laptop recommendation

[lly]

I am looking for a cheap (reasonable) laptop just to surf the net using the free wifi at kopitiams/starbucks etc. What would you recommend? specs? reliable vendors? price range?

[Kiki Lala]

for budget laptop i recon Dell follow by Acer.
If u bad in computer stuff go for Dell bc the customer service is helpful.
U can get a basic laptop for that at bout 2500 i think?1 thing for sure is below 3k.

[mlkok]

Just get a netbook. For the price, getting it damaged or stolen is not as painful.

[TiNKeRFY]

If you only intend to surf the net at public WiFi, then you probably need something light and good battery life.

I'd recommend the Acer Aspire and Asus EeePC.
Price is below RM2k, depending on the models.

Personally, I'm eyeing the Asus EeePC 1000H

[lly]

I am hoping to get a cheap one from a shop that can load in everything for me as well eg free antivirus, windows etc. Any vendor recommendation?

Tinkerfy, Below RM2K sounds good. How much is Asus EeePC1000H and the specs?

MLKok, What's a net book??? sorry for the ignorance

[fRaNkY]

http://my.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=24&l2=164

eEePc is not a bad palmpc... small and lite. RM700-RM1200

You can find in Sec 14 PJ IT World. Ground floor. It have a Edge/GPRS/3G card is you are interested, optional.

[fonzie]

The Asus comes with Linux is it..? How user friendly is it..? It's screen size is in the 12ins range...? Cute..! Light too...!

Cheers!
FonZie

[kwchang]

Just keep in mind that these tiny hand-helds usually have flash memory in place of harddisks. Some of them have like only 4 GBytes of storage - after installing the operating system and a web-browser, you will have almost no space to install many other stuff. You will definitely need thumb drives or external drives. However, if all you want is to surf, then it should be enough ... just don't get itchy later and try to install some office application. They also do not have good graphic chips - so don't think you can play graphic intensive games... maybe also be difficult to watch videos and movies

[fRaNkY]

The Asus comes with Linux is it..? How user friendly is it..? It's screen size is in the 12ins range...? Cute..! Light too...!

Cheers!
FonZie

It comes with linux but you can optional install XP. The linux uses a icon interface and also open office. Since, it is linux, I think chances of virus is less than XP You can use 3G/GPRS/EDGE with optional dev via linux.

It starts fast also becoz no harddisks. I use my pendrive or ext harddisk to store stuffs. The weight about my house office phone with LCD display.

Good enuf to surf, read email and do some office work (MS Office)

Will be trying my ext DVD drive shortly.

[kwchang]

I am looking for a cheap (reasonable) laptop just to surf the net using the free wifi at kopitiams/starbucks etc...

Just to make a tech update on this trend with the EeePC or what is now known as the NetBook - basically a device to surf the net and nothing much more.

The NetBook is still quite big to carry around although it is smaller than a notebook and much lighter.

There is the Apple Ipod Touch (discussed elsewhere in this Forum). I have one and I had surfed the net on it too. Firstly, the size is really convenient as it is only palm-sized and can be kept in the pocket ... something which you can't do with the NetBook format. However, its setback would be the screen size of 3" - not so nice as a 10" screen in the Netbook format and on-screen typing would be a real pain. Nonetheless, I did get to post to usj dot com using the Ipod Touch running off a free Wifi connection. The price of a Touch may be around RM1,000 (8GB memory) or RM1,500 (16GB memory). Hey, if yuppies are comfortable with their expensive Blackberries, the Touch is probably equivalent or much more fun!

Then if the new iPhone finally gets sold here, you pay almost double but you get 3G connectivity - if you don't mind paying for the 3G connection costs, it means you can surf in most urban areas without having to look for WiFi hotspots.

Disclaimer - I have no links with Apple whatsoever except as a new user of the iPod Touch and iPod Shuffle

[lly]

Gee, thanks everyone. Will check out at Digital mall.

[fRaNkY]

Ipod and all those PDAs are way too small lar.... plus sometime keyboard also cannot see

It depends on the user.... like me, I have both... for surfing ... still prefer eeepc than PDA.

[lly]

acer aspire RM1599 and asus eeepc 1000 is RM1999. Both with windows XP and memory of 160GB, 1m ram. difference is acer comes with 8.9" screen and shorter battery life.

[PJS]

J... Hey, if yuppies are comfortable with their expensive Blackberries, the Touch is probably equivalent or much more fun! ...

Hey, I disagree with KWChang 1) I'm a blackberry user but no longer young so I ain't the stereotype 'yuppy' and 2) Expensive, yes and no... as an office device is it not that expensive, but company pays for it so it is free for us users 3) no, I'm not exactly comfortable with blackberry coz it is still slow surfing net, mine is running at Edge speed only, 4) Fun? u call carrying work with you in the pocket 24 hrs a day fun? Nooo... convenient at times, but not fun! 5) I hate surfing net on anything smaller than 13", small screens just can't view the full size the web pages are meant to look like. 20" is the best, not too big, not too small

[hmckl]

acer aspire RM1599 and asus eeepc 1000 is RM1999. Both with windows XP and memory of 160GB, 1m ram. difference is acer comes with 8.9" screen and shorter battery life.

Acer aspire One (with window) should be RM 1499 only ... I have one, great for surfing ..... familiar window interface .......wifi connection fairly good, screen is not as small as palm sized PDA, keyboard quite comfortable after a while ... watching movie no problems, though speaker phone not fantastic but bearable with headphone...... < 1 kg in weigh

Biggest drawback . SHORT battery life lasted 2 hours
if can wait, probably wait for 6 cells battery ? coming up next 2 months