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General discussion

Need HELP finding/buying a Laptop Notebook!

Aug 7, 2004 1:04PM PDT

I'm looking to buy a Laptop. Here's the guidelines...

1. I'm only going to be using it for word processing and internet surfing, really so it doesn't need to be brand new or even close. As a matter of fact my desktop is still a 733mhz, I upgraded from 128 to 600+ megs of ram a couple years ago but aside from that I'm still pretty happy with this same old rig, so as long as my laptop is comparable in speed and such to my desktop I should be fine.

2. As Thin and as Lightwieght as possible. I've already got a desktop comp that works fine for me, so the sole purpose of buying a Laptop is portability. I've handled other peoples Laptops before and alot of times they can seem too heavy/bulky to be worth the effort of lugging around, so I'd like mine to be as absolutly thin and a lightweight as possible.

3. Cheap. Ya, hehe, I need it to be pretty cheap within $200-$300 at the most. Like I said it doesn't need to be even near new, I would suggest 500mhz or so but frankly I'm not sure if that would be comparable to my desktop or not, I might not need nearly that much speed for just running MS Office and the Internet good, so I'll leave those suggestions up to those of you "in the know."

4. USB Port, and Internal Floppy and CD Rom Drives, would be nice as well. I don't like to have alot of external stuff hanging off of it.

Those are pretty much all my guidelines. I figured ebay is probably the best bet considering prices seem higher everywhere else but I checked over there just now and they don't seem to have as many laptops as I thought they would and many of them are recent enough to be in the 1Ghz range. I really don't need that fast of a laptop for what I want to do. Most likely 500mhz and under would be enough. So if anyone has any advice on any place i can get a decent laptop that fits the above it would be much appreciated.


Thanks

Discussion is locked

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Re: Need HELP finding/buying a Laptop Notebook!
Aug 7, 2004 1:08PM PDT

You need to look at refurbs from places like frys, outpost, compgeeks and such. Laptops like these usually come with a battery that won't hold a charge or no OS. With Windows, the OS alone is 100 bucks, so to reach your price point, no OS will be supplied.

Bob

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Re: Need HELP finding/buying a Laptop Notebook!
Aug 7, 2004 9:35PM PDT

I checked the sites you mentioned, but didn't see anything that I'm really looking for.

Do you know of any other dealers?

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Re: Need HELP finding/buying a Laptop Notebook!
Aug 7, 2004 9:47PM PDT

Two other things...

1. Do you know of a good site that has product descriptions for these old notebooks. Alot of times the refurb sites I'm looking at don't list all the info, and I don't know of any other place to go besides amazon, which isn't alot of help either.

2. Do you know any of the model names I should keep an eye out for in regards to finding a THIN and LIGHT notebook. I was looking at an old Dell Latitude and Amazon was saying it weighed 14 .lbs. Which seems a little much so they could have been mistaken. But on the other hand it may have been right since it was a much older model in the pentium II range. Either way having to lug around even near that much weight would totally negate the purpose of getting a notebook for me. So I need help figuring out what old notebooks in the pentium II (300mhz+) range where thin and light.

Thanks for your help, it is really much appreciated.

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There is no stock in such things.
Aug 7, 2004 10:02PM PDT

You are looking at the used/refurb market to hit the price you noted. No one creates such things, so you keep shopping and shopping. Since that is so, question number 2 is not going to be addressable.

Bob