Laptop

[oz]

First rule of buying tech gear - if you can buy it, it is obsolete, or at least it will be by the time you unpack the boxes it came in. Second, as soon as the purchase goes thru, you will find a faster system, cheaper than the one you bought, with more bells and whistles. Third, don't worry, be happy that you are able to buy new gear!

Isn't that the truth... and the sad part is that you never really get over it, or at least I don't!

[micah1104]

First rule of buying tech gear - if you can buy it, it is obsolete, or at least it will be by the time you unpack the boxes it came in. Second, as soon as the purchase goes thru, you will find a faster system, cheaper than the one you bought, with more bells and whistles. Third, don't worry, be happy that you are able to buy new gear!

Anyway, my advise is to purchase as much RAM as the system will take and that you can afford. Then, get one with a good video accelerator w/ onboard RAM so it doesn't have to "borrow" from system resources. For Linux systems, nVidia video is generally good and has good drivers (usually).

Don't worry too much about a webcam or bluetooth, unless you just HAVE to be able to make Skype video calls.

Get as much disc as you can - it isn't too expensive. These days, at least 160-250GB is good. You can definitely live w/ 160GB and if it saves you a bunch, don't worry about it.

Finally, the display, as I mentioned previously, is the single most expensive component on a system. Get as high of resolution as you can afford for a good viewing experience, but remember that it comes at a price. If you are willing to live with a lesser unit display-wise, you can save a lot of $$, but you might not be happy with it.

And really finally. If you can try the system out in the store, take in a live Linux CD/DVD and boot that with the system you want to be sure that all the built-in stuff works for you.

Ok, I have 500$ total, no more, I am going back to work mid-month, and I get paid approx. 378$ a year, plus the cost of camp which is about 170, and a few other expenses 20-50, so that leaves me around 180$-150$, so I cannot afford too much..., That is why I am going lower costs...

[micah1104]

Oh, and I really really like the 14 inch screen that I have now, I would like a screen the same or a 15 inch, we have a netbook, and the screen is too small, I think it is a little hard to work on, and then we have two gateways laptops that are the same except one is 64bit and the other 32bit, I really like, and I might consider buying the next genereation up from those...