Where do i get cheap laptops?
Forum Mobile Computing : General Mobile Computing - Where do i get cheap laptops?
Is there a good place to by cheap, non-top-of-the-line laptops(500mhz-1ghz)? Or is it possible to build one? HOw would i go about doing that? I am fairly expirienced with building desktops but I am clueless about laptops.
Thanks for any help
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Darbish Fish, Mmmmm Floppy!
www.ubid.com
<b><font color=blue>Via chipsets, SiS chipsets -- all the same...all made in TAIWAN!
First an obvious statement. Cheap laptop is kind of an oxymoron. You'll pay for portability.
Now that's out of the way, if price is the most important consideration just buy a laptop that was made 1 or two years ago. One place you can look is the magazine "Computer Shopper".
If you browse through it you can find dealers who sell older laptops that have CPU's in the 500 mhz to 1.0 ghz range, decent (10-20 GB) HD sizes and DVD/CD-RW combo drives for prices ranging from $1,200 to $2,000 which is cheap for a laptop. If you lose the DVD/CD-RW drive and give up some HD space you can go under a $1,000.
one such dealer can be found at www.compdirect.com
Hope that helps.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Skull_Angel on 05/29/02 05:31 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
Er actually you can get a laptop with everything including a dvd/cdrw combo and a 1GHz or better processor for slightly under $1200.00 depending on rebates. 2 months ago prices were actually better. Check out HP and Toshiba at Circuit City.
For under $2000.00 you can get a full blown system. I just ordered: 2Ghz cpu, 256M ddr, 15" display, firewire, 40GB, 64M mobile Radeon 7500, front panel controls, floppy, DUAL optical drives with DVD play, cd-rw burn/play plus a seperate cd-rw player for dups, ac adapter, li ion batt, dc car adapter, 5 channel sound out, scrolling mouse pad, small software bundle, tv out, 100M nic, 56k modem, and other stuff, BUT NO OS for under $1900.00 from Sager.
This baby has a desktop cpu which means batt life will suck but it also means you can pop out the cpu and change it out cause it is not soldered in like on my last laptop.
Sager and Pro-star are the same thing. I went with Sager because I could get a machine with no OS so friggin M$ don't get any more of my money. 98se works fine for me and I already paid for it so why spend 75 bucks on XP?
Check out Prostar at <A HREF="http://www.pro-star.com" target="_new">http://www.pro-star.com</A>. some of the web specials are good deals if you don't mind a desktop cpu. They do sell models with mobile cpus, read carefully, if it don't say mobile it ain't. Dual optical drives and the dc adapter are optional. I think you gotta swap out the floppy to run dual opticals.
Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.
| Quote : Or is it possible to build one? |
No not really. Desktops have standardized holes to plug in cpus, vid card, pci cards, etc. Notebooks are not generally standardized and are cusom made propritary stuff. They will build to order but you can't (usually) put a brand X part in a brand Y machine.
Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.
Lakedude, how much does that beast weigh? Why would you want all that crap in a portable?
D
| Quote : Lakedude, how much does that beast weigh? |
It ain't the lightest, that's for sure. 8 lbs without battery. The extra drive and the batttery are gonna drive it real close to 10.
| Quote : Why would you want all that crap in a portable? |
Good question. When other folks ask me what they should buy I tell them to look at a 14" at under 7lbs because my friend Bill has a heavy 15" like the one I'm getting and it is too heavy. I guess the reason I didn't follow my own advice is because the 14s w p3's are not really any cheaper then newer 15s with 2G p4s. I also really like the radeon 64/7500. A lighter model would be nice but one nice thing about the heaver model(besides performance) is that Pro-star/Sager is built like a tank and can take a lot of abuse. Still they are not for everyone. The biggest 2 downers about my new system are weight and battery life. This would be a horrible system for someone who flys a lot who needs long battery life and light weight. For me it is not too bad becuase everywhere I go has power (home, work, school, even car with dc to dc adapter). I only hafta lug the monster from home to the car and from the car into work or school so the weight is not that big of a deal to me. The 15" is really nice too. Dual opticals are just silly but kinda cool none the less.
Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.
thanks for the input
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Darbish Fish, Mmmmm Floppy!
"Er actually you can get a laptop with everything including a dvd/cdrw combo and a 1GHz or better processor for slightly under $1200.00 depending on rebates"
How much under $1,200 are we talking? If it's less than 50 dollars then my 1,200 price was a reasonable quote. I'd expect the price to come down or maybe a sale to happen at anytime.
I've been warned away from a desktop CPU by people on the CPU boards at Tom's Hardware because of the extra heat. And I've looked for postings on Sager on some bulletin boards. At www.anandtech.com I've found some less than flattering comments about Sager. Anyway I would would be very reluctant to buy a desktop CPU in a laptop.
If you look at a Inspiron 8100 laptop from Dell that's roughly comparable to the Sager laptop (I say roughly because Dell has a mobile PIII in there but the same ATI Graphics card) then you see that there's about a $250 - $500 price premium on the Dell. Dell has a reputation for quality that Sager hasn't gotten yet. Alienware's similarly configured Area 51-M is around $800 more. Alienware has a reputation for well built gaming PC's and this is their first laptop. I would think they would spend the same care on it as they do their desktops.
I considered buying one from Alienware. It had the same CPU and video card and almost the same case even. Alienware paid more attention to cooling though you can look at the pics of both laptops at their respective websites. I waited for the Alienware Area 51-M to become available with the mobile P4. I'm ordering an Area 51-M laptop with a mobile P4 1.7 Ghz in the next couple of days.
For $2000 grand that laptop you ordered has good specs on paper but I have reservations about the desktop CPU and the low price. My concerns about the low price stem from the fact that I wonder how they can offer the those specs for $250 to $800 cheaper than vendors noted for good tech support and quality such as Dell or Alienware. In otherwords, did Sager cut corners that Dell and Alienware didn't?
Yeah I started typing before I double checked the prices. Instead of retyping everything I added the footnote that they were cheaper a few months ago. A buddy bought a Toshiba just a few months ago with a decent size hd, dvd/cdrw combo and a Cel 1.1 that came in under 1K with multiple rebates. Can't get em anymore for that, sorry.
As far as Sager/Prostar goes they have been 100% reliable for our small company for the last several years. This is not the first one I have delt with but it is the first one I bought for myself. If we hadn't had such good luck with the previous units I wouldn't be going that way now. The desktop cpu is definately a trade off but it is not without benefits. The 2G and above are running the .13 core so the heat while hooked up to a power source is going to be the same as a mobile unit at the same clock. Some of the slower units are still running .18 and on those the heat/power issue bothers me too. They offer a 3 year warrenty pretty cheap which they couldn't do if the processors were cooking themselves to death. Time will tell I might hate it but I betting almost $1900.00 that I will love it. Sager and Prostar have been around a while and they got good reviews in Computer Shopper years ago when I still read paper magazines. I confess that it is a bit of a gamble but you can get lemons from anywhere. I bought Sony whenever I could but the last 2 things I bought from Sony suck. Now I will not buy Sony ever again. It is kinda funny cause I love my professional Sony Trinitron monitor but now I go out of my way to bash Sony when ever possible.
Also a moble cpu is not available at that speed and speed is important if I'm gonna get a dvd converted within the 8 hours I'm at work. I try to never do anything at home I could be getting paid to do at work. I'm getting paid right now to type this :-0
Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by lakedude on 06/01/02 05:47 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
Update:
New laptop should be here in 2 days. A new sale started today and now you can get everything I mentioned before PLUS a $300.00 2G pcmcia HD for the same price. I called to see if they would give me the deal and at first they said no but it didn't take too much wineing and they are sending me a drive:-)
Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.
Ok the Sager has arrived and the way it deals with heat is feet. My old laptop has a single fan in the side which needs to be small cause the side is not so big. The new system has 3 fans and two are quite big. How they do that? With feet. The fans are on the bottom and vent out the side. With no feet the fans would be blocked off and the thing would overheat. Sager put permanant little feet on the bottom that do not fold up and that way they could put in 2 big fans and a 3rd smaller one.
Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.
| Quote : I've been warned away from a desktop CPU by people on the CPU boards at Tom's Hardware because of the extra heat. And I've looked for postings on Sager on some bulletin boards. At www.anandtech.com I've found some less than flattering comments about Sager. Anyway I would would be very reluctant to buy a desktop CPU in a laptop. |
I'm not really sure what the problem is supposed to be here. This is perhaps the 10th Prostar/Sager I have had in my mits and they have all worked perfect. This new one is a real rocket and I didn't pay too much for it. As far as the heat goes, yes the desktop cpu does put some heat out but the cooling solution seems up to the task. P4s slow down if they get hot and won't burn up. Sorry AMD guys but this is one area Intel is definately ahead in. I don't understand the problem.
I did have one small problem with my new laptop due to the fact that I didn't install all the drivers and I got and email back from the company the same day. Everything is working perfect as near as I can tell. BTW 2 opticals is nice for copying, used em today for that.
Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.
Well, about the P4's throttling down that might be a problem with a desktop CPU in a laptop if the cooling isn't able to keep up with the heat the CPU puts out. You did say you were mainly going to be using it at a desk at work encoding video files so I guess the room will be cool enough that it won't be a worry. I think that having more vents on the side rather than the bottom would be better, but that's just an opinion. Most of the comments was about the cheap construction in comparison to other vendors, but those are opinions too.
this article is interesting...
http://www.pcmag.com/article/0,299 [...] p=4,00.asp
It seems to suggest that, although heat may not be as big an issue as I was told in the CPU section, the laptop form factor does seem to bring down the performance of a desktop CPU.
"Today, our preliminary testing indicates that 2.2-GHz processors in laptops perform similarly to and maybe slightly better than the fastest mobile chips. Let's be clear, however: You still get only 1.6- or 1.8-GHz performance out of a 2.2-GHz desktop processor when it's placed in a laptop." ~From the Article
So I guess even though you get a better price with a desktop CPU you don't get that much more performance. The better battery-life that you get from a mobile CPU might offset the slight(if their preliminary testing holds up) perfomance gains you get out of a desktop CPU, depending on how mobile you need to be. Of course you mentioned that you don't need to be that mobile.
*shrugs* We kind of got off topic anyway. ddv33 was asking about cheap laptops and while $1900 is a good price I wouldn't say it was cheap.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Skull_Angel on 06/13/02 00:22 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
Sorry ddv33 I realize we are OT here.
Skulldude
I suppose I agree with most of what you say. I think the machine I bought is a good one for the price I paid and would recomend it to anyone as long as they knew what they were getting into. It definately has drawbacks. A true mobile processor would have longer batt life and put out less heat. Some folks would be happier with a "brand name" product but I think in some cases you pay more for just the mame. I'm gonna run and post some benchmarks and you all can judge for yourselves how fast it is. A 2G laptop is no where near as fast as 2G desktop because everything else in a laptop is slower but a 2G LT is still pretty fast. As far as airflow goes the entire left side is basically nothing but exaust vents. The only other thing on the left side is a PCMCIA slot. 3 fans suck air in from the bottom and blow it out the side. I was kind impressed with the design actually.
BTW TigerDirect is selling the same system for a lot more money. See <A HREF="http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?sku=V133-1999" target="_new">http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?sku=V133-1999</A>
My system: 2GHz, 40GB, 2GB PCMCIA, 256MB, 15"SXVGA, DVD/CDR combo, second cd, floppy, DC adapter, <font color=red>no OS</font color=red>, Software bundle including McAfee AV and StarOffice. $1880 plus $75 for missing OS
= <font color=blue>$1955.00</font color=blue> delivered
Theirs: 2GHz, <font color=red>30GB, no 2G PCMCIA</font color=red>, 256MB, 15"SXVGA, <font color=red>cdr only, no second drive or dvd</font color=red>, floppy, <font color=red>no dc adapter</font color=red>, XP OS, Software bundle including Norton AV and WordPerfect Office. $2299 plus $35 HD upgrade, plus $299 for 2G PCMCIA, plus $60 cdr to combo upgrade, plus $90 second cdr, plus $65 for DC adapter
= <font color=blue>$2848.00</font color=blue> plus shipping for the exact (near as I can tell) same thing.
Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.
well, for a good brand name, you should take a look at the Dell Smartstep 100N
<A HREF="http://www.dell.com/us/en/dhs/products/model_inspn_1_inspn_100n.htm" target="_new">http://www.dell.com/us/en/dhs/products/model_inspn_1_inspn_100n.htm</A>
Intel Celeron processor at 1.06 GHz-M
14-inch XGA display
No customization like other dells, but a good value for a new system
$899 for the 90 day warranty option
$50 more to get a full year warranty
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