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Well, the time has come for me to get a new laptop. I've put it off as long as I possibly could, but I need something new now.

Right now, I have a 1st generation Asus EEE PC, and while it's been really good to me, it was never intended (or designed) to be an only computer. I now need a laptop that I can consider my only computer. If anyone has any recommendations or suggestions, please help me! I'd consider myself above average in "tech savvy", it's just been a while since I've shopped, and there are a lot of new options on the market.

To help, here's what I'm looking for, with highest priority listed first:
-- $500 or less
-- PC (no Mac, Linux, etc...)
-- Small and light (10" to 13" screen)
-- Anti-glare screen (no glossy screens if at all possible)
-- Long battery life
-- "Big enough" hard drive. Anything over 100 Gb is fine.
-- Powerful enough graphics to watch shows on Hulu or iTunes.

Any thoughts? Am I crazy to expect something good for the price range?

Thanks!

The Dell Inspiron series can be had for around your $500 price point, with sufficient juice to be an only computer. Battery life, isn't so great if you are work'n the machine, but lots of places have plugs....

<url>http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/notebook ... =lthp</url>

Check out the Dells and Toshibas on WalMart's website--a good selection there.

JJ

I second the Toshiba on the Wal-Mart website. They have the best memory for the price, and if you ever wanted more, there's the possibility of upgrading the RAM and/or hard drive, depending on how much your processor can handle.

If you can shell out about $100 more, the Dell Studio 15 laptops are also a good option. One big thing with them is customer service which is lacking.

Check out the Samsung NC10. I have got one and love it. Battery life is market leader at 5-6 hours.

It is worth getting 2Gb of memory for good performance, while note it does not include a DVD drive. But I prefer it being light and use an external drive if necessary.

Although sold as a 'Netbook', I think it could well be used as an only PC. If my desktop computer packs up, I may well do so.

Thanks, everyone! I have some new options to check out.

Neptune, I've been looking at the Samsung as well. Does it live up to its hype?

bort wrote:Neptune, I've been looking at the Samsung as well. Does it live up to its hype?

All I can say is that it has more that fulfilled my expectations. Has done everything I have asked of it so far and is small and light enough to be really portable. I even put it in the side pocket of my tuba gig bag and take to orchestral rehearsals - getting on the web when they are practicing a piece I'm not in

It seems to fulfil all your requirements specified in OP.

I will give this one some serious consideration. Do you have any problems watching streaming video or iTunes movies on your machine?

bort wrote:I will give this one some serious consideration. Do you have any problems watching streaming video or iTunes movies on your machine?

Videos have worked fine. As I said before, I would recommend buying extra memory for top performance. Something I have learnt from previous experience.

The NC10 is to me exactly what a laptop should be. Light and portable, got plenty of disk space, good performance and incredible battery life - I have as yet never run out of battery power! Oh, and a great built in webcam which I regularly use to chat on Skype with my girlfriend while out and about.

My only slight criticism would be the touch pad can be a bit small, but I use a bluetooth mouse if seriously working on it anyway.

I can still hold off a little bit, but more and more, the price of high-end Netbooks is creeping up.

I have the same EEE you mentioned, though I don't have the nLite version of Windows XP. It'd be cool to know how to change the driver of the screen to 1024x768 too. I have the speed adjuster, which is nice, because 630MHz is awfully slow. Send me an email if you have a chance to tell me (or point me) to something about the screen resolution.

I'm more than willing to tweak, and I've already tweaked a bit...but at some point, it's still not enough for my needs and the physical restrictions (tiny screen and wearing out keyboard and trackpad buttons) are still there.

Wow, that looks cool! Thanks!

Read this month's Consumer Reports. You might alter your requirements.

Thanks, Don. I'll try to check it out. What a tease though! What'd it say??

I admit it was a bit of a tease. CR rated Macs as tops in 3 out of 4 laptop categories, and 2d in the other!

I know many people must use MS op systems because of work requirements or compatability problems with a particular app, (I had to use both MS and Mac before I retired), but at home I use only Mac, not only because of the notorious MS problems, but because my wife threw up her hands at ever figuring out MS OS complexities.

No problem, thanks for the hint! I was guessing Mac vs. PC.

But work, Windows, everything else aside...when it comes to Macs, I just don't prefer them. They're cool and all, but I'm just a PC. Yes, I've spent plenty of time on Macs too. I'm going to try to check out that Samsung this weekend. That or the Toshiba are my leading contenders now.

Part 2 --

I'm pretty set on the Toshiba. Now, what to do with my old EEE.

I'd consider selling it (to get something, old computers don't really have a premium), but I firmly believe in physically destroying the hard drive before unloading a computer. The EEE has a solid-state hard drive that is attached to the motherboard.

Any ideas from the techie TubeNetters out there?

Hey, I see that you said you are pretty well set, but I have a suggestion.

I just bought this laptop (link below) and got it. It is a great little machine, I currently have a mac (running OS X 10.4.11) and another desktop PC (Windows Vista Basic, got it a couple weeks after the release) and I prefer this one much more. It is running Vista Premium 64-bit, with 3 Gb RAM and a pretty fast processor. I don't have to reiterate to you all of the functions though. It is refurbished, but I wouldn't know if it didn't tell me and have a sticker on the bottom that saws "reconditioned."

Good luck, and it is worth checking out!

http://tinyurl.com/computer12" target="_blank

Yup, Toshiba is looking mighty sweet. Thanks for the heads up though!