Decent laptop for sub-€500?

Fenster

Well its become the case recently that I realised I need a laptop. I find that when I wind up fixing PCs, a laptop would be an incredibly handy thing to have around, and as I'm planning on taking up a night course soon, I'd need it for class work also.

Anyways, this is more or less what I need. I'm thinking of a dual boot between 2k/Fedora:

DVD burner
Onboard LAN/Ethernet port
P3 processor
40gb HD (at least)
512mb ram

Graphics and on-board sound aren't important. I've a bad ear (tinnitus), so I don't listen to much in the way of music and as its purely a work machine, I won't be playing games on it.

Those are about my only requirments. I've seen a couple of cheap laptops in this price range, but these are clapped-out pieces of crap for the most part. I'd want something new, or something I'd build myself.

€500 or less is what I'm aiming for, maybe €600 at a push. Can any pricing gurus point me the right way?

RE*AC*TOR

1. You won't get a "new" P3 laptop.
2. You can't build a laptop yourself.
check out the for sale forum for a laptop with a p3. you can upgrade the HD yourself. You could get an external DVD-RW.

The €800 mark would be about as low as you'd get on a new laptop. That'd be a celeron with about 256mb ram, a cdrw/dvdrom combo (if you're lucky).

Fenster

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

1. You won't get a "new" P3 laptop.
2. You can't build a laptop yourself.
check out the for sale forum for a laptop with a p3. you can upgrade the HD yourself. You could get an external DVD-RW.

The €800 mark would be about as low as you'd get on a new laptop. That'd be a celeron with about 256mb ram, a cdrw/dvdrom combo (if you're lucky).

We have a €750 one in Currys (650 after discount), but its...poop. That's about the only word for it.

I'd get it anyways, but it uses a weird, obscure processor that I've never heard of, which sorta shafts me when it comes to Fedora software.

RE*AC*TOR

is it a via nehemiah or soemthing similar? will work fine with fedora, but not very fast (even compared to P3).

Fenster

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

is it a via nehemiah or soemthing similar? will work fine with fedora, but not very fast (even compared to P3).

I think so, I'll check tomorrow. Either way, crap processor, not worth messing with it.

dazberry

"Back to the Future" supposedly have €499 refurbed IBM P3 laptops - note: this is second hand information so I can't verify it exactly - and I don't know the rest of the spec. but it won't met your spec Fenster. A friend of mine I'm guessing has something very similar which cost nearly 3k sterling a number of years ago - wouldn't be mad on it myself but that's just personal taste.

The VIA C3 laptops are equiv. to a p2/3 450. The C3s are actually pretty popular in the mini-itx market - http://www.mini-itx.com/.

In fairness the Dixons machine is pretty okay in that it has somewhat decent components otherwise, a decent (if not small) hard disk, DVD/CDR and a good screen, 4xUSB, 100mb Ethernet, Modem etc and 256mb RAM (shared with Video) is pretty ok at the price.

However the battery life on them is pretty poor and it has no PCMCIA/PC-Card port!!! No FDD either, but I suppose that's the same with a lot of laptops today. Also because its not a regular brand (even though its mainly 3rd party components - IBM/LiteOn/Elite) you'd have to wonder how easy it would be to get say a new battery in 2 years time.

Its actually a difficult call as to recommend it or not (in general - well under Fenster requirements). Comparing it the Toshiba's they bought in work 4 years ago - it's not much faster in pure processing terms but beats them hands down in performance with the other components, screen, and is a factor cheaper. I suppose in the end if you're looking for a desktop replacement and your desktop is a p2-450 and your short of cash its an option

D.

damnyanks

You won't get a new laptop anywhere near that price. Most that you do will of course be second hand and perhaps out of warranty. Check ebay, I got a compaq from the HP shop (for 1100) but is good spec.

Might find something nearer to your requirements