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your next laptop

B1 Pictures
Children's Machine

webcam! huge resolution!

Man this is one dope laptop...

Paul
Wed, 15 Nov 2006 22:43:14 -0800

Awesome! I'd been wanting one of these $100 laptops for a long time . . . I don't care if they are for kids! In the pictures from the links above, I see a bunch of adults surrounding the notebook. I haven't seen a kid in those photos yet. ;-)

Speaking of notebooks . . . I've got to pick up a new one today. My HP Pavilion Entertainment Notebook PC dv1227us broke two days ago. :-(

Chieh Cheng
Thu, 16 Nov 2006 09:25:14 -0800

what happened?!

The one you've been using? Dude, get a MacBook...I'm being serious about this...they have refub ones on Apple for like $300 off...

If I hadn't gotten new mem and a new battery for my current laptop, I'd be all over it...think about it.

Buy to last, that's what I say...my laptop is 3 years old and still got a couple more left if I wasn't so vain about getting the latest and best stuff out there...

were you able to save your stuff?

Paul
Thu, 16 Nov 2006 09:47:53 -0800

> what happened?!

Left it on one day, to do some backup syncs. Came home and the computer was off. I thought that was particularly weird. Asked my wife about it, she didn't touch it, except to put a free Cold Stone ice cream coupon on top of it . . . I suspect she broke it by doing that. She denies it, of course. ;-)

The computer won't recognize the hard disk. The hard disk won't spin up. So I thought maybe the hard disk is dead, which would be the better case situation. Pulled out the hard disk and swapped in another one. Place the first hard disk into an enclosure. Surprisingly, the hard disk actually works flawlessly in the enclosure on my wife's notebook.

The HP notebook, on the other hand, exhibits weird symptoms. Most of the time, it won't spin up the drive. The one time I got it to spin up, it died again after 15 minutes. The computer also would not detect any IDE hard drive in the BIOS.

> The one you've been using? Dude, get a MacBook...I'm being serious
> about this...they have refub ones on Apple for like $300 off...

Don't tell me how much off. I don't really care how much I get off. I care about the bottom line. Can I get one between $500 - $700 price range? What's the price range for the various models of Mac's? Refurb'ed and non-refurb'ed?

if (userWantToConvertWindowsXPintoMacOSXforFree ())
{
redirectUserTo (FlyakiteOSX);
}

> If I hadn't gotten new mem and a new battery for my current laptop, I'd
> be all over it...think about it.
> Buy to last, that's what I say...my laptop is 3 years old and still got
> a couple more left if I wasn't so vain about getting the latest and best
> stuff out there...

I do buy to last. The Sony VAIO 505TS still runs. It was a $1600 notebook. The freakin' HP is also a $1600 notebook. I expected it to last 5 years. Live and learn. I will never again buy a notebook computer over the $500 to $700 price range again. My other notebooks in this low-end price range are all happily running at my house. I was able to put two of these old notebooks to work for Halloween special effects. One was running the spooky CD/MP3, while the other was running the WebCam.

If I do ever need to get an expensive notebook, it'd be with an extended warranty.

Right now is a good time to buy. I can buy an awesome notebook for that $700 price range with a Radeon or GeForce card that would let me play some games. Some of those notebooks even come with dual cores.

> were you able to save your stuff?

The hard drive is just fine. But I have weekly backups, so it's not really a problem.

Chieh Cheng
Thu, 16 Nov 2006 10:12:30 -0800

sOUNDS LIke you want a Macbook with Applecare...good idea.

Paul
Thu, 16 Nov 2006 10:25:57 -0800

What's Applecare?
So . . . what's the price range for all of the Apple Mac notebook models?

Chieh Cheng
Thu, 16 Nov 2006 13:39:28 -0800

Applecare is the means by which you protect your computer against problems...

They're very good at making sure you get taken cared of. If you have problems, you may also go up the genius bar at any Apple store for free help, that would cost you about $100 with any other computer makers or resellers like Best Buy or Compusa.

to go PB Central

Refub prices rang from 899 and up
Regular Macbook/MBP prices can go from $999 with rebate.

A lot of the MB/MBP comes with rebates now. Coutesy of Intel.

I don't have a computer fast enough to try FlyakiteOSX...but the way this guy implemented it, it's very cool.

I think I saw it once a while ago. But at that time, my computer systems was still too slow.

Paul
Thu, 16 Nov 2006 11:59:03 -0800

Sony's new Vaio C15 laptop does a budget good
this isn't a bad deal on the face value.

They do have a much /better/ video system than the MacBook. However, the chip is quite anemic not to mention at half the cache.

Given Sony's pattern, the memory probably not the new 667Mhz but the 400 or the 533 which makes quite a big diff since the 667Mhz supports pairing.

And it does cost more but I imagine it's because of the dedicated GPU and Sony's still sizable ego.

Oh, don't forget Sony batteries cost 3 times more than everyone else's but likely to burn up just as much.

Paul
Thu, 16 Nov 2006 12:43:38 -0800

Thanks . . . but all of the notebook you suggest are way out of my budget. It's ridiculous to spend so much money for a notebook when an cheaper one can be had. Although we all want to keep our precious notebook for three to five years. There is really no guarantees. Even with the extended warranty, a ~$1600 notebook will eventually cost you ~$2000.

It seems better value to buy an $500 notebook. If it fails a year later (out of warranty), another $500 notebook would suffice. In three years, that would be $1500 plus tax, etc. And if it doesn't fail within three years, like my many other inexpensive notebooks, I would pocket ~$1000.

Best of all, having multiple notebooks that you can count on is like having multiple core . . . dual core, triple core, quad core. And even better, each core has full bandwidth to its own system I/O. ;-)

Chieh Cheng
Thu, 16 Nov 2006 13:52:19 -0800

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Title: Next Best Thing to OLPC
Weblog: GearHack
Excerpt: I am really quite excited that the One Laptop Per Child, better known as the $100 notebook computer, has finally bear fruit. My hope is that, eventually, I'd get my hands on one to play with. Although I won't be able to get my hands on one any time soon, I did encounter the next best thing just now- . . .
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