Laptop selection help

[Dave]

Well, considering that this board is thriving with techno geeks and computer gurus, hopefully you can help me. Here's what I intend to use it for and what I'd like:
-sitting on my couch and cruising the web (wireless internet)
-pulling movies off of my digital camera (firewire)
-might see some work use, but won't be much
-Cheap, less than $300 preferably
-CD-RW
-doesn't need enormous hard drive
-RAM is always good, right? was thinking 512 would be nice
-XP
-multiple USB ports
-Touch pad and track ball would be nice
-I like Dells, have been eyeing the C610

If anybody has questions or wants more specifics feel free. Anything else that you can recommend or that I should consider would also be nice. I know this is very general, I'm posting it here to get input on things I should look for or think about, as well as a WTB if anybody knows of one.

[CaptainHenreh]

Unless your digital camera requires firewire, you don't need it. USB 2.0 is just as fast. Forget a trackball, you won't find one. Circuit City has got some nice Acers like I have for ~500, with financing deals.

That's what I'd get, and got.

[white_2kgt]

Small Harddrive and capturing movies don't mix. If you really want to pull movies and do anything with them you are going to have to bump that price up a bit. For one to get you the power needed to render them and second to get a decent sized harddrive. If you have a desktop up to that task I'd just knock that requirement off your list. Also I doubt you are going to find anything new for 300 in a laptop. Are you considering used?

[Andy]

Have you checked out CNet? I like their buyer's guide. It was pretty helpful.

[Dave]

sorry, I'm actually looking for used, should have put that in there. As for the video on laptop, the laptop is pretty much just for pulling the vids off and putting them on the desktop for storage.
When you say "do anything with them" what do you mean and what would you suggest in this department in terms of power, hard drive, etc. Basically, I want to go the track the laptop and pull the video right off on Saturday night and Sunday night, then eventually put them on the desktop.

[Goodspeed]

When you say "do anything with them" what do you mean and what would you suggest in this department in terms of power, hard drive, etc. Basically, I want to go the track the laptop and pull the video right off on Saturday night and Sunday night, then eventually put them on the desktop.

Well, raw DV footage takes up a lot of HD space...an hours worth is a few gigs at least. So you'll need a sizeable hard drive. If you plan on doing any sort of video editing, you'll want as much memory as possible. I have 512MB and it just isn't enough...everything gets really laggy sometimes. I wouldn't really recommend a laptop for video editing anyways, but you'll want some way to compress the video down at least if you don't plan on editing and just want video to watch

[white_2kgt]

sorry, I'm actually looking for used, should have put that in there. As for the video on laptop, the laptop is pretty much just for pulling the vids off and putting them on the desktop for storage.
When you say "do anything with them" what do you mean and what would you suggest in this department in terms of power, hard drive, etc. Basically, I want to go the track the laptop and pull the video right off on Saturday night and Sunday night, then eventually put them on the desktop.

I was talking about as far as editing them, for just downloading them I'm not sure what the min requirements are. If you just want to unload them on the laptop so you don't have to buy several tapes I guess just about anything with 20GB could do that. Really the only suggestion I could offer is for you to post up something in your price range and we could tell you if that's a good by or not. Buying used is something of an art, some people are better at finding cheap/good deals than others. For brands I've been pretty happy with the Sony Viao's (after the OS is wiped out and reloaded) and the dells are pretty nice as well.

[phantommaggot]

so you have a $300 budget and your looking to get a used laptop that can handle taking vids from a camera and just storing them till you can put them on your PC?

id suggest at least 750 + mhz processor, 40GB or bigger HDD (any smaller and fragmentation may cause the drive life, and performance to suffer) and definatly 512MB+ ram. Ram is more important than processor speed in moving files since the pc needs a temporary place to keep stuff while its sorted out.

-do you need a ROM drive (cd, dvd, cd burner, dvd burner)
or would an external work. remember, drives are upgradable for cheaper than what you pay for them already there. same goes for hard drives

-does size matter? 15s are probably gonna be cheap, cause they are common, but something smaller than a 12 can be very portable. im gonna buy a fujitsu life book tablet (p1510d i think) it only has a ~8inch screen and no mousepad but itll do everything i want it to, and be super protable

-are you planning on doing anything else at all with it? or just ripping, storing vids and surfing.

how much data does your camera hold, and how often would you be dumping the laptop onto your pc.
just keep in mind you want to keep at least 25-50% of your main drive free for optimum performance and less fragmentation.

i can probably post a link or 2 based on your answers.

you could try mom n pop PC shops, they may have some old stock, or a return from a few years ago for cheap.

or find companys that lease lapotps, you can pick up great stuff for dirt cheap.

just do some calling, and let ppl know what you need (^_^)

sorry if i spelled anything wrong, or rambled a bit, im tired lol

*
and no matter what you get, dont use any program that could possibly take memory (so any program at all...) while ripping DV

[JackoliciousLegs]

Good luck if you want to store large pics of vids on a laptop you get for $300. I'm sure you can do it, but how well is the question.

[Dave]

again, I'm not storing them, simply ripping them on there and transferring later to my desktop.

[.RJ]

Why dont you use your desktop to pull videos off your track camcorder?

[white_2kgt]

Why dont you use your desktop to pull videos off your track camcorder?

+1, buy a pack of DV tapes from walmart or something, you can get a 6 pack for $20. Last thing I want to do on Sat night after tracking is hookup the camera to the computer and do the tape shuffle. If I'm going to watch the tape that's different b/c you can rewind/ff and laugh at stupid/people/mistakes.