Question about laptop speed

[LucasK]

I've been meaning to get a secondhand laptop for word processing.

What is the lowest speed I can go for this, without either having the laptop slow down during word processing (with MS Office 97)?

I'm not planning to have many other programs besides Office 97, Internet, and probably a few mobile-to-computer schedule programs.

Any advice on what laptop speed would be good for this?

Oh and also, just wondering, do laptops use LCD screens?


Thanks,
Luc.

[Rolf Latham]

Hiya

Until 10 mths ago I was running an Acer PII 233. Running MSO 97, MIRC, and a couple of explorer windows all time on cable ALL the time

No major hassles. just make sure you have say min 256 k ram

ta

rolf

[Sim]

I'd suggest 256 MB of RAM, not the 256k that Rolf still seems to be able to work on :D

You can generally get second had Pentium-III class machines for very good prices these days, or at least a fast Pentium-II.

Yes, laptops use LCD screens. 14" is standard, and don't get anything with less than 1024x768 screen resolution.

[GreatPig]

Another thing to consider is the OS you're going to run on it. If it's a relatively slow machine, Win98 would be faster than XP. And if you do want to run XP on it, you'd need to check that the hardware is XP compatible with drivers available (unless it's already on there when you buy it).

Mind you, I don't know if you can still buy Win98 at all.

I have a PII 233MHz laptop with 64MB of RAM. It does MS Office 97 and stuff okay on Win95, but is a bit slow with NT (I have dual-boot on there).

GP

[Jimmyjamjars]

Lucas,
Just buy a new one, fast processor, current OS, full warranty, fully tax deductable, and under 2 grand,
JIM

[geoffw]

Lucas,
Just buy a new one, fast processor, current OS, full warranty, fully tax deductable, and under 2 grand,
JIMFully tax deductible?

It's possible to do better than that, if you work for a company which allows salary sacrifice for a laptop.

.Buy the laptop
.Submit the receipt to your company, and get reimbursed in pre tax dollars
.Claim depreciation of the full value of the laptop

Dale's covered this before, and so has the ATO- legit, and magic stuff.

http://law.ato.gov.au/atolaw/view.htm?find=%2293%2F145%22&docid=TXD/TD93145/NAT/ATO/00001
http://www.somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11618
http://www.somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12813

[GreatPig]

Submit the receipt to your company, and get reimbursed in pre tax dollars
And since laptops are apparently exempt from FBT, the amount of the salary sacrifice should just be the actual price of the laptop, minus the GST (I think).

GP

[LucasK]

Hi,

Thanks for the advice all. I've found some secondhand P3s for a few hundred dollars, hopefully they should be able to cover my needs. Although with the RAM I'll have to shop around a bit more.

I'm only looking to run Windows 98 on it (I still have the old CD). Although I don't really know about the new versions of Windows - what sort of differences would there be between the old and newer Windows versions?


Unfortunately I can't claim a tax deduction since I don't earn enough to (still studying at uni). But I'll keep that in mind when I graduate from uni :)

[GreatPig]

what sort of differences would there be between the old and newer Windows versions?
The NT versions have a load more baggage taking up space and slowing them down.

However, they are generally much more reliable.

GP