TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Just to offer some further perspective on this: The norm in notebooks
this quarter (since about late July/early Aug.) is at least 3 GB of RAM
and 250 GB hard drives -- and quite a few are available at
not-outrageous prices that have 4 GB of RAM and 320 GB hard drives.
Ed's spex seem a little on the light side for what's currently on the
market.
If you want a little heftier and much pricier, 22" notebooks are
available, too.
My two cents,
Jim
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+jim -dot- pinkham=voith -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+jim -dot- pinkham=voith -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Edgar D' Souza
Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 12:03 AM
To: Rob Hudson
Cc: techwr-l List
Subject: Re: "budget" laptop?
On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 10:05 PM, Rob Hudson <caveatrob -at- gmail -dot- com>
wrote:
> I'm getting into some ID work that includes Camtasia, Snagit, Word,
> MindManager and some web development (IIS, Visual Studio). What kind
> of laptop do y'all recommend for this kind of thing? I have an aging
> Inspiron 9300 but want something more powerhousey.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Hi, Rob,
If you can do without the Aero eye-candy and tone down Vista's interface
to Classic (or can downgrade to XP Pro) then IMO a laptop with 3GB of
RAM and a Core 2 Duo T8100 processor
(http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLAP9 ) with 3MB of
L2 cache should be pretty good, as well as fall within the "budget"
class. I expect a 120 GB HDD will be your minimum storage space... but
upgrades to higher-capacity drives aren't that expensive.
The real question for me is graphics card and screen size (though my
intended usage differs - I want to use it for work, as well as casual
gaming once in a while, and I like eye-candy too), since the more you
have on-screen without having to switch between programs, the better,
right? Since you're already using a 17" screen, that's probably settled
for you, I guess? :-)
The Dell Studio 17, which I've been looking at thoughtfully, also has an
internal bay for a second HDD - useful if you want to set up RAID 1 for
one or two partitions, mirroring your drive data, so that even if one
HDD bites the dust, you can still carry on working... that, of course,
depends on your usage scenario. Still, lugging around 7.87 lbs (IIRC not
counting a second HDD) is not a fun idea... I need to think about it
more. The availability of the ATI Mobility Radeon HD3650 on that laptop
is pushing me towards it, though...
ComponentOne Doc-To-Help gives you everything you need to author and
publish quality Help, Web, and print content. Perfect for technical
authors, developers, and policy writers. Download a FREE trial. http://www.componentone.com/DocToHelp/
True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
Help & Manual is the most powerful authoring tool for technical
documentation. Boost your productivity! http://www.helpandmanual.com
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as Jim -dot- Pinkham -at- voith -dot- com -dot-
ComponentOne Doc-To-Help gives you everything you need to author and
publish quality Help, Web, and print content. Perfect for technical
authors, developers, and policy writers. Download a FREE trial. http://www.componentone.com/DocToHelp/
True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
Help & Manual is the most powerful authoring tool for technical
documentation. Boost your productivity! http://www.helpandmanual.com
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-
