Be Excellent To Each Other

I've just picked up one of these teeny lappies for under 200 quid in Tesco. It's fooking excellent! sat on bed with a tiny screen and keyboard typing these very words. Might have a wank.

Seriously, though, great deal in Tesco. They have them on display too, so try before you buy. Comes with a stripped down Linux install but it's ideal for browsing with Firefox. I might install a different OS but this will do for now!

They are indeed lovely, PC World appear to do them for £199 or £230 if you'd prefer hard drive flavour (the hard drive version is a bit bigger). I am playing lots of stuff on ScummVM on mine.
As a word of warning though, there's no trapdoor to access the ram slot like you might expect, so if you want to upgrade, you have to take the whole machine apart (which isn't much fun).

Tempting it is. I really fancy a super portable thingy for the odd times I'm away.

And only a few clicks... http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.204-6391.aspx

I'd dearly love one of these but genuinely need something that runs XP. Best one I've seen is the Advent 4211 in Currys/PC World, but it's £280. Bah.

I run XP Pro on my Eee PC 701 - the 4Gb flash disk version.

ohhh I'm tempted to get one to use as a torrent server (any opinions ?)! USB drive away a HD and I bet it would be ace.... although I might try and find old cheaper second hand lappy first...!

Personally, I wouldn't use a laptop as an always-on server if only because when I tried it, it died within a year (wouldn't charge and couldn't be run off the mains) -- maybe they're not robust enough for that kind of thing or perhaps I just had a crappy-quality one.

You're probably better off with something like an Eee Box:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article867-page1.html

It's basically an Eee PC but with fewer of the compromises required to make it a portable device.

If you happen to have a copy of xp lying around then you can install it on either the flash drive or the hard disk version (you'll need a USB cd drive or a usb memory stick to do so though). You can buy them with XP pre-installed (HD version only, I think), but obviously they're more expensive as you're paying for xp as well.

I don't have a copy of XP but I would be able to import one, yes? Hmm, tempting.

I need a laptop but don't know if I can justify the cost. £230 is just about doable but will max out my second credit card in doing so

The entire Mediauk site ran off a laptop in a cupboard for about 2 years. Huge site and amazingly it actually worked. These days they have a proper server in a datacentre.

as does b0rk.co.uk (web, irc, some voice apps and some q3 servers iirc)

Malc

If you have a maxed-out credit card and debts on a second, it's not 'just about doable' at all. Dude, you don't have £230. Save and wait.

Yeah, I know It's one of those "Well... there's so much on the credit card already another £230 won't really make any difference" things, isn't it?

But that's how you get into troub in the first place.

Precisely.

You need to set yourself targets. If you owe (say) £2,374, concentrate on getting it below £2,200. Then under two grand. Then aim for £1,500, and so on. When you're within touching distance of your next target, you're no longer tempted to think, 'another £230 won't make any difference'.

At the risk of sounding like Captain Mainwaring during his day job, if you wait and save instead of borrowing and pay off all credit cards at the end of the month, you ultimately get to spend more money as you're not wasting otherwise-disposable income on servicing your dept.

I stand corrected then!

*mutter mutter stupid Medion piece of shit*

YES.

Don't fucking do it. It's just not worth it in the long run.

I'm not gonna. I wasn't going to go to Barbados but by the time the financial trouble reared it's head I'd already paid off the balance on it and it was non-refundable so I thought I may as well.

Now I'm back, the only big expense due is the car service and fixing the damage. I may put off the latter for a while as I don't really notice it any more.

Then I can concentrate on getting the cards paid off.

Well bollocks to debt quite frankly, I needed some fucking cheering up, so I've bought one of these dooberries too. Got the lovely blue one with the 1gig of RAM and 120GB HDD, spent 30 mins trying to install Mac OS X on it, gave up, installed Windows XP and a bunch of emulators on it instead. I'm typing on it now, using the sneaky WiFi connection at my work! Go me!

It is very nice, isn't it?

Also: I've found a use for my Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive, as it plugs straight into the Aspire One and lets you use it as an external optical drive.

Yeah it's a perfectly standard drive, I keep meaning to use it to play HD-DVD films on my PC.

I can't believe I didn't think of this.

I guess it's not something that would be immediately obvious, as we're all used to console addons being proprietary hardware.

I know I didn't think of it, but now that I know it works it's bound to come in handy at some point.

It's very, very handy. The only downside is the HD-DVD drive is about 4 times the size of the laptop itself.

I did know you could just plug it into a pc, but I completely forgot when I really needed an external cd drive to use with my Aspire One.
I very nearly went and bought one as well, so I only feel fractionally as stupid as I could be feeling right now.

thw wife wants one for christmas. They worth getting?

What does she want one for? That's really the decider.

surfing the net and messenger and a few small docs. we have a kid on the way, so she wants for the lounge..

We have a desktop for major stuff

It'll be ideal for that, then, although for MSN Messenger you might want to put Windows XP on it instead.

the linux messenger supports msn. so xp is not needed

Play's the cheapest I've seen them - £229 - btw.

Wow Play is cheap..

I cannot stress how cool these little laptops are BTW. I'm happily running most 2D games in MAME (some stuff like Turbo Outrun is a little choppy) and it also seems to run Defcon without breaking a sweat (although the small screen isn't ideal for that).

When used for it's intended purpose - surfing the web and a little typing, it's just unbeatable once you get used to the smallish keyboard. One of the best £250's I've ever spent! Oh, and the provided Linux is perfectly acceptable for just about everything, I just wanted to have Windows to make it that little bit more versatile.

Good You can;t beat a kinky wife

Technically, you can, but you get prosecuted once it crosses the ABH line, IIRC.

How is she, by the way?

18 weeks pregnant, so a bit tired all the time, but teh sickness has passed

You do seem to be in a strange mood, but we love you for it!

Maybe you should get some fluffy handcuffs tattooed on your other wrist?

Stand by for the horny trimester!

Thanks, she is cool. Just got another scan in 2 weeks..

I guess it's far to late to say "don't do it" to you, then.
Best of luck, fella - do you know what the sex is yet, or are you not finding out?

Difficult - leopardskin wouldn't look right on something that small, and pink is an awkward colour for a tattoo. Maybe go for a gimp mask or a whip instead?

HAHAHA.

I had this mental image of Grimm.. saying to a lass "Do you know what THE SEX is yet?"

I hope so otherwise the pregnancy will have been a surprise.

Thanks, she is cool. Just got another scan in 2 weeks..