which laptop and other question.

lmtduffy

Hello, my home computer is quickly going senile and the tractor of a monitor is depressing me. So I'm hoping to get a laptop instead.

I've looked at a few things and have found the following, and think they live up to what I want.

http://www.dabs.ie/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=5C6T&CategorySelectedId=11012&InMerch=1#specifications

seems okay but doesn't specify the battery life, but says its good.

http://www.dabs.ie/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=5CTS&CategorySelectedId=11012&NavigationKey=11012&InMerch=1#specifications

seems good to, but would like longer battery life.

http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfullat.asp?productcode=ECE1657198#spec

seems okay


Budget
400-550, like to keep it under 500.

intended use
college work so word processing, also using it for music and watching movies and some old games. A webcam on it would be one less thing to worry about.

mobility reasonably mobile, and would very much like a long battery life.

warranty not too important provided I dont have to do an extreme amount of work to get it started.

and on a side note what would I need to do so that I could use a laptop in place of the monitor for my home computer?

Thanks,

CHW

lmtduffy wrote: »

and on a side note what would I need to do so that I could use a laptop in place of the monitor for my home computer?

Easiest way is to get a network cable, and use remote desktop connection (XP SP2, I think minimum). Your PC will need a network port, new laptop probably will have it. If your PC and laptop have autosensing network ports, any network cable will do, otherwise you'd need a crossover cable. Laptop will need to be on, and then run RDC from laptop to bring up the PC.

May be possible over wireless, but obviously PC will need wireless, and it may be trickier setting it up (no experience with RDC over wireless myself).

There are probably other commercial software solutions available (eg, VNC).

Getting messier, if the PC has something like S-Video or composite out, it might be possible to pass this through a USB video capture card, but this would have to be run through some video capture software on your laptop, possible, but not very practical.