laptop advice

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

> I want to be able to connect to the Internet at work
> Short on cash, perhaps a second hand laptop from EBay might be best
> any ideas please

I picked up a Toshiba Portege 7020 with dvd drive, case, battery (tho I
havent tested it yet!) 6gb drive, 128mb RAM, 366mhz P2 processor for £130,
although these tend to go for £180-£200 (must of got a bargain) although I
did buy a new drive for it since it had some bad sectors but was still
usable. Runs Windows 98 with all updates and latest drivers well, Runs
Windows XP (Got the new disk incorporating SP2, not sure if thats good or
not, but runs fine from install and includes up to date wmp and directx etc)
quite well too, good enough really even though it only has 128mb RAM. Its a
thin one which doesnt have any drives if its not in the docking station.
I was suprised that it runs dvd's flawlessly and .divx movies almost
flawlessy, I thought you needed at least double the processing power for
DivX
I tried some linux distro's, suse 9.1, slackware 10, mandrake 10.1 beta 2,
took quite a while to install and on suse I kept getting kernel panics,
slackware would install but couldnt seem to be able to choose kde as my
desktop? mandrake was probably the best and fastest, but needed alot more
RAM to run kde

Best bet probably ebay, though got an email from big pockets the other day
with some laptop deals
http://www.bigpockets.co.uk
goto pc hardware and laptops

This one is on special offer
Dell CPX PIII 500MHz Laptop, 256Mb RAM, 20 Gig, CD-ROM Drive, 14.1 inch TFT
Screen
£279.99 was £369.00