[AT] laptop

[Gordon Hart]

To you computer guru's. I have a Dell Inspiron 6400 I don't know how it 
compares with others but it works for me. However when I went to ALLTEL and 
tried to get a wireless card to work from the cell number they gave me the 
card wouldn't work. After talking to Tech support and a computer salesman 
from another brand(Apple) I was advised that the express 34 and express 54 
cards to allow me to access the cell number haven't been designed yet. I was 
told that sometime after Feb of this year the computer manufactures changed 
their processor to this new card. does anyone know anything about this?

Gordon

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chris Britton" <c.britton at worldnet.att.net>
To: <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Monday, June 26, 2006 1:09 PM
Subject: [AT] laptop


>I just picked up a laptop at the beginning of the year.  I scoured DELL, HP 
>and COMPAQ, and GATEWAY websites for comparisons on deals.
>
> Here's what i found.  HP owns Compaq.. so offer similar products.. except 
> the laptop with an HP logo on it costs about 10% more.. and as far as I 
> can tell.. uses identical components.. when ordered from the HP website.. 
> Dell was the next runner up.  Price wise i could find Dell's that were 
> neck and neck with Compaq.. The only difference was availability on some 
> of the economy brands, cd/dvd capabilities and video card.  I noticed that 
> on equivalent priced dell and compaq products.. generally the cd/dvd 
> capabilities ont he compaq were 1 step up.  If one unit had a cdr.. the 
> other had cdr and dvd.. if one had cdr and dvd.. then the other had cdr 
> and dvd+r..e tc.  That left video.. that's where i dropped Dell from the 
> running, as I wanted a laptop PC to do some gaming, as well as work.  It's 
> much easier to take your laptop to your friends house and plop it down for 
> some network gaming, vs toting the whole tower..  Most of the Dell's I 
> looked at had the intel extreme graphics (un) accelerator.. some version 
> of the 9xx series.  While they don't completely S-ck.. they aren't too 
> much above it...Especially in terms ov video memory you can allocate.  We 
> have a few emachines at work.. just mid and low end terminals.. all have 
> the Intel ex graphics.. and on many units.. 8mb is the largest you can 
> allocate... etc
>
> I opted for the ATI mobile 200 series card, and took a small upgrade 
> 925$ ) that added 128mb of ram on the car so that I wouldn't have to share 
> system ram.
>
> Next is screen.  Passive matrix is economy.. works.. but can ghost a bit 
> in high speed graphics environments.  Active matrix is better.. If you 
> have options like clear view ( many brands have their own name for 
> this ).. or widescreens.. get them if you have the dough.  On my laptop, I 
> think I added 100$ worth of add ons, and it made a huge difference.. from 
> the video, to the widescreen, g card.. etc.
>
> Next advice... Go ahead and get 1gig of ram if you can afford it.. Windows 
> makes a major step up in productivity at the 1 gig mark.
>
> Also.. Your wireless g network card... if there is an upgrade.. get it.. 
> Not all G cards are equal.  My buddy has a decent mid to upper line dell 
> laptop.. about as old as mine, using whatever dell includes as a wireless 
> g card.  On my compaq i upgraded fromthe basic g card to a broadcom g 
> card.. If we are setting in the parking lot of a place with an open G 
> network, I get better signal strenght than him.. side by side comparison. 
> In many cases.. i can identify and locate networks his dell can't even 
> detect.
>
> The last to consider is your processor.  Besides raw computing power.. 
> this will be one of the power hungry parts of your system.  AMD has a 
> turion mobile processor that is a bit more economic on power usage and a 
> tad faster than the Athlon.. however.. it is a bit pricier.  I chose an 
> 2.4ghz amd athlon 64, vs taking a 2 ghz turion.. My battery will last a 
> bit over an hour of hard use.
>
> If you go mobile alot.. a spare battery may be in order.  some offer multi 
> cell batter upgrades for nearly the same price as the basic battery... 
> with only 30-40% power increase.  in that situation.. 2 basic batteries 
> may get you farther than one upgraded unit.
>
> lastly.. many of the new processors.. AMD and INTEL scale processor power 
> based on battery level.. I know when my batter is getting low.. my amd 
> will drop to 1ghz.. etc.  Same with monitor options.. My screen drops to a 
> less performance mode, .. less backlighting.. etc. when on battery.
>
> just observations based on my purchase in january.
>
> Soundguy
>
>>From: "msm10301 at juno.com" <msm10301 at juno.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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