Need to be brought up to speed with current LAPTOPS!

"Maximum Memory Supported
1.5GB"

128mb for a graphics card is gd. (but not shared)

 

How hard is it to add ram in a laptop?

About the video card - it's integrated so you'd need to know if it ha an expansion slot AVAILABLE. Wasn't clear on that site.

Also, from the looks of it (comparing to Toshiba's website), this seems to be an older model? I'd take a look from Toshiba's site (and also Dell's Inspiron 6000 while you're at it). Most, if not all of Toshiba's processors seem to be Intel 'M' (Dell too, I think), not the one that's currently in the system.

 

I'll chime in about Dell Inspiron. My wife bought one just over a year ago... it has crashed three times in the first year and had to be sent back to Dell each time. The last time it crashed was 3 days after the one year anniversary. She had to battle to get it repaired (out of warranty) and spent hours & hours on hold with Dell Support - and she had great difficulty understanding them. Based on the fact she had 2 weeks of downtime, she felt they should support the thing and repair it. They finally did but it took 6 hours on hold and several diconnects. Incredibly frustrating.

We've had Dell's in the past... I use a Dell laptop at work. But this was a disaster.

 

John,

This may be a bit long

Back in the day laptops were made from the same processors as desktop models. Around the Pentium 3-4 era, Intel started making laptop chips which drew less power, were able to automatically slow themselves down to draw less power, put out less heat, and made for a smaller, thinner laptop. These chips are pretty expensive, as is the support circuitry to run them. Thats why a 2Ghz laptop is expensive compared to a 2Ghz laptop from a couple years back. Many laptop manufacturers continued to use the desktop processors in their laptops, and this allowed a LOW price point for apparent high-end processors. The problem was these laptops were usually heavy, hot, and with limited battery life. I bought two - a Compaq and a Dell, both with 2.4Ghz processors. The Dell my ex-GF has so I dont know how its holding up, but the Compaq sucked. There were a lot of problems with it. It finally died last week after having 2 broken screens, broken ports (USB and power) 3 power adapters, a keyboard and other issues. I grudged paying $2k for a 2Ghz machine when I paid $1800 for this 2.4Ghz laptop about 2 years back.

I run pretty intensive applications. I do CAD/CAM work in Inventor, Rhino and MasterCAM. I do graphics work in Photoshop and InDesign, I run the Office Suite, web browsers, etc, etc. My opinion is that 98% of people are usually just running MS Office, web browser and not much else and probably would do fine with a 300Mhz machine. My replacement laptop has the following specs

AMD Sempron 3000+
512MB Ram (upgradeable to 1GB)
80GB HDD
15.4" Widescreen display
DVD-RW/CD-RW DVD/CD Writer

How much did I pay for it? $749. Yep, you read that right. By FAR the best deal I saw anywhere. I looked online as well as at 7 or 8 different stores and nothing could touch the specs for less than $1,500. I travel quite a lot and my laptops get a bit beat up. No laptop is going to be safe from obsolescence in 2-3 years, and I would prefer to get a decent machine now and upgrade in 2 years than a $4k laptop today that is slower than a $800 laptop in 2 years.

My laptop is an Acer. It weight 6lbs, is pretty thin and light, and is quite fast. The ports are laid out nicely on the sides and front (USB port on front and headphones/mic - great for easy access if the laptop is on your desk) and USB ports on the side too if you are using it on your lap. It gets about 1-2 hours battery life on a charge. It has an optional floppy drive and you can upgrade the RAM to 1GB for $120 or so. It is available at staples.com. I am very happy with it. It is solidly built and I am still amazed at what I got for the price. Even scouring the discount sellers online I have not found a better deal. Staples does not say that it has the DVD writer but it does (maybe a misprint in their ad). The ONLY thing I would fault this notebook for is that it does not have bluetooth, but I ordered a bluetooth PCMCIA card so I can use a bluetooth mouse and headphones and external drive so I will have no wires save the power wire.

 

I dont know if any modern laptops are going to have a graphics expansion slot. IMO and IME its never worth it to try to upgrade a laptop beyond some RAM and the HDD. An external graphics card on a laptop is going to be a mess. They are so proprietary that designing modularity into a laptop always causes drawbacks in other areas.

I am also not sure that shared graphics memory is a big deal... I dont think John will be trying to play games on the machine, and even the worst graphics system on a laptop will undoubtedly be way more than he needs.

That latop shown has a desktop processor. Having owned laptops with desktop and mobile processors, I would go with the latter ever time. They make for thinner and lighter laptops, longer battery life, longer laptop life, less heat, less noise, and less compromises in the design of the unit.

 

PowerBook!

 

ThinkPads are by far the best laptops, but you have to pay to play.

http://www.lenovo.com/think/us/en/

 

LOL! Actually one of my 'smaller' projects is a website www.EnjoyTheMusic.com now standing at over 3000 web pages, over 5.5 MILLION words... over 300MB of space.

Oh, and we JUST launched (as of an hour ago) an over $40,000 equipment giveaway contest. Have a feeling my mail server is going to begin smoking... right... about... now!

 

Don't pass looking at the Fujitsu Lifebooks. I got one about 14 months ago and the prices have not come down more than $300! Awesome machine. Very lightweight and thin. It has WiFi that works great in Hot Spots. I use Verizon's Earthlink card and get internet access everywhere there is a Verizon signal ($89 per month for unlimited access).

 

FYI: Am on my thrid Dell in the past five years. Not because they break, because they hold up and their service, when needed, is very good. NO, not the phone tech guys, i don;t need that, i need hardware fix/maintain when i chew through yet another keyboard.

My deal, when it AB-SO-F'in-LUTELY needs to work and travel well in nearly ALL environments and power supply for all countires.

Ok, so the frontside bus is kinda 'slow' at 533MHz, but it aint no slouch

If you want a REAL hardcore system (besides Alienware laptops):

Dell M70
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=555&l=en&oc=WSM70PAD&s=biz




Outstanding design, analysis and content creation: Ultra fast PCI Express NVIDIA® QuadroTM FX Go1400 256MB OpenGL graphics, support for Genuine Windows® XP Professional, excellent compute performance, and high bandwidth DDR2/533 memory

Uncompromised mobility: A true notebook with a 6.69 lbs1 starting weight, excellent battery life, and a comprehensive range of wireless and security options

Optimized, worry free performance: Certification of key CAD, DCC, GIS and MCAE applications, and performance tuning

Workstation service & support: Expert technical assistance just a phone call away, should you need it (NOTE: this is REAL support, not crap as you get a NETWORK guy)




Get:

Pentium® M Processor 770 (2.13GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 533FSB)15.4 WUXGA LCD [add $230]


2GB, 533MHz, DDR2 SDRAM (2 DIMMS) [add $354] (of you are REALLY hard core user, or only a mere 1GB for 'basic' use)

80GB Hard Drive (7200 RPM) [add $125] (or ANY HD size you need but IT MUST ROTATE AT 7200)

8XDVD+/-RW w/Sonic Digital Media™ and CyberLink PowerDVD™ [add $119]

Intel® PRO/Wireless 2915 WLAN (802.11a/b/g, 54Mbps) miniPCI Card [add $39]


OPTIONAL, i hate BT due to security reasons, but they can come in handy:
Dell Wireless®350 Bluetooth Module [add $49]


TOTAL PRICE:
$3,536

And yes that is a lot of $$$, but in my position every minute of slowdown could be worth $$$, let alone crappy proprietary crap Compaq or The Cow guys use. Yes over $3k may seen INSANE for a laptop... until you lose critical data or time or both. And yes i backup files, etc. When the laptop absolutely, positively must work in Japan, China, Italy, Spain, Brazil, USA... and all in the same month's time!

SEE SPECS IN BELOW PDF

and no, i do not work for Dell... but if they ever burnt me like AST and Compaq did i'd fry them a new...
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Why not replace the harddrive and reimage the machine? Unless there is more wrong with it. Also, checkout www.ubid.com . Sometimes they have some screaming deal, some times ok, but it's worth a look.

 

My Toshibas vent hot air below the computer. Since my computer is mostly on my desk when not 'on route,' it will actually overheat sometimes and shut off! This really is annoying. None of my HP's did that, but they had issues with their harddrives crashing after a few (2) years...

 

If reliability is important, NOTHING holds up like an IBM. Everyone I have talked to who has experience with lots of laptops says the same thing. There is a price to pay for that, but they are ultra sturdy and IBM's support is second to none. I've had Sharp, Sony, Dell, Gateway, Toshiba, Compaq, Acer, IBM and others. IBM is the undisputed leader for "it needs to work every time". Their support is above and beyond too - I believe they still do overnight replacements anywhere in the world.

 

What res is the screen and what video controller/memory goes with it? Looks like you got a docking station also?

Otherwise the specs look decent for the price, but I've never heard of SysteMax.

 

Depends on what you are going to use it for. I travel a lot and I've yet to kill an IBM ThinkPad. Great machine.

 

I've got a wifi card in mine and it's been 100% reliable. Only time it gives me grief is if a hotel has their proxy server screwed up. I have never had a situation where we couldn't figure it out. It's the only computer that gets thrown in my bag on a trip.

 

The video capability (Intel 915) is mediocre, you may not care about high performance graphics, unless you do 3D gaming though. The screen res is 1280x800 which is standard for a mid-size screen. Unless you get tired easily looking at dense screens, you may want to put some money into a higher-res screen like 1680x1050. This will give you more screen area for charts and stuff.

That aside, my biggest concern is Systemax. I checked Cnet and ZDnet and there was just one review on a Systemax desktop system. Since this is going to be your only computer and your trading computer to boot, I presume it has to be really reliable. I would go with a name brand (IBM, Dell, Toshiba, HP) under those conditions. If you're trying to hit a budget, then you might look for some closeouts and give up a bit in CPU performance and memory (1.8 GHz CPU and 1GB DDR would be a barely noticeable performance drop for trading purposes and you can usually add a memory card later to increase memory if needed) in order to get the reliability and warranty service.

 

John -

Check your PM.

 

TURN THOSE MACHINES BACK ON......TURN THOSE MACHINES BACK ONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!

 

Wait 2 months and the same thing will be 400 less and very out of date.

Frankly, don't buy a laptop to be a speed machine. Buy a laptop to travel with, and have a speed machine at home. I am sitting here with a 4yo IBM P3 laptop and that is just fine for what I do.

Oh yeah - I also have a dual Xeon 2.4 with 4gb RAM for the fun stuff

Dave