----- Original Message ----- From: "Marilyn Dalrymple" <marilyn160@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: "List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students" <photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2006 3:08 : laptop? Notebook computers? : Hello, : : I am ready to buy a lap top or notebook (what's the difference?) computer to use for general work and to display PowerPoint presentations on photography and nonphotography related projects. : : I'd like to start with items some of you have had experience with. If some of you would be willing to name some pros and cons of this type of computer you are familiar with it would be helpful to me. I have a teeny Fujitsu lifebook 142 with a touchscreen, 4 1/2 hour battery life, enough grunt to run a slideshow but hardly enough for games/video editing/high end stuff. I also use a palmax PD1100 the size of a video cassette. Both are extremely light and small in size, both inspire oohs and ahhs from those lugging big laptops, both are surprisingly quiet and both are *OLD*. I purchased both on ebay for not a lot, they've been a good investment. I also have been through a succession of Thinkpads but those 2 above are the ones I grab all the time My point? Maybe consider something second hand, load the minimum software needed and make sure it's EFFICIENT and save yourself a lot of dollars. Old hardware can be perfectly good (it always was once!) but the trick is to load software that doesn't hog resources (as a lot of new, badly coded software that relies on current fast hardware tends to do). One small issue is the desirable models that work well and have proved tough enough to last is that they tend to attain a sort of cult status and sometimes you have a bit of a wait on your hands before they turn up for sale. k
