Head Up - Cheapy Laptops

Submitted: Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 12:01

ThreadID: 41345 Views:2334 Replies:9 FollowUps:13

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HGMonaro

occasionly there's a question on the various vanning/etc forums about cheapo laptops. BigW have one on sale this week.

Lenovo C200 (made by IBM)
1.7G Intel processor (ok)
512MB memory (good for budget laptop)
80GB hard drive (excellent for budget laptop)
Dual Layer DVD burner (excellent)
multi-format card reader (for dumping digicam photos onto laptop)
IE1394 (Firewire) (good for connecting DV cameras)
several of USB ports (on side.. easy to plug things in)
Network (Cat5 cable port and wireless.. not sure of exact specs)
Finger print reader (no idea of usefullness of this yet)
15" screen
Win XP Home
various software incl Corel Wordperfect (wordprocessing... most peropl use Word these days but this will get you started). Not sure what else

$798

Bought one this morning :)

Cheers, Nige

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Reply By: HGMonaro - Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 12:05

Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 12:05

oops forgot a link to a page showing unit.. go here ->> " target="EOF" class="lbg">www.tiny.cc/Bh4R6

AnswerID: 216133

Follow Up By: HGMonaro - Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 12:06

Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 12:06

that didn't work... it added some junk to it

try this one

FollowupID: 476446

Follow Up By: Member - JohnR (Vic)&Moses - Friday, Jan 19, 2007 at 15:06

Friday, Jan 19, 2007 at 15:06

Nige, you can just copy and paste the links next time.........

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Reply By: Leroy - Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 12:13

Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 12:13

the finger print reader can be used instead of pressing cntl/alt/delet and logging in.
Just press your finger on the reader and away you go. Sounds like a reasonable machine for the price.

Leroy

AnswerID: 216137

Reply By: 4wdNewbie - Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 12:17

Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 12:17

Looks like a very good deal. Bit slow for anything other than surfing the net and word processing. But the price is right. I am very curious about the finger print reader, dont suppose they are ex CIA laptops are they? :P

AnswerID: 216140

Follow Up By: Member - Jeff M (WA) - Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 15:01

Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 15:01

Meh, it's fine. I worked in IT for over 10 years and today I'm still using a toshiba PIII latop with 20gb and 512mb. I freqently use photoshop, I use office, and oziexplorer in the car (it's a tablet) and it does a great job, it's not lightening quick but it certainly isn't frustrating by any means.

I use it for everything day to day, I write access databases for people and use it for my uni studies.

Ok, when this new windows come out it may become slow, but hey, I'll just keep using XP pro on it, why not, it works.

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Follow Up By: HGMonaro - Friday, Jan 19, 2007 at 15:04

Friday, Jan 19, 2007 at 15:04

the finger print reader actually works.. tooks many attempts to register mine initialy but after once it worked it then worked fine. The Mrs managed to register on 1st attempt.

I loaded up Photoshop and played with a few 10MP images. It was a little bit quicker than my desptop (no road burner itself though) so it will be fine for what I want. I'll probably add another 512MB of RAM at some stage (it was supplied with one 512KB module and is user upgradable with one extra slot available)

As long as it's reliable... I'll be happy!

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Reply By: Robin - Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 12:53

Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 12:53

Hi Nige
Certainly affordable prices these days.

Using those in a car for mapping , is a main use i'd and some others would have , but is the screen any good, most aren't . Use a Toshba satellite here and its hopeless , if you set it up on the bonnet you almost can't see maps on it.

Be interested in if you can see maps on it in daylight and also voltage on its power adaptor (Toshiba are good because 15v allows them to run off car battery)

Robin Miller

AnswerID: 216149

Follow Up By: HGMonaro - Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 14:25

Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 14:25

my use of it is going to be for photo storage and burning them to DVD's for backup whilst on tour. A downside of digital cameras... storing the multitude of crappy pics one takes!

Additionally will be used for recording diary notes, kids educational games (yeah right!) and possibly mapping (I need a new GPS to implement that... mine's so old it doesn't connect to 'puters!). Screen looked good in the shop.. but as you say, will be interesting to see how it goes outside although most would have that problem I'd imagine. Will check power adaptor for you later.

Nige.

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Follow Up By: HGMonaro - Friday, Jan 19, 2007 at 14:47

Friday, Jan 19, 2007 at 14:47

Robin, it's marked 20V

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Follow Up By: Robin - Friday, Jan 19, 2007 at 15:06

Friday, Jan 19, 2007 at 15:06

Thanks Nige

Robin Miller

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Reply By: Member - Oldplodder (QLD) - Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 13:24

Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 13:24

What, no bluetooth for the mobile phone and GPS?

I use open office now for word processing etc, it's free, and compatible to word.
www.openoffice.org.

Not bad price.
Still, one of the usual bargains for the back to school laptops that are around this time of year.

Always thought that as computers drop in price, if I held off long enough I would get one for free. It doesn't seem to happen. :o)

AnswerID: 216162

Follow Up By: Max - Sydney - Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 15:48

Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 15:48

Oldplodder

Just to nit pick! I too am waiting for laptops to be free, but in the meantime I tried OpenOffice on the desktop. It sort of works like Office, but only superficially. I do a bit of voluntary work, and drove to distraction the people with whom I exchange documents.

Formatting, and particularly tables, simply did not survive filing in .doc format. The organisation I volunteer for finally gave me one copy of their contract copy of Office. That saved me a fortune it would have cost to buy it, but I see it is a lot cheaper now than then.

Max

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Reply By: Chris & Debbie - Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 15:53

Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 15:53

Personally i would go the extra $100 to $200 for a Dell, you get better specs, delivered to the door and there next day on-site warranty is worth the extra alone.
Chris

AnswerID: 216189

Follow Up By: Truckster (Vic) - Friday, Jan 19, 2007 at 15:13

Friday, Jan 19, 2007 at 15:13

na, you would pay the few hunge more and go with something decent ;) but right idea.

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Reply By: snow - Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 16:31

Thursday, Jan 18, 2007 at 16:31

Isn't that Lenovo deal on the U.S site?

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Reply By: 75Troopy - Friday, Jan 19, 2007 at 08:44

Friday, Jan 19, 2007 at 08:44

Little correction.. Lenovo is NOT IBM...

IBM sold its laptop business to Lenovo... and in my opinion the quality has dropped noticeably..

Although this review on the C200 is glowing
Site Link

Troopy

PS If you want BlueTooth you can buy a simple USB key.

AnswerID: 216322

Reply By: Truckster (Vic) - Friday, Jan 19, 2007 at 09:01

Friday, Jan 19, 2007 at 09:01

never buy a laptop without MINIMUM 3yrs warranty.

PS. what do you really expect buying a laptop from Big W?

AnswerID: 216327

Follow Up By: HGMonaro - Friday, Jan 19, 2007 at 14:56

Friday, Jan 19, 2007 at 14:56

why not?

They all get packed in the same boxes at the same factory.

This thing came with the EXACT same power supply my wifes (work) IBM laptop came with (both are branded Lenovo).

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Follow Up By: Truckster (Vic) - Friday, Jan 19, 2007 at 15:11

Friday, Jan 19, 2007 at 15:11

So, they come with the same power supply. That means that the whole unit is the same? And, no.. they arent

We have 200 IBM laptops, 100+ Panasonic Toughbooks, and 600+ IBM workstations at work. Thankfully we have just shi t tinned the HP Tablets.

OME shocks and others come out of same factory too.. but you dont expect bleep quality and cheap price shocks to last like OME either do u?

fool and his money....

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