Post by TomPost by paul_0090Post by Tomjust to get things started how many have dumped desk Tops and only have
laptops as
main comp. I Have a HP vista 64 bit 500 gig hard drive running two
monitors setup
with 22 in dell as main use with laptop monitor for desktop and multi screen
use.
i also use a add on dvd drive and a belkin N router for other use. i also
have
a 500 gig harddrive hooked up to the router for other uses. Wife and
Granddaughter.
This is working out well.
What is the size of the "hidden" partition that is lost to vista for
reinstall/recovery?
about 15 gig
Will be getting a laptop for xmas that may likely be a HP, amd, ati,
320 gig hd, win7 64 bit(?); this will be in addition to my current
desktop.
Problem is that one still (?) cannot change the video & sound cards
to better versions for graphics & sound. But then the price of a
good laptop can be had for less than $550
with 4 gig of ram can run flight sim X full bore on all graphics etc and
using dual screen
no problems at all ATI 3200 graphics card came with it. sound is good but
use head set when
using air traffic controller little better to hear
Problem with laptops (IMHO) is the fact you are stuck with what you get,
although they are better in terms of HDD and screen resolution than they
used to be.
It is worth checking it'll run with no battery installed, my 'music centre'
is a very old IBM ThinkPad which has run without a battery for a good few
years now, just fitted a big HDD and it currently runs Win 98 with 1-by-1 to
play the MP3s.
Some systems have to have the battery in place to work at all (Toshes used
to feature this), and in most cases you are lucky if the battery lasts more
than a couple of years (IBMs seemed to last longer).
Batteries can be expensive if you don't fancy dismantling the pack and
replacing the cells yourself.
In practice laptops seem to occupy about as much space of not more than a
desktop with a flat screen.
Not sure I'd buy Vista, and I don't yet know enough about Windows 7 to
decide on that either, some shops will offer XP (at least here in the UK it
has re-appeared on laptops just recently) and I suspect that may be a better
bet.
If you want flashy graphics use Ubuntu (Linux), and run Wine to let you use
Windows software (most of it at any rate) or add a virtual machine and load
Windows onto that..
I prefer a system unit, not least as I use removable drive caddies for both
the boot and supplemental drives, that way I can just drop in another drive
with another OS on it without having to dual boot.
This also means I can drop in drives from other machines for forensic work
and recovery jobs.
I use two system units at my main work station, with a KVM switch so they
share the display, keyboard and mouse, which would be more difficult with
laptops methinks (dim memories of wiring the spare pins on a Tosh T1000XE so
a link inserted on the matching pins on a serial line would short out the
lid switch so I could run it 'closed' and connected via the cable for a
Laplink or a $25 network session to transfer data).
Good luck
Regards
Mike