Building a cheap, good, laptop for testing

[Tessian]

Ok, my requirements are a little odd... and actually at times I wonder if I really need this... but here goes.

I'm looking to buy a laptop for personal use. Something I can carry around, sit on the couch and be online, as well as use as a test bed for whatever application or OS I want to mess with. I thought I wanted to use VMWare... but as I look at it I don't think it's really what I'm looking for; I just really want to mess with it.

So the best laptop I've found so far is a Dell Vostro 1500. I can trick it out to have 2gig, a 160gig 7200RPM drive (with free fall sensor), bluetooth, webcam, bigger battery, and decent graphics for just under $1k. The only thing I think it's lacking is CPU seems a bit low (1.4ghz Core 2 Duo) but for the price I don't know if I can beat it. What else that sucks is I don't want Vista (love it on my desktop, but not needed on laptop for wasted HD space) but it costs more to get XP Pro.

Only other laptops I've seen to come close are HP Presario's... but they don't offer 7200RPM drives; only 5400RPM. I think by now that's a pretty big difference and I'm not sure I can do without it. I also found a nice tablet PC I never considered before... Presario tx1000z series. Just about the same exact price except slower RPM and worse graphics (but better CPU).


Anyone have suggestions / ideas? And did Linux fix their problems supporting WPA/WPA2 yet?

[Ronin121_usa]

PLEASE don't buy the Dell Vostro anything, I am a Dell cert tech and the Vosto are bottom line and they have had a lot of mobo problems. Go for a little older cheaper Sony or Toshiba or even IBM/Lenovo laptop first.

Check out these.

http://www.geeks.com (formerlly computergeeks.com)

look under laptops, and also check out this page under same.

http://www.mwave.com

You will HEAVILY regret any Dell Vostro Purchase!

[Tessian]

You don't even recommend Inspirons? My company is pretty much 100% Dell (servers, laptops, desktops). I have been using a fully loaded Latitude D820 since August and I love it. I ask about Inspirons because I can get employee member discounts (EPP) with it for not much more than the Vostro.

Edit-- also, what does anyone think of HP's? They've got decent prices too

[Ronin121_usa]

NO inspirons are fine, just stay the hell away from Vostro's...I bet you can get a Lenovo cheaper than a inspiron, except for the dell discount, and well, you probably can't beat that then.

[Tessian]

actually this whole thing has me considering a macbook... I want to stab myself for thinking about it but I've always been interested in trying them out and with the Intel chipset I can still use Parallels or dual boot to whatever other OS I wanted to use as well...

the mid-level refurbed macbook is $1059 on apple.com... that's $250 off. Decent stats... what REALLY pisses me off is the high end macbook is an extra $200 and ALL you get is a black paint job and an extra 40gig of space... and since that extra 40gig can be had on the mid level for $75 you're literally paying $125 for a paint job... that's obscene.

So I dunno... I'm really considering it. The price is expensive, even refurbed, but as a friend mentioned to me today one of the big differences is the resale value of a mac is a lot more than a PC... so it may be a better investment.

[Ronin121_usa]

Really, a mac has so much less you can do with it, it is harder to network, cool apps dont run on it, there is not near the variety of software available and not near as much freeware out there....and You have a pc right? Don't you want something that is compatible and that runs WindowsXP hopefully! I could NEVER go mac, not unless the whole world changed.

[Tessian]

Really, a mac has so much less you can do with it, it is harder to network, cool apps dont run on it, there is not near the variety of software available and not near as much freeware out there....and You have a pc right? Don't you want something that is compatible and that runs WindowsXP hopefully! I could NEVER go mac, not unless the whole world changed.

Bootcamp and/or Parrellels makes all that moot. I can put XP on it and Linux all running as a guest OS on OS X. LINUX is the one that's a bitch to network since they still don't fully/easily support WPA/WPA2.

[Flip]

Really, a mac has so much less you can do with it, it is harder to network, cool apps dont run on it, there is not near the variety of software available and not near as much freeware out there....and You have a pc right? Don't you want something that is compatible and that runs WindowsXP hopefully! I could NEVER go mac, not unless the whole world changed.

Bootcamp and/or Parrellels makes all that moot. I can put XP on it and Linux all running as a guest OS on OS X. LINUX is the one that's a bitch to network since they still don't fully/easily support WPA/WPA2.

Ok... so you want a mac, so that you can make it not a mac?.... good choice!

[Tessian]

Really, a mac has so much less you can do with it, it is harder to network, cool apps dont run on it, there is not near the variety of software available and not near as much freeware out there....and You have a pc right? Don't you want something that is compatible and that runs WindowsXP hopefully! I could NEVER go mac, not unless the whole world changed.

Bootcamp and/or Parrellels makes all that moot. I can put XP on it and Linux all running as a guest OS on OS X. LINUX is the one that's a bitch to network since they still don't fully/easily support WPA/WPA2.

Ok... so you want a mac, so that you can make it not a mac?.... good choice!

I'd use it primarily as a mac... but I wanted this laptop to be able to be a test bed for whatever I felt like messing around with like Linux.