Laptop/Notebook Advice - Urgent

[altamira]

Hi,

First of all i dont know the difference between Laptop and notebook, sorry if the topic is misleading. Lets get back on track. Im in urgent need for a laptop (or should i say notebook!? 🙂, for University paper works and for field work (investigation), im studying archeaology so i will need something portable, as light as possible (lets say around 2-3Kg), fairly resistent/reliable/stable and with a good battery autonomy. I will use it for Word text and Powerpoint presentation and problably some small photo editing/manipulation (in photoshop). As far as games, no will not use it for games, i have a pc desktop for that. The country i live the most commons laptop producers are Asus, Toshiba, Sony, HP, Lenovo, Acer, LG and some others. Its very difficult to get Dell or Gateway, or almost impossible so this producers are out for me. My price tag is around 1,150.00 US Dollars. As i said its urgent. Please give some hints/advices/opinions, its the first laptop i buy and i dont know much about laptop advantages and functionalities.

Thank you all

 

[frozenlead]

For all practical purposes, there isn't a difference between a laptop and a notebook.

Reading what you've said, you want reliability, simplicity, and mobility. For that, I would choose a Lenovo Thinkpad and never look back. Choose which ever one you like - for your purposes, anything will do, really. A thinkpad X61 or X200 series will do you just fine - small, light, and solid.

 

[altamira]

Yep i think thats a good option also. The SL500 is a good one? it has expandibility (i hope this word exists!), you know put some more memory, exchange the CPU or something like that?

 

[frozenlead]

I would trust that you can do that in almost any Lenovo notebook. It depends some on the chipset as to how much memory you can actually put in and the maximum processor you can put in it - but for your uses, why is expandability necessary?

 

[altamira]

Hi. Well i think im going to buy the Toshiba Tecra M10-130 (3G). Lenovo its been dificult to get here.
what you think about it?

Urgent response

 

[dwellman]

Lenovo, for the most part, doesn't sell often in brick and mortar. I think there's one store in Atlanta, GA (Vision Computers) that sells 'em. You'll get the best price off the Lenovo website, anyway.

As a long time ThinkPad user, I can attest to the eye opening, life altering experience that using a ThinkPad versus something like a Dell Latitude or Compaq Presario or Toshiba Tecra can bring about. Before TP, I used a notebook only when I had to. After TP, I mothballed all my desktops. As of 6 months ago I have no desktop computer. . . (NAS doesn't count).

The X61s is close to being phased out. Being replaced with the x200. If the x61 or x200 is out of range, even the older models (x30 and up) will do just fine. New Lenovo, you should get from the web site. Older ones (Which will have the IBM brand), you'll get the best prices on the web, anyway. I know Lenovo just got a bunch (T42 and T43) from off-lease and are selling them at around $350-$400 USD. BUY.COm has some, too.

 

[altamira]

thank you for your help. Ok, i hope this is the last post, tomorrow i will go ahead with the purchase. But just to be sure give me a last advice between this three models:

Lenovo Thinkpad T400
Apple MacBook 2.0Ghz 13" Montevina (i think this is a bit small and i added this option very recently)
Toshiba Tecra M10-130 (3G)

Well considering my needs (in the first post) which one would you choose? you have better options?
Sorry if im reapeating myself, but im extremely careful when buying things, i dont run and buy i have to be really convinced that im going to apply the money in a good product, to last, to abuse (at some degree), not like a chinese watch ("it always says water resistent", but you know it will last one week at max, sorry if there is any chinese friend here)

Thank you

 

[altamira]

Ho i almost forgot to ask, i have heard (in the Thinkpad forum) lenovo T400 is a little weak in graphics, do you think that applies to some Photoshop editing, seeing one or another movie?

 

[frozenlead]

Unless those are HD movies, it won't matter in the slightest. Photoshop doesn't gain advantage on GPUs yet (does it really need it, though?)

 

[dwellman]

No, Photoshop is all CPU, for the most part. Apple MacBook? Interesting. But the build quality of-- suprise?-- the T400 is quite good. Near indestructible.