Laptop fit for a warzone!!

fireplace1982

Hi Everybody,

Im heading to Chad in central africa soon for a six month tour of peacekeeping duty. I am looking for a cheap laptop to bring over, it will be used solely for Sype, browsing and very importantly... watching movies from an external hard drive.

Some of the lads who have come back from their tour say a laptop is vital for maintaining sanity however they advised not to pay for a top end one as it will be operating in the sandy desert in 50 degree heat so apparently the laptop breaks down soon after returning. Im think €500 or less.

A decent screen, and true HD would be great, im a bit of a luddite so any help would be graetly appreciated.

Alanstrainor

How about screen size? Is it a case of bigger the better or is portability a priority?

fireplace1982

Size not important, in fact im extremely limited on what i can bring out so small is probably best

mrDerek

fireplace1982 wrote: »

Size not important,

hiiiiyooo thats wat she said

BaconZombie

TOUGHBOOK, TOUGHBOOK , TOUGHBOOK.

StopNotWorking

My brother in law brought over a crappy 3 year old laptop to Chad. Only issues I can remember him mentioning were the quality of his webcam and the bad internet connection when he was video calling my sister. If you're looking for a cheap sturdy notebook then your best bet might be a netbook(the really small laptops). They float around the 3-400 mark with good features. Granted they can't exactly play HD and they have no dvd/blu-ray drive but they are tough little machines.

I know a friend who dropped his Asus EEEpc down a full flight of stairs when he was video calling someone, he picked it back up and everything was still working perfectly, one little crack where the laptop hit the wooden floor but that was all, the video call was still going and all!

You could get a great netbook, one of those portable HDDs(I forget the brand but they are called passport drives I think?) and an external dvd drive for 500E easily. Plus most netbooks come with solid state drives, meaning a lot less moving parts inside the machine. As far as I know the dell Mini inspiron has no fans at all inside it and has no issues with heat!

Alanstrainor

BOFH_139 wrote: »

TOUGHBOOK, TOUGHBOOK , TOUGHBOOK.

That was my first thought too, until i saw the OP's budget. The lowest spec toughbook is about 1500, with the highest pushing 4000. So probably not suitable!

Evolute

Go to pc world they have great laptops for 399 nice hd screen on them and everything.

fireplace1982

The toughbook would be good but i will not be using it for work, purely for watching movies in the tent and video calls home so the extra money you would be paying for the toughbooks ability to be hockeyed around would be a waste. I have a 500gig ext hard drive already, a lot of the files are in HD and i think there is a TV in the camp so if i could use the laptop to hook up movies on the tv for the lads would be good too.

StopNotWorking

Depending on how good or bad the TV is you will either only need a normal vga cable, I think most decent laptops now come with a HDMI port standard. But that'll be real useless if the TV turns out to be some 5 year old banger.

fireplace1982

I think there is a decent lcd tv

skelliser

if your getting a new external hd this one has been tested by the us army! http://www.memoryc.com/storage/externalharddrive/transcend320gbstorejet25mobile.html
it also runs off the usb so no need for a mains plug.
its a great price as well. in fact it should be in bargin alerts!

Have one myself and no problems whatsoever

fireplace1982

I have an iomega external hard drive full of tv shows and movies already, ready made R+R!! Just need something to play it on!

Capt'n Midnight

Get a shock proof external drive
http://www.memoryc.com/products/description/320GB_Transcend_StoreJet_25_Mobile_RED_External_2_5-Hard_Drive_Shock_Resistant/index.html

To protect against data loss or damage from accidental slips or falls, the StoreJet 25 mobile meets the U.S.military drop-test standards MIL-STD-810F with advanced two-stage anti-shock technology,

also bring a bootable usb key as a backup in case the computer fails to boot,

netbook will be about € 330
or second hand toughbook

http://www.sterlingxs.co.uk/scpages/panasonictoughbooklaptopcf27.html - this has a crap spec, because it's very old. you can get VLC www.videolan.org to play DVD's not too sure if the laptop can

battery will be dead , it's old just like a car battery, not sure if you can get replacements , a UPS would be heavy
adding a battery and some RAM would still give you something much slower than a netbook and with a worse screen but tougher.

Capt'n Midnight

skelliser wrote: »

if your getting a new external hd this one has been tested by the us army! http://www.memoryc.com/storage/externalharddrive/transcend320gbstorejet25mobile.html
it also runs off the usb so no need for a mains plug.
its a great price as well. in fact it should be in bargin alerts!

Have one myself and no problems whatsoever

No not tested by the military , just meet a certain Mil spec

I think this is the RAM for the toughbook above
If it has 128MB that probably means 64 on board and you could replace the single slot 64 with a 128 giving you 192 in total which isn't that usable especially as it's a PII

http://memory.neon-drive.com/?man=38&mid=s_7764&smid=6217

ToughBook CF-27 (PII)

Standard memory: 32/64MB S
Maximum memory: 160/192MB
Upgrade slots: 1
Notes: N/A

Description Product code OEM part code Manufacturer Stock Price Buy
32MB Module TS32MCF71 CF-WMBA7132 Transcend Ships in 1-2 days €14
64MB Module TS64MCF71 CF-WMBA7164 Transcend Ships in 1-2 days €14
128MB Module TS128MCF71 CF-WMBA71128 Transcend Ships in 1-2 days €20




While the tough book and netbooks are tough they have small screens

O'Coonassa

Pick up an old crappy one on ebay would be my advice. Any decent kit I ever took to Africa got broken lost or stolen.

Say hello to our best buddy Mr Déby with a 7.62 would ya? Thanks.

E39MSport

Samsung NC10. Its the dogs for the money. 300 squids from dabs.ie.

Overheal

Oh why herro Hans Blix. Oh whats that? You want a new raptop? I give you a good dearh.

http://cgi.ebay.com/MILITARY-Panasonic-TOUGHBOOK-CF-27-laptop-DVD-XP-WIFI_W0QQitemZ250426010636QQihZ015QQcategoryZ177QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Capt'n Midnight

Overheal wrote: »

Oh why herro Hans Blix. Oh whats that? You want a new raptop? I give you a good dearh.

http://cgi.ebay.com/MILITARY-Panasonic-TOUGHBOOK-CF-27-laptop-DVD-XP-WIFI_W0QQitemZ250426010636QQihZ015QQcategoryZ177QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

that's $299, XP Pro on a PII , LOL -but it shows how tough it is

my link to the same mode Cf-27 was only £115
but if you want wifi you would need a pcmcia or USB card.

Overheal

Yeah the specs are low but I mean if you need to send email from a warzone its your best bet Itll run Boards.ie no problem. Thats what counts.

Alanstrainor

Tbh i think a netbook, be it and nc10 or an acer aspire one, will suit the OP. Any of the toughbooks mentioned are woeful as far as spec goes, and despite there reputation i could see hard drive failure amongst other problems arising fairly soon. If it were me OP, i'd buy an NC10 netbook, or an aspire one, and make a bootable Ubunto 9.04 usb stick "just in case" as it will give you access to your portable HD if the on-board HD goes bust. It will have a web-cam, will handle the web, email and you'll be able to watch movies, so long as they're not HD, on it.

majiktripp

Agreed, I think a netbook would do the job fine....but wouldn't you rather one of these or this

Was hungeering aftter one of these a while bacvk, have come down in price dramatically. Would be a good inverstment if your ever going away to a warzone again... still tthough the netbooks tick all the boxes really so pick one up , theres plenty to choose from. I quite like the new version off the Dell Mini 10 thats floating around US now too.

fireplace1982

We have something similar to a top of the range toughbook at our disposal over there but its strictly for work so i dont think i would be allowed to take one away to watch the godfather on my time off!!

I was advised to take out an old laptop that you wouldn be too worried about getting damaged or buy a cheap laptop (dust gets everywhere apparently and i didnt know this but apparently computers sweat!!), had a look at the netbooks....sems like a good idea, which is the best one for media around the 500 marK. Harvey norman or pc world or dell?

Thanks for the advice

Harvey Norman have a leaflet out at the moment. Might have something you'd be interested in. Some of the stuff listed at €500 or less is:



Toshiba satelite L300D-21X Notebook
AMD Sempron processor
1GB RAM
120GB HDD
Vista Home Basic
15.4" screen
€399



HP Compaq CQ60-212EM Notebook
AMD Sempron Processor
2GB RAM
160GB HDD
Vista Home Basic
15.6" Screen
€426



Toshiba L300-25H Notebook
Intel Pentium Dual Core T4200 processor
3GB RAM
Vista Home Premium
15.4" screen
€499



Toshiba NB100-12A Notebook
Intel Arom N270 processor
1GB RAM
120GB Hard Drive
Windows XP Home
8.9" screen
built-in Wi-Fi
€298


HP Compaq CQ60-212E Notebook
AMD Sempron processor
2GB RAM
160GB HDD
15.6" screen
DVD Burner
Vista Home Premium
"Bonus Bag And Mouse"
€428





The above is probably of no use to you whatsoever, but i just thought i'd throw it up there anyway. Harvey's don't seem too bad for laptops in my opinion.

fireplace1982

Thanks, i got a sumsung NC10 today, i think it should do the job.... i will tell you if it dies out there when i get back in 7 months!!...and if i dont get back to you that means that the laptop has outlived me!

Again , thanks for the advice.

Alanstrainor

fireplace1982 wrote: »

Thanks, i got a sumsung NC10 today, i think it should do the job.... i will tell you if it dies out there when i get back in 7 months!!...and if i dont get back to you that means that the laptop has outlived me!

Again , thanks for the advice.

Best of look with it, and your tour!