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I have around $3K to spend on a new notebook. Will
be used mainly in programming (Delphi) and occasional
movie watching. I'm not much in to games. Do you have
any recommendations or to stay away from?

cheers

"Deck" <> wrote in message news:duqrpt$g65$...
>I have around $3K to spend on a new notebook. Will
> be used mainly in programming (Delphi) and occasional
> movie watching. I'm not much in to games. Do you have
> any recommendations or to stay away from?

3k ?
You could buy 3 laptops and cluster them

XPD wrote:
> "Deck" <> wrote in message news:duqrpt$g65$...
>> I have around $3K to spend on a new notebook. Will
>> be used mainly in programming (Delphi) and occasional
>> movie watching. I'm not much in to games. Do you have
>> any recommendations or to stay away from?
>
> 3k ?
> You could buy 3 laptops and cluster them

I had a play with a <$1K laptop in the shop the other day.

My Celeron 500 desktop that's sitting in the corner, semi-retired, gathering
dust is about as responsive as those budget jobs.
--
Shaun (~misfit~)

"Shaun \(~misfit~\)" <> wrote:

>XPD wrote:
>> "Deck" <> wrote in message news:duqrpt$g65$...
>>> I have around $3K to spend on a new notebook. Will
>>> be used mainly in programming (Delphi) and occasional
>>> movie watching. I'm not much in to games. Do you have
>>> any recommendations or to stay away from?
>>
>> 3k ?
>> You could buy 3 laptops and cluster them
>
>I had a play with a <$1K laptop in the shop the other day.
>
>My Celeron 500 desktop that's sitting in the corner, semi-retired, gathering
>dust is about as responsive as those budget jobs.
>--
>Shaun (~misfit~)
>
FWIW my experience was that $120 worth of 512MB RAM stick turned a
$900 Acer into a VERY different animal .......

"Ian Boag" <> wrote in message
news:...
>>My Celeron 500 desktop that's sitting in the corner, semi-retired,
>>gathering
>>dust is about as responsive as those budget jobs.
>>--
>>Shaun (~misfit~)
>>
> FWIW my experience was that $120 worth of 512MB RAM stick turned a
> $900 Acer into a VERY different animal .......
>

Yeah, I purchased an Acer for my partners work last year when they were
around the $1400 mark and found it was quite an impressive little beast....
similar model is now @$1000.
Im almost tempted at times to get a laptop instead of a new desktop.... but
then Im like "crap... just bought this that and the other which I cant use
on a laptop"

Shaun (~misfit~) wrote:
> XPD wrote:
>> "Deck" <> wrote in message news:duqrpt$g65$...
>>> I have around $3K to spend on a new notebook. Will
>>> be used mainly in programming (Delphi) and occasional
>>> movie watching. I'm not much in to games. Do you have
>>> any recommendations or to stay away from?
>> 3k ?
>> You could buy 3 laptops and cluster them
>
> I had a play with a <$1K laptop in the shop the other day.
>
> My Celeron 500 desktop that's sitting in the corner, semi-retired, gathering
> dust is about as responsive as those budget jobs.

I've been using one (the DSE ~$900 Acer model - not mine) for the past
couple of weeks. Nothing wrong with it - excellent 15" display, nice
enough keyboard, and certainly responsive enough. It does have 768MB of
ram, I'm sure that 256MB isn't enough for XP, and the extra makes a huge
difference.

I think Acer and retailers are doing themselves a disservice by even
offering a model with only 256MB of memory, and they may as well get
used to not doing this because next year, entry level PCs and laptops
will have at least twice that.

I know, customers would rather spend the extra ~$100 on a slightly
faster processor instead of more memory, every time.

In article <>, says...
> Shaun (~misfit~) wrote:
> > XPD wrote:
> >> "Deck" <> wrote in message news:duqrpt$g65$...
> >>> I have around $3K to spend on a new notebook. Will
> >>> be used mainly in programming (Delphi) and occasional
> >>> movie watching. I'm not much in to games. Do you have
> >>> any recommendations or to stay away from?
> >> 3k ?
> >> You could buy 3 laptops and cluster them
> >
> > I had a play with a <$1K laptop in the shop the other day.
> >
> > My Celeron 500 desktop that's sitting in the corner, semi-retired, gathering
> > dust is about as responsive as those budget jobs.
>
> I've been using one (the DSE ~$900 Acer model - not mine) for the past
> couple of weeks. Nothing wrong with it - excellent 15" display, nice
> enough keyboard, and certainly responsive enough. It does have 768MB of
> ram, I'm sure that 256MB isn't enough for XP, and the extra makes a huge
> difference.

On a laptop it certainly will. My NZ built desktop has 256MB, but it has
a Celeron 2.8 and SATA drive.

But you don't expect brand name manufacturers to do anything else except
cut corners, they've always done it.

RJ wrote:
> In article <>, says...
>> Shaun (~misfit~) wrote:
>>> XPD wrote:
>>>> "Deck" <> wrote in message news:duqrpt$g65$...
>>>>> I have around $3K to spend on a new notebook. Will
>>>>> be used mainly in programming (Delphi) and occasional
>>>>> movie watching. I'm not much in to games. Do you have
>>>>> any recommendations or to stay away from?
>>>> 3k ?
>>>> You could buy 3 laptops and cluster them
>>> I had a play with a <$1K laptop in the shop the other day.
>>>
>>> My Celeron 500 desktop that's sitting in the corner, semi-retired, gathering
>>> dust is about as responsive as those budget jobs.
>> I've been using one (the DSE ~$900 Acer model - not mine) for the past
>> couple of weeks. Nothing wrong with it - excellent 15" display, nice
>> enough keyboard, and certainly responsive enough. It does have 768MB of
>> ram, I'm sure that 256MB isn't enough for XP, and the extra makes a huge
>> difference.
>
> On a laptop it certainly will. My NZ built desktop has 256MB, but it has
> a Celeron 2.8 and SATA drive.

<beats head repeatedly on desktop>

Ian Boag wrote:
> "Shaun \(~misfit~\)" <> wrote:
>>XPD wrote:
>>
>>>"Deck" <> wrote in message news:duqrpt$g65$...
>>>
>>>>I have around $3K to spend on a new notebook. Will
>>>>be used mainly in programming (Delphi) and occasional
>>>>movie watching. I'm not much in to games. Do you have
>>>>any recommendations or to stay away from?
>>>
>>>3k ?
>>>You could buy 3 laptops and cluster them
>>
>>I had a play with a <$1K laptop in the shop the other day.
>>
>>My Celeron 500 desktop that's sitting in the corner, semi-retired, gathering
>>dust is about as responsive as those budget jobs.
>>--
>>Shaun (~misfit~)
>>
>
> FWIW my experience was that $120 worth of 512MB RAM stick turned a
> $900 Acer into a VERY different animal .......
>
Hear hear, I brought the Compaq Presario V2000 (AMD Sempron)that came
standard with 256 mb mem for about $1,200, and I was a tad
disapointed....UNTIL, I slapped in some fast 521mb memory and cut back
sharing the mem for graphics down to 32mb, now it sings along and I
haven't looked back.

Cheers
Southern Kiwi

"Deck" <> wrote in news:duqrpt$g65$:

> Do you have
> any recommendations or to stay away from?
>

Toshiba with a worldwide 3 yr warranty is great from personal experience.
If you can take apart a laptop yourself, then just get something with
either long battery life or performance for games. They are mutually
exclusive.
Programming code seems to me like a low power type of task as far as
battery drain goes so maybe the DSE cheap no OS laptop could save you heaps
of money? I think it runs on a centrino.

$2000.00 gets you an really nice screen on a laptop now, a co-worker bought
an Acer, and I thought uh-oh, but then I saw it and it has a really good
feature set. Cheap is cheap, don't get cheap. Medium for your budget
should be just like the 3 bears...
The most important thing with a laptop is screen and then keyboard; you
MUST touch and see the product before you buy if you are serious about
being happy as a user.
My sister-in-law has an IBM from yrs ago, something like a P100 with 98se,
32 M ram, it still goes... They have only had to re-ghost it once from the
recovery partition I setup for them in 4 ys.
The hardware is super solid, I hope IBM still makes them like that...

--
Ciao, Dave