Laptop - help !

Aurther Hugh

I'm really clueless when it comes to computers but I'm going back to college to do my masters next month and I have to buy a laptop. The college has a scheme with dell but I was thinking of getting one myself outside of this so they issued me with the non-vendor minimum specs below....Needless to say this means v little to me but I was wondering does this look sufficient for everyday use ? Is there anything else I should consider to make life easier ? Really don't want my ignorance to lead to a bad purchase !

Laptop Specification Recommendation/Options
Processor type: Intel® Celeron™ processor (1.2 Ghz)Intel® Pentium™ III processor (1.2 Ghz)
RAM: 256MB
Disk Capacity: 20GB
Media device: CD DVD-ROM
Installed O/S: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Network Interface: Internal 10/100Mbps LAN Card with RJ45 type connection.
Fax/Modem Speeds: Internal 56Kbps.
Network Cable: 10/100Mbps RJ45 Type Ethernet cable, CAT 5e or better, 3 - 4 meters in length.
PCMCIA: 1 Type II or 1 Type III.
Wireless Card: 802.11b Compliant
Anti Virus: Anti-Virus Software
Application Software: Microsoft Office XP Professional.
Warranty: Your own warranty or 3rd party support resource.
Back-Up Device: CD or DVD Writer, USB Memory Key (one or a combination of)

Sleipnir

If you're using it primarily for word-processing, internet and email then it's fine.
If you plan on doing any gaming or 3-D animation then it wouldn't be much use.

Aurther Hugh

Sleipnir wrote:

If you're using it primarily for word-processing, internet and email then it's fine.
If you plan on doing any gaming or 3-D animation then it wouldn't be much use.

Certainly the former ! Thanks for that !

briano

It depends on what you want to use the laptop for. A 1.2ghz Celeron laptop with 256mb ram probably wouldn't cut it if you are doing graphics work, film editing or using programming IDEs like eclipse. It certainly won't be up to it if you want to play some fairly new 3D games. But if you just need it for surfing the web and using Office then you should be fine.

Most new laptops today would come with a hard drive bigger than 20Gb, network card, PCMCIA slot and a CD writer as standard. In fact I think you'd be hard pressed to find a new laptop that didn't meet those specs easily (except for the wireless card and XP pro, both of which are usually optional extras)

Tom Dunne

Only two minor points I would have - memory and Office.

256Mb is the bare minumum, 512Mb would make a difference, especially if you have several documents open at the one time.

Office Professional - do you really need it? OpenOffice.org have a downloadable suite of software that will do all you need (for free) and can read Microsoft Office documents. I did my Masters Thesis with it.

Sleipnir

yeah actually, I would do as Tom says and bump it up to 512.
256 is "okay" but 512 is "good"

I would also recommend OpenOffice. It's cheap (i.e. free) and it's just as good as MS Office.

briano

I think when the universities are recommending laptops they specify MS Office products should be used, to keep it easy for them.

But if they don't, then deffo save yourself E300 and use OpenOffice.