Good cheap laptop (with something like magsafe)?

[wasup]

Hey, I want to buy a laptop soon... the only thing really making me want to buy a mac is the magsafe power plug thing, as other things just fail miserably. Is there any other laptop that utilizes something like this that is virtually unbreakable (by magnets or whatever)? Any good laptop suggestions? To give an idea of what I'm looking for, I don't need a gaming laptop with tons of power or anything (right now my old desktop has 2.8 ghz and 1 gb of ram and that works fine and any decent laptop I imagine has that or more now). I usually just use the internet aim etc. The only "intensive" applications I use are itunes (not that intensive) and photoshop. And its not like I work on huge multi-gigabyte image files and apply filters to them in photoshop, just small stuff on regular sized images. The screen can't be too small, but I don't want it to be beastly. Though I want it to be ultraportable (lightweight, fairly small). LONG battery is a must too (at least 5 or 6 hours, more would be nice too). Extra features like a lighted keyboard are nice too but not necessary (though a microphone/webcam are necessary). I am thinking of getting a macbook, but the price tag is a little offputting. Though I know I'd enjoy the smoothness of it all if I did get it.

[Taosaur]

Look at netbooks. I'm kind of a cheerleader for them right now, but that's because I was a tough convert and I'm really happy with my MSI Wind. If you have a desktop PC for gaming, media and other heavy lifting, then the portability factor becomes a huge pro. I was thinking the 10" 1024x600 screen would be a bare minimum, but after I got it I realized I could have gone with the old 8" EeePCs and been happy (except for comic books, which wouldn't work on anything smaller than the 10"). If I were in the market now, I'd go for the Asus 1000HE, with an improved keyboard over the old EeePCs and longer battery life, though I can't vouch for it directly. The only thing I do on my gaming rig that I wouldn't try on the Wind is...well, gaming. I do run GIMP for basic resizing and cropping, with no issues. Firefox runs crazy fast on the thing. Maybe you absolutely need extra screen inches, I don't know, but I know when I was looking for a mobile device I didn't even consider netbooks originally and it turned out being exactly what I needed.

[dsr]

+1 just note you won't be getting an integrated optical drive Edit: But if you want an optical drive or more power than you'll get with an Atom, you might want to consider the Lenovo ThinkPad T400

[wasup]

The lack of drive isn't a huge deal. My only problem with a small laptop like that is that it will either not have some important features for me or it will lack on certain ones. For example, I imagine the webcam/microphone/speakers are pretty bad especially compared to one I might get on a mac or something. The 400 dollar price tag is nice, though. Does it use XP or some specialized OS? If it uses XP could it run most applications without a problem (itunes, photoshop, skype (which is important in a travel laptop), etc.)? Also the screen is a bit small... Lastly what's the power adapter like on that thing? Does it break easily? What's the power adapter like on that ThinkPad? That looks pretty good as well...

[Taosaur]

Almost all the Atom machines run XP now. Again, I can only vouch for my Wind U100 (check reviews on Newegg, Amazon, Cnet etc): the speakers are indeed crap, but I have yet to hear a laptop that makes a very good boombox--mostly you'll want to use headphones. For Skype, however, I've heard nothing but good things. Another advantage a lot of people see with the Wind is apparently they run OSX really well--if you hit New Posts at forums.msiwind.net, you'll see 2/3 of the chatter is OSX related. I don't know about Photoshop, but GIMP runs fine--chugs just a little compared to my other apps (Firefox, FBReader, CDisplay, VLC, phone suite) but hardly noticeable. No problems with iTunes, either, but I hardly keep any media on this machine--at most I might use it to snag some music and add it to my iPod. Obviously you'll want to do your own research if you're considering a purchase--there are a ton of reviews out there and active forums for the Wind and the EeePC.

[Keresztanya]

Magsafe adapters break and catch fire.

[jackwill67]

Hey Mate, As far as your budget is sufficient you will definitely get good gaming laptop good with few graphics software activities: Alienware, acer (T series) are also good choices other then macbook best way is search best gaming laptop on google like this: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...IN296&ie=UTF-8 Decide 2-3 option from laptop you find from above shown trick. Get some good bargain sites in your list and search for best deal you find for laptops you have decided. Few good sites I know for bargain I checked daily are: http://www.techbargains.com http://www.cheapdeals101.com http://www.fatwallet.com Hope this will to find some new options for you....

[Keresztanya]

Gaming on a laptop is not a good idea. Sure, the laptop can run it, but it's really bad for your laptop. Since laptops don't have the best cooling, you will end up overheating it eventually.

[wasup]

Actually that Asus 1000HE is seeming like a better idea the more I look at it. Lots of battery life, definitely enough space, I dont really need the extra power (and most people seem to upgrade to 2gb of ram anyways). The only thing I don't really like is the fact that I'm afraid the small keyboard and small screen might be a bitch. Also, are the webcam and microphone any good? And the speakers at least like, work a little right? I like having okay speakers in a laptop.

[Taosaur]

Actually that Asus 1000HE is seeming like a better idea the more I look at it. Lots of battery life, definitely enough space, I dont really need the extra power (and most people seem to upgrade to 2gb of ram anyways). The only thing I don't really like is the fact that I'm afraid the small keyboard and small screen might be a bitch. Also, are the webcam and microphone any good? And the speakers at least like, work a little right? I like having okay speakers in a laptop. Best place to get specifics on the hardware is probably an EeePC forum, but I can say I haven't found the screen and keyboard size on my Wind a problem at all. I'm currently sitting in my living room, within sight of my gaming rig with its big, shiny LCD and ergonomic keyboard, typing on my Wind instead. I'm 6' tall with a medium frame and large (if fairly dexterous) hands. If you touch-type, you'll probably lose a few WPM on this keyboard, but not much.

[Man of Steel]

Personally, I'm kind of psyched about the Always Innovating Touch Book. It's not out yet, but I'm planning on getting one when they come out. It's a tablet/netbook hybrid with removable touchscreen, and 10-15 hour battery life with the keyboard attached.

[Taosaur]

Personally, I'm kind of psyched about the Always Innovating Touch Book. It's not out yet, but I'm planning on getting one when they come out. It's a tablet/netbook hybrid with removable touchscreen, and 10-15 hour battery life with the keyboard attached. As a recent ebook-on-a-netbook enthusiast, I like the looks of this hybrid display: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/05/pixel-qi/ At this stage, no one's seen it (and they say they'll have it within a couple months...), so it may not pan out, but it's based on the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) screen, which I've heard great things about in terms of contrast and daylight visibility.

[Man of Steel]

Nice! Yep, I'm also really looking forward to the OLPC XO-2, (pictured in the article you linked) with the dual touchscreens and a target price of $75! Supposed to be out sometime in 2010, and I'm guessing it will be more than twice the target price at first, but still looks pretty awesome just judging by the prototypes. Dual haptic touchscreens? Win.

[Taosaur]

I just checked the specs on that AI Touchbook, and it's running an ARM processor--basically, a cellphone chip. They make fun of XP as an "outdated '90s OS" because they couldn't run it. For me, that knocks it down from full-blown PC status...though honestly, it would probably cover just about everything I do with my Wind on a regular basis. I do need more than 8GB storage, though 32GB would be perfectly adequate. Right now I'm using 16.5GB of my 111GB HDD--I would much rather have a good 32GB SSD, though they still cost an arm and a leg for decent read/write speeds.

[Ynot]

I just checked the specs on that AI Touchbook, and it's running an ARM processor--basically, a cellphone chip. They make fun of XP as an "outdated '90s OS" because they couldn't run it. For me, that knocks it down from full-blown PC status...though honestly, it would probably cover just about everything I do with my Wind on a regular basis. I do need more than 8GB storage, though 32GB would be perfectly adequate. Right now I'm using 16.5GB of my 111GB HDD--I would much rather have a good 32GB SSD, though they still cost an arm and a leg for decent read/write speeds. ARM chips are used on most embedded devices power consumption / performance is far lower than x86 chips, and the heat generated is also significantly lower (therefore form factors can be far smaller) See my previous comments http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...arm#post954186

[Man of Steel]

I could care less if it will run Windows--to me that would almost defeat the purpose, honestly. As Tony says, the ARM processor is a very capable platform, with far superior power management and battery life, as well as memory management. The 256MB of RAM on the AI Touch Book should be more than sufficient for everything the average user would want to do, for example. Add to that a good Linux distro, and you've pretty much got a match made in heaven. I do agree that more storage would be better, but I was thinking of using either a large USB thumb drive, or even a notebook HDD using a USB adapter cable, nested neatly inside the case of the tablet, where I think it would just fit based on the images I've seen so far. Plus, the really cool thing about having your OS on an SD card, is the ability to carry three plus SD cards in your pocket, all with different OSes installed, all optimized for different uses. The possibilities for something like this are just about endless, really.