recommendation for a notebook?

[mardyn]

I'm sniffing around the mini-notebook market. Seems like Dell has a decent one with XP-Home for about 450.00. Also looking at an Acer, but it uses Linux which I'm not familiar with...

I think I want a Solid State HD, but not real sure. Mainly used to surf, maybe store a few pics, and want to run my soon to come EEC tuning program software.

talk to me :confused: .

mardyn

[jakesford]

I owned a lower end acer and it was junk, but it had a very nice display. Now I have a dell, nothing special but has a few upgrades (ram, storage) and its been really good. Battery life is around 3.5 hours, and if im carefull I get just over 4 out of it :cool:

I think the more expensive acers are ok, but I would still go with dell between the two... The SSD's will give you a little extra battery life, and have much more shock resistance, but they are on the pricey side if you want a decent amount of storage. The new LED backlights are going to make a big difference, hp has new laptop that has a 24 hour battery life using SSD and LED backlight :eek:

[Tx Redneck]

Also a conn to the SSD is the slow write rate as opposed to a standard HDD. Now the read rate is way faster than a typical HDD and in many cases beating the WD Velociraptor.

[Grant]

I had an Asus EEE PC for awhile (the 4G one) and it was pretty nice, excellent wireless and etc. It really slowed up when I put XP on it however.

The next one that I'm looking at getting is the Acer Aspire (this one specifically) http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10575200

It has the 6 cell battery and XP Pro, you can upgrade the RAM as well.

If you don't care about the longer life battery or Pro over Home, you can get the regular one for $348, such as this one: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10575196

I have messed with one for a couple of days now and have been very impressed with them. The performance is much better than the Asus EEE PC I owned and the price is better, too.

Also, as of a few days ago most of the walmarts have the blue $348 ones (Home, 120GB and 3-cell battery)..if you want the $398 one (Pro, 160GB and 6-cell battery) you'll have to order from the website. I plan to get one pretty shortly, so I'll let you know how it works out.

[MireFire 2.0]

My HP took a dump on me about a month ago and I couldn't go a day with out a computer so I went to Best Buy and said no matter what I was leaving with a computer that day. I got a Dell Inspiron 1318 FOR $699 (since went on sale for $649) and I am VERY happy with it.

Intel Core Duo 2 - T5750 @ 2GHz
3GB Ram
Vista Home Premium
180GB HD
SD card slot
Firewire
2 USB
SLOT loading DVD RW
13.3" LCD
Wireless G