with 15.4" wide screen, Celeron 1.7, 512 RAM, DVD burner and all the usual goodies, wireless network, modem etc for $599 after $150 cash back from Acer.
If you are happy with a Celeron processor, and most people are, than that is a very good deal, finishes 31/10/07.
Don't know whether they have Office First National in your neck of the woods.

Shaker

Why not look at 2 way satellite. Cheaper than next G and free installation with the Broadband Connect subsidy.

Have a look here. www.bluemaxx.com.au

Originally Posted by 351shaker

Hi All back again,
Don't know a thing about notebooks but am seriously thinking of change over from desktop ( main reason so I can cancel main phone hookup and revert to next G mobile use when sorted out ). Old story, for least amount of $ possible (new or second-hand)!
These are approximate only & basically require : Intel Pent. 4, 100-200gb H.D., NO DELL BRAND, Broadband hookup, CDRW burner, 1gb ram, XP Home (have the original OS on disc).
Any help or advice would be much appreciated,
Regards,
351shaker.

looking at your proposed spec I've got to ask what do you want to do with it?

A Pent 4 is way too much grunt if all you're doing is a bit of word processing, simple spreadsheets, email and internet. A Celeron will do fine.

1—200 Gb HD is in my opinion overkill, especially if you've got a DVD burner. If you need that amount of storage, it's much cheaper to get an 300Gb external USB HD which will also function as your back-up drive

now that Vista is here you may struggle to find a machine with XP


Lastly I'd buy new. These guys www.ht.com.au currently have
Acer Extensa Celeron M440 1.8GHz, 512Mb RAM, 14.1" screen, 80Gb HD, DVD, wireless LAN, Windows Vista, 12 months warranty for $649 (after the $100 cash back from Acer)
or a HP Celeron M540 1.8GHz, 1Gb RAM, 15.4" screen, 80Gb HD, DVD, wireless LAN, Windows Vista, 12 months warranty for $899


The basis for my recommendations ?
• the machine at work is a Pent 4 3.3GHz, 2Gb RAM, 128Mb Invidia graphics card, runs Windows 2000 — it struggles a bit when I open a 1.2 GB (yes giga byte) TIFF or send a 200 page Ventura doc to the printer, but otherwise has too much grunt for regular day to day work.
• At home the desktop is a Pent 4 3.0GHz, 1Gb RAM, Matrox G550 graphics card, Windows XP Pro — more than enough grunt to edit 30Mb photos and for SWMBO to edit her digital video
• my personal laptop is a HP Celeron with 768Mb RAM, a 15.4" wide screen, shared graphics memory and XP Home. It's fast enough for word processing, spreadsheets and basic photo editing.


ian

What Bazza and Cliff and others said re new. But I see you don't want a Dell.... Pretty much industry standard and with an extended warranty (3 years), what's the problem? My last Compaq Armada fell over just out of 12 months warranty needing $2,000 for a motherboard. The Dells seem to go and go....

I think that the repair/replacement advice for Laptop backlights is not quite correct, while sometimes it is a back light, more often than not it is the inverter that drives the backlight, and both are not easy to get to and replace, nowadays they make them harder to replace or almost nigh impossible to do so, it is a major job to dissassemble and replace ,reassemble and only to find it does not work. Amos