Handing back work laptop - need one that will..

[Jackaroo]

My work laptop is way too whizzy for email, but great for watching online tv ..
now I've left, I need a netbook/laptop of my own.
What's the minimum weight I need for it to cope with furtive watching of crap tv?
And which of the features is relevant?
We have wifi already, but presumably I don't Need 500GB HDD, or an Intel Core i5 processor, anymore than I needed the blue rat...

Or even Blue RAY

Ha, but Blu-Ray for video is stunning, though best viewed on 42" and above with a decent sound system (as sound is where they have been pushing it further in recent times)...

When you said 'minimum weight' I assume you were meaning 'what's the most basic which will cope' unless you really did mean light vs heavy laptops.

I'd ask first, what size screen do you need wish for ?

A quick look on Ebay for 'daily deals' (linked from front page) will find some daily, or weekly, with laptops costing from around 225 up... cheapest ones will have say 2 GB RAM and should be fine for your needs. 300 and 400 quid for 4 GB RAM.

Most will have 160 GB (or bigger) hard drives, simply because that's what the market is expecting, so unless you want a netbook (which may cost almost as much, with smaller screen, and less flexibility because of lack of CD/DVD etc), you are probably going to get something which can do your minimum plus quite a lot more :)

Mm, yes I did mean it as in "what's the most basic I can get away with". I'm working in AU$, but GB RAM etc is the same everywhere, so thank you for your pointers...and no, I'm not wedded to the netbook idea - i've been carrying around a 15inch screen for a year, no problems.

Hooray, I can probably get one this side of Christmas!

Thanks again

J

Something like *> that

I have a Toshiba Satellite like the previous link and really like it.

It scored with me,
(a) for having separate number pad, and
(b) because I used a Tosh back in 1990.

Not saying that Toshiba are the best or to exclude lots of others, or that they won't have lowered their costs by a few shortcuts over the years, but they have a reputation to maintain and this one was definitely not overpriced in my view...

Looking again I think the 3 year warranty for AU$99 seems good too!

lol about the cost of living - it is appalling!!Feel free to ignore the following.. Everything here fluctuates so much... for example, bananas are currently $13 a kilo (= about 5 pounds a pound I guess), where normally a third of that... my weekly shop is about 250/300 a week, and that's not going crazy, using a combination of basic brand lines, and a couple of veggies being organic... so 150-180 a week. In the UK I could manage on 100, or a bit more. But then it was easier to buy end of the day cut price produce, which it isn't here. They take off 10% whoohoo :-) Admittedly this includes formula and nappies at the moment, but I always wait and buy them when they're seriously discounted, once every 6 weeks or so... petrol varies from $1.22 to $1.50 a litre (somewhere between $45 and $70 a tank for my 2l in the last 2 years)... But just getting from our house to nursery, school, and my job (which is only a couple of miles away) takes at least half a tank a week, and if it's 35-40 degrees outside it will be a whole tank because it eats petrol for air con. So thats up to 6-8 months of the year.

Housing is extremely expensive and the infrastructure is pretty shoddy. Our mortgage has gone up by about a third in 2 years. We have an average (almost exactly) mortgage, and this translates into another $800 a month (which is maybe 500 sterling). Power prices are expected to have doubled between 2008 - 2015, they went up this week in NSW by 17% in one go.

Medical expenses make a huge difference to us; we don't even have any SN or other issues, just immune problems for one child, and ears for both kids... I managed to find a formula that DS2 could have, it is a general HA, but my eldest needed Nutrimigen in the UK - free as he was a baby. Here it would be costing me $60-70 a tin.

Chemist costs are one of the biggest differences: My prescription costs $70 a month, and we are currently going through > 1 antibiotic prescription a month - usually 2-3 = which can = $60 a month...

Doctor - charges 65 per visit, and we get about 40 back. Currently 1 visit a week on average. So, at least $100 a month.

So, that's $240 for a normal month in this house - about 150/160 sterling. Can be up to 300 dollars with paracetamol etc.

Sorry, my pet peeve of the moment.....my husband has a really really good job, and I cannot work how to save anything. Or even stop us from going into the red.

Thanks again, great searching, will just see if I can justify it - maybe if none of us have drugs next month?!

Tough times. I will definitely stop my own grumbles seeing some of your cost of living expenses, and grass is definitely not greener from my viewpoint (though had always considered Australia too hot for me anyway, and don't drive so that would limit where I'd visit/live if I was there anyway).