Am in the position of being able to purchase a new computer, what with my old laptop giving up the ghost several months ago and me having some very welcome funds for the first time in a wee while. Been asking as many peeps as I see fit for advice, and thought I'd try here.
Primarily it will be used for music and films, internet, and Championship Manager 4.
I'd be looking at having quite a bit of music (and several other large files) so hard disk minimum is 30Gb, a CD-RW is a must, and it's gotta play DVDs too (either two stand alone drives - unlikely in a laptop - or as a combo drive) (big hard disk and decent processor for ripping DVDs needed). Champ Manager 4 is memory hungry big stylee, so am looking for minimum of 256Mb.
No operating software needs to come with it, nor any software come to think of it. I have a PCMCIA modem card and a network card from my old laptop, so wouldn't need either of these.
14.1 screen minimum. Top quality graphics card isn't a priority in any way shape or form. Nor is weight or size an issue either (within reason I mean, <4kg for instance)
My old laptop was a Dell Inspiron, and pretty all right it was too. Not too chuffed with Dell's prices at the moment though. Anyone got any recommendations of where to buy laptops from? UK only please. Novatech.co.uk is a possibility...
So, just to recap, min spec is
1.6GHz processor
256Mb DDR (preferable 512Mb)
14.1 XGA TFT
DVD/CD-RW
30Gb HDD (min 4200rpm)
Speeds of DVD/CD-RW aren't too important, no software nor operating system required, battery life not toooo important, no modem needed, speakers unimportant as have high quality own speakers, graphics card not a priority, floppy drive not needed. Don't understand motherboards, nor sound cards so any help there would be appreciated.
Bit speculative I know, but worth a shot 😀
T1000
Have you looked at those pseudo-laptops (I don't know exactly what they're called). They don't employ a battery at all, meaning that it's basically a portable desktop pc. Because it doesn't have a battery means there's more space for extra HDD/CD/DVD.
Just a thought if you don't need a laptop for working on the go.
I know alot of people build their own computers nowadays, mostly desktops but have heard of afew to build a laptop. That all depends on your time available to do such a project though, here's a site to look at if you're interested:
http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/index.htm