Cheap Laptop

dingbat

Friend of mine looking for a cheap laptop for college work. Literally for running MS Word, nothing else. Any advice on where to find such machines? There's a couple of IBM thinkpads (PIII 800Mhz) on computersunlimited that might do the trick at €575 + VAT. Dell's cheapest (€760 inc. VAT and Del.) appears to be an excellent price however it doesn't include either a floppy drive or a power cable as part of the price (if I am not mistaken). I feel that an external floppy drive would be irritating.

Boro

I think that with the dell laptop, you can get a floppy as a drive module (ie unplug the cd/dvd drive and plug in the floppy). They are called 'usb devices' but arent really external usb - they are treated as usb by the OS. Fairly sure it comes with a power cable.

Anyway, from reading one of those leaflets they send around, i think that deal is €595 ex vat until 27/10/04.

Shrimp

I'd go for the dell one, but buy a usb pen drive. Much better than the floppy drive!

Wez

I've got a Dell Latitude cpi. It's low spec, but works. I listen to mp3's on it but it'd run Word no problem I'd say. I'm kinda willing to sell, depends on the price of course. How much he willing to pay? he'd have to source Word himself tho. I ain't got it.

mneylon

You could use Open Office instead of Word.

zynaps

Yep, OpenOffice is free and works great for me. It also handles the Office file formats quite well (though it needs to be told to use them by default if you want that kinda thing).

savemejebus

pcworld have a laptop with a Via processor called the "Patriot" it's a 1ghz machine (no idea what it's like) for €750 with xp home and works. Info ishere, it could be worth checking out

dingbat

savemejebus wrote:

pcworld have a laptop with a Via processor called the "Patriot" it's a 1ghz machine (no idea what it's like) for €750 with xp home and works. Info ishere, it could be worth checking out

Checked it out, did a bit of legwork. I think it's not worth the risk. The Dell looks to be the best bet. Found an IBM Thinkpad on Elara for €921 but I can't think it's worth the extra.

tipperaryboy

hey,why not check out www.laptopsgoingcheap.com !
you would find a laptop their for a very good price!

zynaps

Not bad, tippboy