new laptop...

Discussion in 'General Chat' started by mr cat, Nov 3, 2004.

  1. mr cat

    mr cat Member of the month

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    my girlfriends after a new latop with a budget of upto about 700 quid...

    which ones are the best..??

    I was thinking about an IBM thinkpad, or perhaps a Dell Inspiron 1150 which as an offer of free 512mb ram (making it 1gb ram) until 24th this month...but she has heard that Dells don't allow you to show both the contents of its display and a an external display (i.e. if display is being projected) at the same time - you have to switch between them...very strange, but this is quite important for her tho, as she'll be doing a lot of presentations on it!
    can anyone confirm this..?

    she's not to bother about bluetooth, or even wifi at this stage...

    cheers!
     
    mr cat, Nov 3, 2004
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  2. mr cat

    lAmBoY Lothario and Libertine

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    My Dell allow simultaneous proj and screen - I have d800 latitude widescreen:)

    I have used dell for the last 5 years with very little problem, plus the support from dell is very good IME.

    In fact my wife has just orderd some dell desktops today for her school - they are running double memory+HDD upgrade+upgrade to 17" flat panel promo - you cant complain with that!
     
    lAmBoY, Nov 3, 2004
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  3. mr cat

    mr cat Member of the month

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    yeah, I've just heard (elsewhere) about the Dell being able to allow simultaneous proj and screen...just my girlfriend read about it on the web - some american said he was able to do it - probably hdn't figured out how to do it!

    we use dells at work - no complaints there either, but I think she may plump for the IBM - which I've also used (thinkpad t2x series) and they're great to use too...
     
    mr cat, Nov 3, 2004
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  4. mr cat

    nsherin In stereo nirvana...

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    I'll second that IBM recommendation - I've got an elderly (4 year old) ThinkPad X20 (a PIII/600 ultraportable). Never had a single problem with it, apart from the battery dying about 1 and a half years after owning it. Mine came with a 2 year warranty, but the battery wasn't part of the cover - pretty common for most laptops, I think. Not a looker, like the Sony VAIOs are, but built like tanks and have excellent keyboards - mine was my main PC for about 18 months or so.
     
    nsherin, Nov 3, 2004
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  5. mr cat

    Zoomer

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    personaly i thin IBM are probably the best laptops you can get, partly for the good hardware /support under linux and partly because there just damn good laptops
     
    Zoomer, Nov 5, 2004
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  6. mr cat

    nsherin In stereo nirvana...

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    Agreed - you can still get all the drivers for 6 or 8 year old laptops off the IBM website.
     
    nsherin, Nov 5, 2004
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  7. mr cat

    Hex Spurt

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    Re: twin display output

    I used to be involved in supplying projectors to schools and business. I have rarely come across a laptop in the last 3 yrs that didn't support dual output - though I'm sure some must exist.

    The only problems I've had with laptops driving a projector were when the schools bought cheap and the suppliers cut corners in areas they thought it wouldn't matter. The worst case was an Acer laptop where the VGA output was locked to TV resolution.

    Its worth checking if the laptop will drive a projector at a different resolution to the laptop screen. Some will support dual output at different resolutions - others won't.

    Regards
     
    Hex Spurt, Nov 6, 2004
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