Laptop recommendations?? (1 Viewer)

[STLMIKE]

I have a Compaq PII 266 that is about 4 years old. It has 96 MB of memory and an 8 Gig Hard Drive. I've been having problems with the unit just freezing up completely at random -- all controls quit functioning and a very high pitched (like a dog whistle) sound comes from the unit.

First, if anyone has seen any symptoms like this before, I'd like to know what they did to fix it (if there is a fix).

Second, I've been considering another laptop...has anyone ever bought one off of Ebay or bought a used laptop in general? Something over 600MHZ with at least 10MB HD and a DVD player, that has decent battery life and doesn't weigh a ton. What would be a good price for a unit like this?

Also, does anyone have any experience with a subnotebook (like a Fujitsu Lifebook P series)? It would need a USB and a DVD Drive? The one I was looking at would be about 1500 bucks. It looks like a great unit, but I would rather not spend that much, as I only use a laptop when I travel.

Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks -- Mike

 

[Camp]

I'm a diehard PC user who took a chance and tried an Apple ibook. It's one of the best computers I've ever owned.

 

[Michael*K]

I second the recommendation for the iBooks. Great size and full featured. Need to run Windows software? Just load up VirtualPC on it.

 

[STLMIKE]

The PC software you mentioned, are there limitations on the types of windows software you can run?

I've noticed on review sites that Ibooks are relatively cheap and get great reviews.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[Jeffrey_Jones]

Camp,

Have you had a difficult time adjusting to the ibook? What about home networking issues?

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[Michael*K]

Mike, Virtual PC runs nearly all Windows software flawlessly. The only drawback is that if you are a heavy PC game player, the speed and graphics can't match a top-of-the-line Windows box. For any other software...business, multi-media, etc. it works like a charm. And there's no need to configure the network twice on both the Mac and PC sides. Virtual PC pulls the network preferences right off the Mac, making connections quick and easy.

 

[STLMIKE]

This unit would be used primarily for web surfing, Office applications, and occasional games -- nothing too system intense (maybe Microsoft Golf, etc.).

How do I relate the processor speeds on a Mac vs. a PC? Aren't Mac's still fast even though the mhz are lower than a comparably priced PC?

 

[Michael*K]

Yes, it's true that Macs with lower processing speeds outperform their Pentium counterparts on several types of software. There are several publications out there that provide benchmarks for running various types of software on both Macs and PC's.

The Office software you probably have will run just fine on Virtual PC, but if you bought a Mac and decided to pick up a Mac version of Office vX, it would definitely run more briskly.