OT: T'Interweb & laptops.

[Bob Eager]

It's a Linux box!

look at the 'Homebrew' heading.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Interesting - that's what I've got. Is it obvious - or perhaps only on later models? Mine's about 3 years old.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Poor design - that presumably means it won't work off mains if the battery fails?

I find it easier just to partially discharge and remove. That prevents it being on charge all the time.

[djc]

Generally the same options as on a desktop. Ethernet cable or wireless.

'Home hub' = ethernet or wireless. 3G dongles = wireless 'broadband' = think dial-up on your mobile. I work from home and find a dongle with a

1GB for £10 top-up from 3 meets my needs most months, if I'm busy I may need 3GB for £15

Yes, laptops tend to have wireless built-in.

If you are using it as a desktop replacement then the battery will last longer if you take it out and run on mains only. Keeping the battery in while having mains connected means it will always be fully charged and will not last as long. OTOH the battery does provide a backup if the mains fails in the middle of something important. Replacement batteries are expensive, so when they fail it tends to be an excuse for a new laptop!

[djc]

In my opinion all trackpads are unusable which is why I always buy Thinkpads. And plug in a mouse at home.

So long as the ram is upgradeable to 4GB you don't need to buy a machine /with/ 4GB. Ram upgrades from crucial.com are cheaper than the manufacturer's brand.

[Adrian C]

Need a bright screen for garden use. Choice of games seems a bit limiting, won't she be more at home with this?

Part-time Angle Grinder Hero

like the

And not a glossy screen.

[D.M.Chapman]

And that's why I say go try them - I can't stand the nipple on the Thinkpads.

A decent trackpad everytime for me but then I use a magic mouse all day every day - mouse with a track pad.

I know people who love the lenovo nipples, but not I've never been able to get on with them.

Each to their own - as I say, go try a few options.

Going for less than 4GB often makes no sence these days - even with the cheap upgrades from crucial, any laptop with under 4GB is likely to be very low end, so should be avoided IMO.

RAM is so cheap now that even entry level machines often have 6GB.

Now if you were talking about apple laptops, then their prices are hilarious. Definate buy low and upgrade yourself there (well, on the ones that are upgradable obviously ;-))

Darren

[Brian Gaff]

Laptop sound is normally crap though. Brian

[John Rumm]

Same as with your desktops. Modern laptops will support wired or wireless connections.

a 3G dongle is basically a mobile phone in the guise of a USB plug in dohicky. Handy for if you need to use the laptop out and about, but excessive for use at home when you have access to a perfectly good broadband connection.

If its not already a wirelsss printer, then you will need a print server for it. This allows it to be hooked up directly to a network rather than connected to a computer.

Battery capacity may or may not matter too much if you are in reach of a socket.

The things you sacrifice with a laptop are usability and expandability. The latter is less of an issue these days since they tend to come loaded with the things you are likely to need anyway, however the main thing to keep in mind is that what you buy is what you are stuck with.

For a machine that is to be your main desktop replacement, decent screen and keyboard size is more important.

Makes to avoid - probably anything that is a badged own brand for one of the electronics retailers, so packard bell, advent etc.

Other than that look for the best deal for a machine with lots of USB ports, and HDMI, 4GB RAM, and something like a mobile i5 processor. I quite like Acer machines in terms of bang for your buck. I have sold quite a few and not had problems with many. Acer themselves are "ok" to deal with, but not spectacular. Sony make some sexy looking kit, but have a reputation for being a pain to deal with. Dell are ok, if you like the call centre experience. Lenovo/IBM make some slightly ugly but quite functional and usable kit.

[John Rumm]

Network on a wire (ethernet) comes in a variety of speeds - its got faster over the years. Generally the stuff is interoperable - it just runs at the lowest common denominator speed. Pretty much all network kit can do 10 and 100Mb/sec speeds, and some of it can do 1000Mb/sec. For internet surfing and printing, 100Mb is more than adequate. If you plan on shifting 5GB lumps of data between machines frequently, then 1000Mb is worth having.

Very small ultra portable laptop. Often with no internal optical drive, sometimes no spinning hard drive either. Designed to do email and social network stuff etc out of the box.

USB external hard drives can plug in, or for a posher solution then look at a network attached storage device - basically a hard disk in a box with a network connection. These can then store lots of stuff you can use from any machine. If you have a posh TV with ethernet on it, then it will probably be able to stream stuff from it as well.

Some printers have wireless built in. Some don't. Adding a print server will convert a non wireless printer into one that can be seen from your network, and hence wirelessly. There are tried and trusted standard ways of printing stuff over networks. However print servers are good at dealing with stuff wanting to print, but not always good at dealing with information coming back the other way from scanners for example.

[Bill Wright]

I doubt if the laptop is current now. It's in the car buried under luggage and to be honest I can't remember the model or anything, but it's a big heavy thing. I normally use it in the motorhome, where it is ideal.

For ease of use consider a separate keyboard

Bill

[John Rumm]

Homehub is also used as a BT trademark for their combined wired/wireless router box. IIRC it also includes a DECT phone and possibly has some VoIP capabilities. BT routers also support FON wireless networks (basically if you agree, it shares a proportion of your network wirelessly with any other BT customer who wants to use it. In exchange you are allowed to do the same with other peoples connections when out and about)

[Bill Wright]

Because there's no arithmetical keyboard on the laptop. That makes doing things like alt + 0146 awkward. Also I like to have the keyboard separate from the screen so I can get comfy.

Bill

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Got a new battery off Ebay for my top of the range Aspire, for 20 quid. It seems to work just fine.

[Bill Wright]

Best to check the signal with each network before committing yourself. Don't believe the published data; try it with a phone (ask mates what net they're on).

Bill

[Andy Burns]

Quite a few >15" laptops have numpads now, personally I prefer them without, but I do insist on a cordless mouse rather than struggle with the inbuilt trackpad.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Ah - right. Mine has one.

But with all these add on bits, wouldn't you be better with a desktop?

[Bill]

I'm a different Bill.

Some laptops have numeric keypads built in. I dislike these intensely because the trackpad, and buttons tend to be offset to varying degrees, and seem in the wrong place.

Most trackpads can be set up to your liking in software. This has been crucial in the last two I bought. Hopeless as delivered, now fine.

Some laptops seem to run very hot eg my most recent Acer. All the Lenovo's I've had have run quite cool and, most importantly, make it fairly simple to access and clean out the dust and fluff from the air filter.

I'd suggest a matte screen (quite rare). The sight of my face in a shiny screen when I open the lid in the morning is just too depressing.

Low-end, end-of-life business laptops are often good value.

Bear in mind that, if you do a lot of business work, laptop screens age tending to go more and more wide-screen. So documents that would be easy to work with on an old 15" screen may now need a 17" screen (and a bigger, clumsier machine) to be as easy to read.

I run my printer/scanner off an ancient desktop on the network, and bring the laptop to it when I want to scan.

I don't find laptops in the garden very easy, and I'd suggest a 50-quid Chinese nearly-i Pad for the sofa surfing.

[Bob Eager]

Depends on the laptop. The last two Lenovo laptops I bought both have separate numeric keypads.

[Hugh - Was Invisible]

Mine is a 8951G and is pretty new. The switch is a bright orange slider recessed into the underside. Most of the time in the UK I use it on mains with the battery disconnected.