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Geek Culture / Second hand laptop purchase

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Philip
21
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Joined: 15th Jun 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 29th Oct 2004 22:59
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Friends, Romans, Counterpeople and Bears of the World

In a mere three weeks time I am going on holiday for a lengthy spell to Australia and New Zealand. I want to keep working on my project while on holiday and so for this I must needs buy a laptop (note the slight medievael use of English there).

I don't want to buy a new laptop. So I need a second hand one. My thought is that as I don't need anything too cutting edge for this, cutting edge being my desktop's department, I should go for something like a reasonably high end P3.

What are your thoughts?

Philip

What do you mean, bears aren't supposed to wear hats and a tie? P3.2ghz / 1 gig / GeForce FX 5900 128meg / WinXP home
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spooky
22
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Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 29th Oct 2004 23:04
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My thoughts are:

Stuff the laptop! You are going on holiday where the idea is to enjoy yourself in the sun and eye up all the Sheila's, enjoy a barbecue or three, drink like a fish, go bungie jumping, e.t.c.



Boo!
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flibX0r
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Location: Western Australia
Posted: 30th Oct 2004 00:10
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Ooh, If you're coming to Australia you should come say hello. We're all a friendly lot, really


Join the Expert Discussion forums dag nammit!
http://www.expertdiscussion.com
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Pricey
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Posted: 30th Oct 2004 00:12
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Get a dell, you won't regret it.

http://wwww.johnsgames.tk
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Ian T
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Posted: 30th Oct 2004 01:04
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Get something on Ebay


Here we go again!
Whaddaya mean there's no such data type as a flaot?[/i]
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hyrichter
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Location: Arizona
Posted: 30th Oct 2004 05:05
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Quote: " Get a dell, you won't regret it"


Exactly my advice. I got me a used Dell about a year ago from eBay, and I've been very, very happy with it. P3 850, 10gb hd, 2 good batteries, leather case, etc. for $500. You should be able to find a good deal on eBay if you look.



Do not click the red button
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bitJericho
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Posted: 30th Oct 2004 05:06
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buy my laptop and fix it up

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JoelJ
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Posted: 30th Oct 2004 05:19 Edited at: 30th Oct 2004 05:19
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i'll give you $100 for it jerico :p

that is, if its even WORTH $100


<[jimmy]> pulling nose hairs is the worst pain in the world
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Kentaree
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Location: Clonmel, Ireland
Posted: 30th Oct 2004 05:21
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Make sure it works

I bought a new lappy yesterday from lidl, and when I tried to use it, it seemed the ac/dc adapter is b0rked, have to wait for them to send me a new adapter over the post from Germany

AMD Athlon XP2800+
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Ron Erickson
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Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Posted: 30th Oct 2004 05:34
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Keep a watch on this site for dell deals:
http://www.techbargains.com

I'm currently looking for a laptop myself

I've seen some good dell coupons on that site. A couple weeks ago they had 25% off any Inspirion. The best deal that I've seen on there was $750 dollars off select laptops of $1500 or greater in value.
The coupons are real. I priced one up and applied the coupon (after it is in the cart) and it discounts the price.

There isn't ANYTHING too great on there right now. The laptop that I'm looking to buy is an Inspirion XPS, 15.4" widescreen, P4 3.4Ghz with 1GB RAM, 256meg ATI 9800 video card, DVD-RW. My goal is < $2000

WOLF

EZrotate!
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Complex
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Posted: 30th Oct 2004 05:37
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I have an IBM L40 SX for sale, with a max display resolution I could count on my hands, and (judging by its size) the posting costs would outweigh that of the laptop itself...

Interested?

Subspace Software
www.subsoft.tk
Software from a different dimension
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Yogz
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Posted: 30th Oct 2004 07:50
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I recently bought a laptop off ebay for £26 + p&p. It's a Gateway Solo 2500 (P2 366, 64MB RAM, etc....) - not brilliant specs but for £26 is more than adequate for web design and basic dev work.
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Ilya
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Posted: 30th Oct 2004 07:56
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!!!
What was the shipping?

Quote: "I've seen the word programming and I'm not sure what it means. Anybody please explain?"


Quote: "We shouldn't sacrifice the truth to preserve "balance"."
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Philip
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Posted: 30th Oct 2004 08:13
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For the record, here is my itinerary:

1. Perth - I'm attending a wedding. This will be the second time I've been to Perth this year. The first time I went, in April, I loved it. Margaret River was ok but Perth was just excellent.

2. Sydney - lookin' forward to this

3. Auckland - meeting some Kiwi mates

4. New Zealand generally

+ laptop of course

Philip

What do you mean, bears aren't supposed to wear hats and a tie? P3.2ghz / 1 gig / GeForce FX 5900 128meg / WinXP home
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Mx5 kris
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Posted: 30th Oct 2004 08:55
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um.....compaq! I love their laptops. Mine costs $2000 right now, but is incredible..... P4, Mobility Radeon 9800, 90gb hard drive, and 18" screen. It is high end, but is worth it!

This is only the beggining...
The end is ony the beggining...
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OSX Using Happy Dude
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Posted: 30th Oct 2004 09:37
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No doubt there will be a fair few P3's on eBay, although you'll have to be careful that they haven't fallen off a back of a lorry - so to speak.

To be honest, its never worth buying anything electronic on eBay (some people would say its not worth buying anything, but there you go) - see if your local PC World has any half decent laptops going cheep cheep. Failing that, do what I do and rent 'em...

He who knows the cat becomes his slave; he who knows the dog becomes his King.
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indi
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Location: Earth, Brisbane, Australia
Posted: 30th Oct 2004 09:45
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dang what about brisbane .

You cant miss the great barrier reef while your here.

never mind, have fun while your here.

If no-one gives your an answer to a question you have asked, consider:- Is your question clear.- Did you ask nicely.- Are you showing any effort to solve the problem yourself
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bitJericho
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Posted: 30th Oct 2004 09:46 Edited at: 30th Oct 2004 09:47
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http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=41859&b=2
if you want it

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BatVink
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21
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Location: Gods own County, UK
Posted: 30th Oct 2004 10:12
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Is it a DB Project? If so, the graphics card will be the decider. I have a 2.8 Ghz Intel laptop, 256 Meg RAM and a 64Meg SiS shared memory graphics card. It works...but it gives up quite quickly.

To give you an idea, my snake game gave up once I had around 30 objects. Polys doesn't seem to be the issue, it's more a problem with textures.

The advanced Terrain demo runs, but at around 10 FPS.

BatVink
http://biglaugh.co.uk/catalog AMD 3000+ Barton, 512Mb Ram, 120 Gig Drive space, GeForce 5200 FX 128 Mb, Asus A7N8X Mobo.
Terms & Conditions apply
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FoxBlitzz
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Posted: 30th Oct 2004 10:57
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What kind of DB project are you working on? If I wanted to work on a DB project using a laptop and had the choice to buy a new one, I would get one that has at least an ATI Mobility Radeon 9600, as it is the cheapest ATI card with 2.0 Shader support. Of course, you could just go for a lower model or even do with an integrated card, but integrated cards are evil, featureless, and slow.

HP Pavilion | Intel Pentium 4 CPU 2.40 GHz
512 MB Ram | NVIDIA GeForceFX 5600 AGP, with 256 MB Ram
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bitJericho
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Posted: 30th Oct 2004 11:23
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arg.. sorry cattle^_^

at any rate.. don't buy a laptop for your vacation... sheesh.. you're truly the geekiest of the geeky programmers I'm not even going to bring my computer to the US convention let alone bring one on a normal vacation

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Philip
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Posted: 30th Oct 2004 21:53
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Guys, I don't need a particularly powerful laptop because I've got a really powerful desktop. The laptop is mostly going to be used as a platform to keep writing the code whilst I am away from the desktop. I can test it thoroughly when I get back.

Philip

What do you mean, bears aren't supposed to wear hats and a tie? P3.2ghz / 1 gig / GeForce FX 5900 128meg / WinXP home
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Ian T
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Posted: 31st Oct 2004 00:37
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Well, HP makes decent mid-range notebooks. I honestly wouldn't know where to find very low end ones .


Here we go again!
TRANSGRESS AND I SHALT BAN YE! (Just kidding...)
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Mentor
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Posted: 31st Oct 2004 01:18 Edited at: 31st Oct 2004 01:33
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hmm Australia, keep away from bridges and crazed druggies, I hear they kill tourists in OZ just for their shoes, theres been a lot of tourists killed there latley (then again I wouldn`t tackle a bear...even if your a brown bear).

back on subject........
http://www.bargainpc.co.uk/reconditioned.laptop.laptops.uk.html
http://bargainpc.20fr.com/l.html
http://www.morgancomputers.co.uk/
http://www.laptops-computers.co.uk/a_laptop_a_uk_prices.htm

Mentor.

PC1: P4 3ghz, 1gig mem, 3x160gig hd`s, Radeon 9800pro w cooler (3rd gfx card), 6 way speakers.
PC2: AMD 2ghz, 512mb ram, FX5200 ultra, 16 bit SB.
Mini ATX cases suck.
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Philip
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Posted: 31st Oct 2004 01:29
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Well, I've just got back from PC World in Charlton (where in the world? PC World!) I know I said I was going to buy secondhand but I thought, what the hell. This is what I bought:

1 x Toshiba Equium A60-152

Intel Pentium P4 532 (3.02GHz)
512 meg DDR ram (actually 256 meg DDR ram but I bought another 256)
40 gb HDD
DVD CD-RW drive
15" TFT monitor
ATI Radeon 7000 GFX card
etc

1 x Universal Power Adaptor

1 x 128meg USB pen drive thingy

1 x Burger with bacon, sausage and egg

Actually I didn't buy the burger in PC World - it was from a van just outside it.

Cheers

Philip

What do you mean, bears aren't supposed to wear hats and a tie? P3.2ghz / 1 gig / GeForce FX 5900 128meg / WinXP home
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Mentor
22
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Posted: 31st Oct 2004 01:40 Edited at: 31st Oct 2004 01:42
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usb pen drive thingys are nice, I can load all the diagnostic apps etc onto my mates pc`s as easy as toast you get all sorts of uses for them you didn`t think of before (I use one for secure backups), oh! the laptop aint bad either .

Mentor.

edit: BURGER with sausage, egg and bacon, you sure that wasn`t a loaf it was wrapped in??

PC1: P4 3ghz, 1gig mem, 3x160gig hd`s, Radeon 9800pro w cooler (3rd gfx card), 6 way speakers.
PC2: AMD 2ghz, 512mb ram, FX5200 ultra, 16 bit SB.
Mini ATX cases suck.
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Philip
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Posted: 31st Oct 2004 06:50
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No. It was a bit full I grant you. But I soon transferred that into my stomach.

Philip

What do you mean, bears aren't supposed to wear hats and a tie? P3.2ghz / 1 gig / GeForce FX 5900 128meg / WinXP home
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Karlos
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Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 31st Oct 2004 16:06
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you'll neeed the omega drivers for your card - it doesn't support hadware t&l

www.omegadrivers.net

makes it a bit more compatible with things.

All Hail the Glory of the HypnoToad
XP Pro - Radeon 9000 Mobility- P4 3.0ish
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