[AT] OT - Laptop reccomendations

[Larry D. Goss]

You'll get about as many answers to this question as there are members
of this group, Mike.  Take all the answers with a grain of salt.

Having said that, I'll contribute my two lumps.  Maybe you'll get enough
salt to make a batch of homemade ice cream.  :-)

I do an awful lot of the type of thing with my computers you're doing
with yours.  What I've found is that the differences in the operating
system are more important than most of the other things that vary from
brand to brand or model to model.  I would vote for Windows XP Media
Edition as the operating system regardless of the other bells and
whistles.  I understand from the grapevine that this is the same as
Windows XP Professional edition, but I don't know that for a fact.  I
handle lots of photos, videos, and audio recordings, and I do a lot of
digital archiving.  I've given up counting, but in the last year I
generated more than 6000 pages of digital documents including tractors,
and three to four thousand photos (mostly old pictures of people, but
lots of tractors, too).  Having an operating system that is built to
handle media and that comes with the software to generate Ken Burns'
style videos, is a real plus.

I would look at laptops with 1 Gigbyte of memory and with 100 Gigabytes
of hard disk storage.  By the time you get those features included, "the
rest" of the bells and whistles of display, chip set, extra USB ports,
TV tuner, etc, are likely to be included.

If you decide on a system using Windows XP Home Edition, then at least
buy the Microsoft Plus! Digital Media Extensions package so it can
handle media materials better.  List price on the package is less than
$20 and it is still in stock at some outlets and is available by
download or by mail from Microsoft.

Think in terms of having an external USB hard drive for use with your
system from the very beginning. Having something of that nature
available (in the range of 60 to 80 Gigabytes) makes it very simple to
copy all your data of whatever kind to the external drive and store it
with your other important papers in your local bank vault.

Larry

-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of
msm10301 at juno.com
Sent: Sunday, June 25, 2006 2:25 PM
To: at at lists.antique-tractor.com
Subject: [AT] OT - Laptop reccomendations

I've been thinking about sidelining our desktop and switching to a
laptop instead. Ideally, I would like to install a wireless router so
that my wife and I are not tied to the desk if we want to surf the web
or read email. My question is, what type should I be looking for, and
what features are important? I know very little about the chip sets used
in laptops, and how they compare with the ones used in desktops. Here's
what I would need the laptop to do. Internet and email (wireless),
Microsoft Office applications, digital camera storage. Our desktop is a
PIII 1GZ and it works just fine for what we do. Any thoughts with
regards to brands/features would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Mike



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