A Laptop for €200, unrealistic?

TomCo

Hang on!

Dont toss me out for wrong forum just yet, just a query.

Im looking for a laptop, idealy with WiFi and a graphics chip (ie. Gf4GO), for around €200 which is my últa end of the line max amount of cash. Am I being unrealistic?

Ive had numerous threads on the shop forum but very little response.

Fortinbras'

TomCo wrote:

Hang on!

Dont toss me out for wrong forum just yet, just a query.

Im looking for a laptop, idealy with WiFi and a graphics chip (ie. Gf4GO), for around €200 which is my últa end of the line max amount of cash. Am I being unrealistic?

Ive had numerous threads on the shop forum but very little response.

totally unrealistic

lomb

TomCo wrote:

Hang on!

Dont toss me out for wrong forum just yet, just a query.

Im looking for a laptop, idealy with WiFi and a graphics chip (ie. Gf4GO), for around €200 which is my últa end of the line max amount of cash. Am I being unrealistic?

Ive had numerous threads on the shop forum but very little response.

HAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHA good luck...........absolutely minimum for the above is 600 ish even used.

Fortinbras'

you are having a laugh to be frank

Nukem

Not a chance 600 is the lowest iv seen recently @ Dell
Just to be sure though,check the Fs threads may be someone looking for really quick sale

TomCo

Come on!

Id take anything with a PCMCIA slot, a P4 laptop went for €100 only a few weeks ago over on shop.

(you know I dont mean new and from a shop dont you).

Thanks for feedback so far, more replies in a few sec's than in two days on shop.

Fortinbras'

Your off your fuc/king head man

odie

Ebay have opened a new Irish site, you may get lucky there.....www.ebay.ie

Nukem

TomCo wrote:

Id take anything with a PCMCIA slot, a P4 laptop went for €100 only a few weeks ago over on shop.

Kinda answered your own questin there didnt you?

TomCo

Fortinbras' wrote:

Your off your fuc/king head man

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=263048
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=259259
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=254402
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=256119
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=256939
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=258574

Yeah, off my head.

Stop using the bloody spoiler tags.

TerrorFirmer

What are you on?

All the links show very old laptops going for more then 100.

Whats with the "p4 sold for €100"?

You are indeed off your head

TomCo

Im not looking for a P4, that was just an example.

I SWEAR one went for around €100, which I agree is a crazy price. It was a thread with about 5 replies, I saw it yesterday im looking for it now.

L1011

You will get a Pentium II with a fair bit of RAM and a Neomagic graphics controller for that price. Nothing more. The price reductions at the high end haven't and won't go down the second hand market for a year or two.

I could probably get 400 for the laptop I'm using now, realistically; and its half the power or less of a 700 quid Dell. Thats the way things go.

TomCo

Thats all I really wanted to be honest, something I could buy a wireless card for.

lomb

TomCo wrote:

Thats all I really wanted to be honest, something I could buy a wireless card for.

keep an eye out they come up but because they are cheap they go fast. beware most of the time the batteries are knackered, so thats another 100+ for that.

TomCo

A batt that lasts an hour would be fine, im usually near an outlet

lomb

TomCo wrote:

A batt that lasts an hour would be fine, im usually near an outlet

ud b very lucky to get 10 minutes from 90% of the laptops for sale on boards under 350 euro, u have to add the cost of a battery. also theres no gaurantee it will last a week. when u add it up dunnes recent offer for 700 isnt bad at all with wireless, dvd burner, etc

TomCo

I agree its not a bad deal, but im a bit strapped.

If I had €700 id probably buy that V171 17" that Ive been coveting and maybe a 6600GT.

Im just tired of the restrictive ness of the PC's in college (everything admins only), and Id like to play some old games at home with my sibling on a lan, (Id love to play SystemShock2 Co-op).

lomb

TomCo wrote:

I agree its not a bad deal, but im a bit strapped.

If I had €700 id probably buy that V171 17" that Ive been coveting and maybe a 6600GT.

Im just tired of the restrictive ness of the PC's in college (everything admins only), and Id like to play some old games at home with my sibling on a lan, (Id love to play SystemShock2 Co-op).

i understand, theres a big difference between 200 and 700 when u think about it. its just old laptops go for crazy money when u take into account batteries and warranties nevermind hardware.

mayb a desktop? u should get a nice one for that and can lan it with a network card.ps i used a dell celeron 500 mhz with windows 2000 and 64 ram, and to put it mildly it was a pos, and he got 400 euro for it!! the battery wouldnt even hold a charge and the laptop took 4 minutes to boot with a fresh installation. i wouldnt even touch an old laptop i doubt it would play anything tbh. good luck with it though.

TomCo

You should see the space I have available to me.

Things stacked on other things which are balancing on other things. Every time I open a drawer it takes half an hour to close it again because of the amount of stuff in it. Im an incurable habitual horder, and I’ve got the box room! I would'nt be able to bring it to college anyway.

L1011

TomCo wrote:

I agree its not a bad deal, but im a bit strapped.

If I had €700 id probably buy that V171 17" that Ive been coveting and maybe a 6600GT.

Im just tired of the restrictive ness of the PC's in college (everything admins only), and Id like to play some old games at home with my sibling on a lan, (Id love to play SystemShock2 Co-op).

You know a 200 quid laptop will have a graphics card with -NO- 3D stages?

Even my £4,500 laptop from 2000 had an utter wimp of a 3D card... its worth about 500 notes now though...

When I said Neomagic, I meant Neomagic - they were endemic back then. The Neomagic has 'OpenGL' drivers. They're software - only the transperency pipeline is accelerated... this makes them in most cases slower than the games software renderer, if it exists...

odie

These guys sell 2nd hand lappy's - Based in Dublin

http://www.nowafflecomputers.ie/

L1011

odie wrote:

These guys sell 2nd hand lappy's - Based in Dublin

http://www.nowafflecomputers.ie/

And their cheapest machine is €249, has a 2.5MB 2D graphics card, and known serious issues with its battery life (poor), CMOS battery (dies) and CPU fan (dies)....

TomCo

Good link. (ish , you know, except for the above!)

I kinda like the face to face trading aspect of buying something off someone, not some company, to be honest though.

Im always out for a good deal, when the big bucks come into play though ill always stump for performance and quality.

Enigma365

Not really gonna help you but the best new laptop deal I've seen this year was from Dell when they offered their 1150 for €560 with Celeron 2.6, 512mb RAM, CDRW/DVD, 30GB HardDrive, Modem and Network Card (with Free Printer).

Not available anymore though.

TerrorFirmer

I have an old laptop, battery still holds over and hour charger after a few years of use

It also runs decent games like Half Life, Unreal Tournament, Delta Force Land Warrior etc pretty well.

That considered, it still isnt worth more then about 300.

Not all laptops of this price have something wrong with them! Mines grand in everyway, the same as it was when it first was bought!

So dont let these guys put you off fully, sure its advice, but dont take it as fact!

TomCo

People are always criticising Dell, but I’ve always found them to be quite helpful (except the Indian call centre), and you can get good reliable machines from them for a reasonable price. My current machine is a Dimen4600 P2.53Mhz w/ Ti 4600 & 768mb. It cost a bomb back in the day (the Ti4600 was only out) but I can run Doom 3 and HL2 in Ultra and High detail modes respectively

TerrorFirmer

Even my £4,500 laptop from 2000 had an utter wimp of a 3D card... its worth about 500 notes now though...

Sorry, if you paid that much for a laptop then you are quite simply either too rich or an idiot

I have one from the same year, and its still okay, with an OpenGL card that runs games like Castle Wolfenstein, Medal Of Honour Allied Assault, GTAIII etc.

TomCo

£4,500 is a bit much alright. Back in the day that could have bought you a house, and a small african nation. Or so people keep telling me.

L1011

MobileInfantry wrote:

Sorry, if you paid that much for a laptop then you are quite simply either too rich or an idiot

I have one from the same year, and its still okay, with an OpenGL card that runs games like Castle Wolfenstein, Medal Of Honour Allied Assault, GTAIII etc.

It was more of a development machine than anything. Graphics card it has does do OpenGL, but that was seen as a secondary function...

It had a desktop Pentium III, half a gig of RAM and something like a 15GB hard disc from new. Oh, and a DVD/CD-RW. And a magnesium cased lid, and a pretty long battery life

It was also BLOODY MASSIVE, which was its real downfall. Was the utter top of HP's product line at the time, and the worst investment I've ever made.

odie

MYOB wrote:

And their cheapest machine is €249, has a 2.5MB 2D graphics card, and known serious issues with its battery life (poor), CMOS battery (dies) and CPU fan (dies)....

And this is a known fact or has it happened on one machine in your experience.
They are second hand and sold as such. When buying anything 2nd hand it's always a chance.
At least it's another option on where to buy one.

Lord Oz

You'd get something like this.

L1011

odie wrote:

And this is a known fact or has it happened on one machine in your experience.
They are second hand and sold as such. When buying anything 2nd hand it's always a chance.
At least it's another option on where to buy one.

Well known. One of the three (fan) happened to my own, so I researched it a bit. Full set of spares for all three is just under another 200 euros before shipping, but can be fitted easily (laptop is almost entirely modular).

This machine also had a terrible reputation, and a US class action, over its battery life. But it was still the highest selling TP ever, because of its screen size and clarity for the time, not much weight, and the NSA and FBI contracts it had.... NSA passed it as 'security clean' - e.g. hardware bugging device free - for the US govt....