How's this laptop?

Compaq M2010US
Intel Celeron M 350 (1.3GHz/1MB)
256MB PC2100 DDR Memory
40GB 4,200rpm Hard Drive
24x CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive
15" XGA LCD and Intel Extreme 2 Graphics with 64MB Shared Memory
AC'97 Audio
v.92 56Kbps Modem, 10/100 Ethernet and 802.11g Wireless
Two USB 2.0, One FireWire, One Type II PC Card
13.2" x 10.8" x 1.8" @ 6.3 lbs.
Windows XP Home, MS Works, Money, Encarta, Norton Anti-Virus, WinDVD, RecordNow, iTunes


It's $550 after $30 mail-in rebate at Staples. If I get it, I'll probably get a price-match at Circuit City, though. Is this thing worth the price? I don't really need a laptop, but I do need to replace my desktop, which is almost totally fried. Is this laptop cheap enough to justify getting it as a stop-gap, until I build a decent desktop?

It all depends what you wanna do with it... that things not powerful to handle any recent games but if all you need it for is school or work or etc. its not bad for $550. Its really your call, though... but seriously you can cobble together a fairly okay pricewatch machine with $550.

It's pretty shitty and it's a Compaq, but it's cheap enough so i don't think it's a bad buy if you just want a simple laptop to carry around and web browse with. Make sure you buy some extra RAM.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stormy

It's pretty shitty and it's a Compaq, but it's cheap enough so i don't think it's a bad buy if you just want a simple laptop to carry around and web browse with. Make sure you buy some extra RAM.

---

I'll give you desktops, but Compaq makes some quality laptops in my experience.

Yeah, I don't expect to use it for much more than surfing, word processing and watching pr0n. Will DivX run properly on something with these specs?

I tested this in-store, and the only available resolution in XP's Display Properties is 1040x768. No higher, no lower. So what happens when I run something lower res, like a 320x240 DOS game, or an emulator set to 640x480?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by salmonax

Yeah, I don't expect to use it for much more than surfing, word processing and watching pr0n. Will DivX run properly on something with these specs?

I tested this in-store, and the only available resolution in XP's Display Properties is 1040x768. No higher, no lower. So what happens when I run something lower res, like a 320x240 DOS game, or an emulator set to 640x480?

---

it looks blurry and crappy. All LCDs are like that. They're only meant to run at one resolution.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by salmonax

Yeah, I don't expect to use it for much more than surfing, word processing and watching pr0n. Will DivX run properly on something with these specs?

I tested this in-store, and the only available resolution in XP's Display Properties is 1040x768. No higher, no lower. So what happens when I run something lower res, like a 320x240 DOS game, or an emulator set to 640x480?

---

windowed mode?

I have a very similar Compaq laptop, it's a 2201, almost exactly the same specs but with a 1.2 ghz celeron and no firewire.

For the price (I paid 650 on sale at Officemax) it's a pretty good unit. A gaming machine it ain't, but for general computer use it's more than adequate, and has a pretty nice LCD screen for a budget machine. It's plenty fast for net use and word processing use (the main tasks I use it for) and it even does decently for Photoshop, although it could use a ram upgrade for that.

The only game I've really tried to play on it is Typing of the Dead, which it does well. Of course, I wouldn't try to play Half Life 2 on it.

My office bought the exact same laptop for field use. I went to a job and the customer requested I use hyper Terminal to look at the configuration settings of a router. I couldn't do it, because the laptop didn't have a serial port.

I picked up a USB to serial adapter for $30 though.

are there any laptops with 2 gigs of ram.

I'm gonna be using maya soon and I need a laptop that can run that program without crashing.