they are small, but their nature dictates that they are less powerful and quite a bit more expensive than a similarly equipped desktop. so, from a financial point of view it made little sense to actually spend money on one. but, if you have a need for one, they end up being an invaluable tool no matter what their price is.
when i actually started on my quest to find the perfect
notebook for under $2,000, i looked at a lot of candidates. asking around to
people in the know, i was told over and over again that dell makes the best
business notebooks. unfortunately, time constraints prevented me from ordering a
dell notebook. so, i was left with the typical brands that major retail stores
carried, in other words, toshiba, compaq, sony, hp and fujitsu.
After careful consideration I decided on the HP Pavilion N5150 notebook that came equipped with Intel's mobile Pentium III @ 600 MHz. This was the notebook that presented the best value while having the features that I had to have such a DVD-ROM drive, a Pentium III processor for the best battery performance since they feature the SpeedStep technology, as well as an active matrix display panel vs. a passive display. Let's take a look at the notebook specs a little more closely:
Processor: Intel Pentium III 600 MHz w/ SpeedStep Main Memory/Max: 64 Megs PC-100 SDRAM/256 Megs PC-100 SDRAM Hard Drive: 10 Gig Dimensions: 13.03x10.72x1.59 Weight: 6.5 lbs Chipset: Intel 440ZXM-100 CD-ROM/DVD: 8X DVD-ROM Drive Display: 1024x768 XGA TFT 13.1 in LCD Graphics Chipset: S3 Savage/IX w/4 MB SGRAM, AGP 2X, TV-Out, 128-Bit 3D Architecture, Hardware Motion Compensation PCMCIA Slots: Two (1 Type III, or 2 Type II) Keyboard Type: 90 Keys/Spill Proof Pointing Device: Touchpad w/ 3 buttons
Audio: ESS Allegro (1988) w/ AC'97 CODEC, HSP modem Battery: Li-Ion
I/O Ports: Serial Port, Bi-directional Parallel Port, VGA port, PS/2 port, Mic-in, headphone-out, internal mic, FIR port, two USB ports, two Polk Audio Internal Speakers, Composite TV-Out Warranty: One Year Limited Manufacturer's Warranty
As you can see it packs a good amount of nice features. The only two things that I wish it had are, a FireWire port and maybe a CD-burner. But, for under $2,000 you have to make some small sacrifices. A FireWire port can be had in the form of a PCMCIA card for about $200. A USB or firewire CD-burner would cost about $400.
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