Laptop fu, round 2

[vsp]

After talking it over with my better half, it seems that we _both_ would have fun with a laptop. It'd basically be a portable entertainment machine -- MP3s, arcade and console emulators, old games like Ultima and NetHack and Angband, maybe a DVD-ROM drive for movies, nothing particularly excruciating on the processor. (About the most intense emulator I'd imagine wanting is Visual Boy Advance, which wants around a 500mhz minimum. I'll save Visual Pinball for my home PC.)

So if I wanted to get my hands on a laptop with...
* moderate processor speed (I'm guessing around 500-600mhz, maybe less if I can get away with it)
* a CD-ROM drive at minimum, no burner required, perhaps a DVD-ROM drive
* at least 4-5 gigs of HD space
* modem/ethernet not essential; I don't picture myself connecting to anything in particular
* preinstalled Windows would be nice, but not vital, as I can put 98SE on it
* gotta be able to hook a "real" mouse to it
* IMPORTANT: A battery with a halfway-decent charge time (preferably at least a couple of hours, as we travel three hours to/from Williamsport quite a bit) -- that means Lithium-Ion, as far as I know

...what would such a beast tend to go for these days, and from whom should I try to acquire one?

(I'd prefer a direct-retail solution over eBay/mail-order, one where I can drive it back personally and bang it on the desk if there's something wrong with it, but I'm open to suggestions.)

[SteveDallas]

That's an excellent question; I've been thinking along those lines too. (In a somewhat academic way, since the cash is a bit tight at the moment.) But I'd have to have the DVD as a requirement.

I have a laptop from my office that I'm sometimes able to snag for long trips. It's an older Gateway, with a Celeron 550MHz. But it has a DVD-ROM, and for basic word processing, checking email, and watching DVDs it's quite adequate. The battery barely lasts two hours when watching a DVD. Something like that might be a good starting point for your consideration.

[zippyt]

VSP said * IMPORTANT: A battery with a halfway-decent charge time (preferably at least a couple of hours, as we travel three hours to/from Williamsport quite a bit) -- that means Lithium-Ion, as far as I know

Get a power inverter for the car . I have one for the BEAST of a lap top from work . 75mhz Pentum 1 , 500 meg hd , external cd drive ( a cheap ass wanna be walkman thingee that doesn't work half the time ) win 3.1 , dos 6.2(yeppers you read correctly I am STILL a command line commando). The battery won't even power this beast up with out chargeing for a bit , so it stays plugged in when i need it .

[vsp]

Yeah, I found out that such an adaptor exists a little while after I posted. (I knew that I could hook a Game Boy Advance through the cig lighter, but a laptop draws just a tad more power than that.)

Still, lithium-ion is newer and better technology, so I'd prefer that.

Now I just have to debate between buying a used laptop in the 500-750mhz range (much cheaper) or a new one (overpowered for what I'll use it for, double the price, but likely more reliable).

[vsp]

Dell Financial Services seems to be selling a metric ton of refurbed Dell laptops (mostly 600-800mhz, varying specs, formerly leased units) on eBay.

Generally not much of a warranty left on these, but they are direct from the source.

Anyone ever dealt with that end of Dell's business?

[richlevy]

Originally posted by vsp
Dell Financial Services seems to be selling a metric ton of refurbed Dell laptops (mostly 600-800mhz, varying specs, formerly leased units) on eBay.

Generally not much of a warranty left on these, but they are direct from the source.

Anyone ever dealt with that end of Dell's business?

After I read your e-mail, I visited their site since I am looking for a cheap new desktop. They listed -

DELL (NO O/S) DIMENSION 4100 1000MHz 256MB 40GB 56K CDRW 32X $422.00

Compusa has this NEW HP computer

Pavilion a300n Minitower
Intel Celeron Processor, 2.6GHz, 256MB RAM, 40GB Hard Drive, 48X24X48 CD-RW Drive, Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Product Number:307428
Brand: Hewlett-Packard
Monitor not included unless otherwise specified. $499.97

So for $422 plus shipping you get a 1ghz desktop with no OS or application software and no warranty, where for $70 more you can get a BRAND NEW 2.6ghz machine from a major brand with a licensed copy of XP home and basic application software.

This reminds me of the time I went into an old mom-and-pop electronics store. The guy was selling LED calculators with no memory function for $30. This was at a time when you could buy one with an LCD display and memory for $15. When I mentioned this to him he replied that he paid so much for them and couldn't bear to let them go for less. He went out of business shortly after that.

There are a lot of stores selling used computers who do not appear to understand how much they lose their value. That $422 stripped desktop should be $150.

Laptops are even worse. A new 2 ghz laptop from Toshiba can be had for $700-800 after rebates, but some sub-1ghz used notebooks are selling in the same range.

The best place to buy a used laptop is at a computer show, after they have plugged it in for you.

[vsp]

Originally posted by richlevy
So for $422 plus shipping you get a 1ghz desktop with no OS or application software and no warranty, where for $70 more you can get a BRAND NEW 2.6ghz machine from a major brand with a licensed copy of XP home and basic application software.

Is Hewlett-Packard still considered a "major brand?" Their motto through the last half-decade seems to have been "At least we're better than eMachines and Compaq." (Plus, I have an aversion to buying prebuilt PCs off-the-rack at major retail chains, dating back to a gloriously uninformed purchase of a Packard Bell at Computer City many years ago, AND an aversion to sending any money in the direction of Carly Fiorina.)

Looking at Dell's ebay presence that I mentioned, I see a slightly inferior desktop (P3-933 Optiplex, 128MB, 20GB, 24x CD) currently going for ~$150 with an hour to go, a far cry from $422. I won't say that the Optiplex will outperform the HP across the board... but for a third of the price, it shouldn't.

I have an OS. I have application software if I want to install it there. I don't necessarily want to pay for components that I'm not going to use. I'm not averse to buying new -- in general, I prefer to do so -- but it's harder for me to justify double the expense for what'll essentially be a toy.

This reminds me of the time I went into an old mom-and-pop electronics store. The guy was selling LED calculators with no memory function for $30. This was at a time when you could buy one with an LCD display and memory for $15. When I mentioned this to him he replied that he paid so much for them and couldn't bear to let them go for less. He went out of business shortly after that.

We had a videogame store near here that ran (and ran out of business) on the same fallacy. If he paid $25 for it and it just sits on the shelf for years, it's not "worth" $25 -- it's worth $0, because that's the return he's getting from his investment.

Unfortunately, most small-business owners going head-to-head with the big boys (as this store owner did with Electronics Boutique) lose out on such margins. The game-shop owner tried to get $40 for games that even EB couldn't sell at $9.99, and was impervious to all such evidence presented to him. "Someone'll come in and buy it." Well, someone did, when the store was going out of business and the games were marked at $1.99...

There are a lot of stores selling used computers who do not appear to understand how much they lose their value. That $422 stripped desktop should be $150.

And, at least at the moment, this one is.

Note that I know better than to go to, let's say, somewhere like Second Source. They're the patron saints of overpricing older hardware.

Laptops are even worse. A new 2 ghz laptop from Toshiba can be had for $700-800 after rebates, but some sub-1ghz used notebooks are selling in the same range.

Not on the eBay store I mentioned. Two I was watching this afternoon both went for under $400 -- one P3-750MHz, one P3-650MHz with a DVD drive. Are they underpowered compared to a new $800 laptop? Yes -- but they don't sell new laptops in the speed range that would be sufficient for my needs anymore.

The best place to buy a used laptop is at a computer show, after they have plugged it in for you.

And what happens a month later, when the sale is over, the seller has moved on to a show in Hoboken and your laptop starts emitting sparks? (Not that eBay is better in that respect, but you don't have to pay an entrance fee to get into eBay.)

[mbpark]

Hello,

I bought a Dell Dimension 4100 with an OS (well, Windows ME, which promptly got erased in favor of 2000 Professional) and a DVD-ROM instead of the CD-RW (but with a 20 GB HD) 3 years ago for $1,100 including shipping from Dell! This included a 17" Monitor and their standard software package (Works, WinDVD, etc.). Did I mention the 3 year warranty? . It still works. I watched Ren and Stimpy DVDs on it last night.

I was on their Dell Factory Outlet website, not Dell Financial Services, and was finding machines loaded with XP Home for $399.00. These were 2.4 Ghz or 2.6 Ghz Pentium 4 machines, not Celerons (which are utter crap compared to the PIV).

You can find a decent laptop on there in the $700 range.

My recommendation for you, VSP, is to go onto eBay and get an IBM Thinkpad R31. These things are tanks, and for the price you're going to pay for a 600Mhz laptop, you get a 1Ghz PIII with IBM's factory warranty. It's an incredible deal. Plus, these laptops have DOS drivers, I believe. I've already had them fedex me out a CMOS battery.

Dell Financial Services gets machines off corporate lease. Dell Factory Outlet is the way to go.

Mitch

[vsp]

So much for <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34804.html">Hewlett-Packard</a>.

Like it or not, the file-sharing genie is out of the bottle. There are people who are buying computers _solely_ for peer-to-peer. And Carly Fiorina thinks that declaring "we're going to build DRM into every one of our consumer devices" is going to HELP sales?

"Hi! Compared to our competitors, we're crippled! Buy us!"

As for myself, with further consideration, a laptop is still tempting... but getting one with a real, working graphics card in it (as in, something that won't totally choke and gag on single-player 3D gaming) will cost a fortune. Getting a custom second desktop may be a more cost-effective option.

[headsplice]

I'll second mbpark's Motion of a Thinkpad. They're what I use at work, and they've been nothing but great (with the exception of some CMOS battery issues, but those are resolved easily).
If you're in the Twin Cities or SoCal, check out MicroCenter, they have lots of good deals on new computers all the time.

[vsp]

We have a MicroCenter nearby, and I'll give them props for still having an actual Macintosh section.

Their PowerSpec house-brand systems are drizzling shit, however, and I soured on their used merchandise when I bought a "certified working" inkjet printer there once that turned out to have a BROKEN internal part once I got it home and unwrapped it. They took it back, but it was an inconvenient extra drive.

Where does one find Thinkpads new these days?

[mbpark]

vsp,

I got mine via PC Connection, www.pcconnection.com. Used it tonight, too.

Mitch