Decent laptop for under $600??

[mtbiac]

I only only $600 or less to spend on a laptop that I need for school. My only requirements are 14" LCD+, DVD, good battery life. I realize i'll probably have to purchase something used which is fine with me. Or are there any REALLLy good deals out right now for laptops reallly cheap? (checked fatwallet, nothing in this price range).

also- what used laptops go for this price range? The only one I can think of is the IBM T21 which I know is pretty decent. I dont know much about laptops so this is all i know of


ANY comments would be great,
thanks
mike-

 

[Scatterpack]

Your joking right ?

 

[mtbiac]

nope. I recently picked up a laptop with those specs for $300 used, but the 300mhz and 320mb of RAM is just too slow to play Divx movies, so i'm gonna sell that and upgrade. I did say USED so this is very do-able.

any REAL help please?

 

[alby4ever]

you must be joking................ if you're not joking, just say u r so u wont look stupid but keep looking around............ laptops rite now are where desktops use to be 4 or 5 years ago, where u can now get a decent laptop for about 1000. if you only have 600 to spend and you want a good laptop just forget about it.

 

[mtbiac]

i'm not looking for anything that gread. Around 600mhz would be fine. This is going to be mainly for school.

I'm also now considering the smaller laptops (12-13" screens, 1in thin) for portability

i've found a bunch below 600, just not sure whats good, etc

how are the Toshiba porteges?? they have a nice one with a 13.3" screen, 1in thin, dvd, p3 650, 320ram, for around $450...this sounds good, no?

 

[eriqesque]

Used notebooks take a spin

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: mtbiac
I only only $600 or less to spend on a laptop that I need for school. My only requirements are 14" LCD+, DVD, good battery life. I realize i'll probably have to purchase something used which is fine with me. Or are there any REALLLy good deals out right now for laptops reallly cheap? (checked fatwallet, nothing in this price range).

also- what used laptops go for this price range? The only one I can think of is the IBM T21 which I know is pretty decent. I dont know much about laptops so this is all i know of


ANY comments would be great,
thanks
mike-

P3 650, 384MB RAM, 14.1" LCD, DVD - $500
P3 700, 128MB RAM, 14.1" LCD, DVD - $530
They're kind of rare in this price range (I was looking just a few weeks ago myself). They might not run Divx too well though - I had tried a P3 650 Compaq (which I still have actually - bad battery though, which I might work on); I'll have to try Divx on it actually. I had tried Xvid, which is similar to Divx, just open source, and it had trouble with it. It does play DVD's though; it just can't handle decoding them AND outputting it to a TV at the same time. Notebooks in this price range are NOT powerhouses. You might want to scope it up to maybe $800. Then you can get a pretty nice notebook. I bought this for my sister. (not as a gift of course; her money. I'm not rich.)

 

[ultimatebob]

I think that you have the right idea. You could easily pick up a refurb T21 from the IBM Store on eBay for $600.

 

[mtbiac]

thanks for the tips. I'm leaning towards a smaller computer now because, now that i think about it, this BEAST of a laptop i have now is KILLING my shoulder...

btw- My old MINI-sony 10.4" LCD, celeron 600, 128mb ram ran divx at full screen Perfectly. I used to watch them all the time during class, hehe.

so are you guys sure these laptops would cough alittle with divx or are you just guessing??

thanks again

 

[Black.Lotus]

i don't see the point in getting used laptops like those- dell sells inspiron 1100s for $650 shipped pretty often (several times/month) and a 2ghz celery will blow away a p3-700. Not to mention that it's new, has a warranty, etc.

 

[jimmyl930]

Check out xpbargains.com and techbargains.com

Dell usually has a lot of deals running. You can get a 1100 for cheap.

 

[jimmyl930]

Today I found this. It's an IBM T21 for $679.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Black.Lotus
i don't see the point in getting used laptops like those- dell sells inspiron 1100s for $650 shipped pretty often (several times/month) and a 2ghz celery will blow away a p3-700. Not to mention that it's new, has a warranty, etc.

Something like that would be good too, though it might be more than that for a DVD drive. The Inspirons are nice laptops too.

Anyone know what OEM makes laptops for Dell? They might make them for Compaq too - the Dell Inspiron 2650 and Compaq 1510T I've got (well ok, the Dell is my sister's) have very similar designs. It wouldn't surprise me if the same company actually builds both of them.



Edit: I mentioned in a previous post that a Pe650 might have trouble with Divx. I guess it depends on the size and resolution. A 720x480 Xvid video couldn't play at more than maybe 5fps. However, a file I encoded at half resolution (360x240 or thereabouts) also in Xvid plays smoothly. It probably also would depend on the postprocessing settings of the codec - the more postprocessing you set the codec to do, the better the picture looks, but it needs more CPU power to do that.

 

[fareal]

I would also recommend a Dell Inspiron 1100. And as someone else said just keep an eye on xpbargains for deals on this model. I'm typing on one right now. Actually we have two.

One is a Celeron 2.2Ghz, 256MB, 30GB, 15", DVD/CDRW $670
The other is a Celeron 2.0Ghz, 384MB, 20GB, 14.1", CDRW $640

Of course those prices were after rebates so you may have to put out more cash up front, but you would get it back in the form of a rebate.

Don't forget to use this to get an additional 2 to 3% cash back.