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Any recommendations?
large screen
card reader (sony camera)
webcam
mostly used for watching dvd's, email, word and surfing.
Under 2.5 kilos
XP OS
Under $2000
Will mostly be sitting in one place.

I'm buying it on behalf of someone who is not very confident with specs but
it's been a while since I bought my last one which was a Compaq which I've
been very happy with it.
Joy

In article <fs5575$jaj$>, says...
> Any recommendations?
> large screen

Define large screen - as you won't get a 17" or + notebook under $2000.

--
Duncan

Joy wrote:
> Any recommendations?
> large screen
> card reader (sony camera)
> webcam
> mostly used for watching dvd's, email, word and surfing.
> Under 2.5 kilos
> XP OS
> Under $2000
> Will mostly be sitting in one place.
>
> I'm buying it on behalf of someone who is not very confident with specs but
> it's been a while since I bought my last one which was a Compaq which I've
> been very happy with it.
> Joy
>
>
>

Large screen? Basically staying in one place? Why not get a desktop for
half the price and twice the grunt and spend the other $1000 on booze
and hookers?

In article <fs5575$jaj$>, Joy did write:

> XP OS

Consumer machines are mostly Vista these days.

On Sun, 23 Mar 2008 21:43:22 +1300, "Joy" <> wrote:

>Any recommendations?
>large screen
>card reader (sony camera)
>webcam
>mostly used for watching dvd's, email, word and surfing.
>Under 2.5 kilos
>XP OS
>Under $2000
>Will mostly be sitting in one place.
>
>I'm buying it on behalf of someone who is not very confident with specs but
>it's been a while since I bought my last one which was a Compaq which I've
>been very happy with it.
>Joy

Have a look at Dell (www.dell.co.nz), they have a good range of
laptops and still put XP on some of them.

--
Ray Greene

Joy wrote:
> Any recommendations?
> large screen
> card reader (sony camera)
> webcam
> mostly used for watching dvd's, email, word and surfing.
> Under 2.5 kilos
> XP OS
> Under $2000
> Will mostly be sitting in one place.
>
> I'm buying it on behalf of someone who is not very confident with specs but
> it's been a while since I bought my last one which was a Compaq which I've
> been very happy with it.
> Joy


Your not going to get under $2000, a large screen and XP on anything
these days. Also a memory stick reader for the propriatory sony sticks
is rare as.

Also, whats a large screen to you? Some people may call a 17" large

On Mar 23, 9:43 pm, "Joy" <jh...@ihug.co.nz> wrote:
> Any recommendations?
> large screen
> card reader (sony camera)
> webcam
> mostly used for watching dvd's, email, word and surfing.
> Under 2.5 kilos
> XP OS
> Under $2000
> Will mostly be sitting in one place.
>
> I'm buying it on behalf of someone who is not very confident with specs but
> it's been a while since I bought my last one which was a Compaq which I've
> been very happy with it.
> Joy

If the person has DVDs from more than one zone you'll have to check
the DVD make and model against the DVD drives at www.rpc1.org. There
are some DVD drives for PCs now that lock both the video and data
stream at the hardware level so software cannot circumvent the DVD
zone controls*.

Matshita is the most well known culprit as they provide drives for a
lot of computer manufactuerers.

For some of these drives, Matshita included, there is not even
firmware to correct the problem. All HP/Compaq laptops come with these
rubbish drives. As we are looking to get a new laptop in the near
future I went and had a quick look at the DSE laptops to see what DVD
drives they had and Asus and HP Compaq shipped with Matshita, Acer
shipped with something else. I haven't checked yet how the Acer drive
stacks up.

Despite the fact I'll personally never buy HP/Compaq again the HP/
Compaq laptop itself is quite nice, my only annoyances are:
- the finish on the screen is a little too reflective and depending
on the relative positions of light sources and the screen you can't
see anything except your own face and what is behind you (might be
useful for a work environment though)
- and sometimes there is a sort of intermittent buzzing noise which
from poking around the internet is something to do with the energy
saving on one of the chips in the machine but I have not got so far as
to work out how to fix it (or even if fixing it is possible).

*My MatSHITa drive can be circumvented by software but only if a zone
has NEVER been set. Once one is set you are stuffed. But as a warning,
I am pretty sure the System restore DVDs set the zone 2 as I was
pretty careful anyway about not setting the zone anyway and it
coincidentally got set after I restored the system.

Hi there,

Dave Doe wrote:
> In article <fs5575$jaj$>, says...
>> Any recommendations?
>> large screen
>
> Define large screen - as you won't get a 17" or + notebook under $2000.

Of course you can. Dell will sell an entry level Inspiron 1720 with
Core 2 Duo 1.83GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB hard disk, 1440x900 17" screen,
NV8400M GS graphics, Vista Home Premium, WiFi, and more for NZD $1699.

You could even up-spec the graphics to an 8600M GT and screen to a full
HD 1920x1200 and still keep it under $2000...

--
Kind regards,

Chris Wilkinson, Brisbane, Australia.
"Maybe politicians should ask the people whether
or not they wanted all these wars"...

Joy wrote:

> Any recommendations?
> large screen
> card reader (sony camera)
> webcam
> mostly used for watching dvd's, email, word and surfing.
> Under 2.5 kilos
> XP OS
> Under $2000
> Will mostly be sitting in one place.
>
> I'm buying it on behalf of someone who is not very confident with specs
> but it's been a while since I bought my last one which was a Compaq which
> I've been very happy with it.
> Joy

You may have trouble finding one with a screen greater than 15 inch
with a weight under 2.5 kg.

Do you really need a reasonably lightweight machine, when it won't need
to be moved much? The premium that you may have to pay for less weight
may push the price to over $2000, or even to over $3000.

In article <47e6ecea$>, says...
> Hi there,
>
> Dave Doe wrote:
> > In article <fs5575$jaj$>, says...
> >> Any recommendations?
> >> large screen
> >
> > Define large screen - as you won't get a 17" or + notebook under $2000.
>
> Of course you can. Dell will sell an entry level Inspiron 1720 with
> Core 2 Duo 1.83GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB hard disk, 1440x900 17" screen,
> NV8400M GS graphics, Vista Home Premium, WiFi, and more for NZD $1699.
>
> You could even up-spec the graphics to an 8600M GT and screen to a full
> HD 1920x1200 and still keep it under $2000...

That's true - but I'd never recommend a Dell or an Acer to anyone.

--
Duncan