[s-cars] NAC - Laptop shopping seeking input

[Charlie Smith]

Earlier, chris chambers wrote:
> 
>  am shopping for a laptop to replace my aging Dell Inspiron 8100
> 
> Yeah it's an oldie!
> 
> It will be taken portable ~ 50% of the time, prefer a screen
> no bigger than say 14", and minimal weight would be nice.
> 
> I also need the battery to last 6-8 hours if possible.

After carting my Dell C840 around Paris in a backpack it became 
clear that I needed something smaller.  I recently got a second laptop 
to fill that bill.  I found a Dell X300 on eBay for under $500, and
added a few extras like a new larger 6 hour battery.

The X300 has a 12" screen and weighs under 3 lbs.  It runs XP Pro and
came with a 40Gb disk, WiFi, USB 2, Gigabit ethernet, SD card slot,
and an external enclosure for the RW CD-Rom drive.  Disadvantage is 
that the CD-Rom drive is external and that the screen is only 1024x768.
But for a portable terminal and web browser, it's ideal.

> Would like one with an integrated fingerprint swiper (scanner)
> that digitalpersona's U are U software will work with. So far I know it
> works with Lenovo, Fujitsu and some Toshiba,

You can get a USB fingerprint scanner for $39.
> 
> Would prefer 1gb or more of ram, DVD/RW drive, capabilities of 
a port replicator with USB, ethernet and VGA connections.

It supports an external SVGA monitor at much higher resolution than
the built in LCD.o

    - Charlie


  Charlie Smith  charlie {at} elektro.cmhnet.org    
  http://www.elektro.com/~charlie          Columbus Ohio   USA
  http://www.elektro.com/~audi         photos & technical info

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