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Apparently, Maths is the short plural of Mathematics. Damn brits. Anyway, on the plus side I was given a laptop. On the minus side, said laptop does not have enough power for what I'll need it to do. Also, a minus, it cannot be upgraded to the point that it would be effecient for what I want it to do. Plus thoug is with a RAM upgrade it will be just fine for the wireless network I'm putitng in the house and playing the odd MP3.
Not sure if buying a new laptop is a plus or minus, so currently it appears that I'm running at even.
July 31 2005, 22:19:22 UTC 6 years ago
Rygel = my laptop.
It all really comes down to what you want a laptop FOR.If you're just looking for a basic word processor, go with what you have.
There are a few things to look at, depending on what its use will be:
Screen size is important to figure out. A large screen will be good if you want it to drag to other places and show multimedia presentations - a smaller, less "tall" screen will come in handy if you plan on using it on planes or buses. Bigger is not necessarily better. Sony has been producing some really cool latops with "widescreen" style displays.
Wifi: Onboard or card? Onboard is all good and well, and convenient, but you cannot upgrade easily. I prefer a card, but Rygel is onboard.
What inputs/outputs does it have? Sounds like a tiny thing right now, but it ain't. You want at least 2 USB slots, a video output and a PCMCIA slot at the bare miniumum. Virtually nobody buys a laptop with their peripherals in mind, and that ends up costing them. I was lucky enough to receive Rygel with more outputs and inputs than I will ever use.
Battery life is a huge thing - if they can't give you a battery with 3 hours of use, they'd better offer affordable extra batteries.
Make sure the hard drive is at least 40 GB. If this is not enough for you, check their prices for a larger drive. Also check the price for a USB external drive - often, these are more affordable than the dealer "upgrade," and allow you to actually back up your data securely.
When I received Rygel, it had capabilities that were considered top of the line. Many of these features are now common inclusion in laptops - 3D accelerator card, Firewire, Onboard Modem AND NIC, S-Vid output, etc. Make sure you're not being sold something you don't need.
If you can post the specs of what you have and what you want it to do, I can make a better recommendation.
August 1 2005, 04:44:01 UTC 6 years ago
Re: Rygel = my laptop.
What i've got now is a Gateway 1200 solo.800 mhz celeron
128MB RAM
10GB HD
2USB, Monitor and Printer serial out, PCMCIA,
Battery life is a little low and the RAM upgrade is as stated not enough. According to the info I have this partiular notebk maxes out at 256MB on the RAM and I'm looking at an external USB HD cuz, they are very much cheaper than upgrading this model. It's also increadibly heavy. I was amazed how heavy when I picked it up and couldn't see lugging it all over campus and the like.
I'm leaning towards the card wifi myself just for the upgrade factor. As far as what I need it for, it's mainly for school. The only thing is that 3 of my 4 classes are online and the one that has a lecture is very computer heavy, incl. homework and powerpoint lecture notes, and I think at least one presentation. I'm leaning towards a Dell system that's 1.6Ghz, 512MB RAM, 60GB HD, 15" screen, and CD burner/DVD combo, 2USBs, PCMCIA, S-vid out, NIC, internal Wifi, and all the other bells and whistles for a very reasonable price, under $800.
I'm not much of a PC gamer, I've got consoles for that so I don't need super fast processors or graphics accelerators, but I do need enough power to be effecient.