I need a laptop. I have a nice desktop for most of my work, but I need a cheap laptop that can accomplish the BARE ESSENTIALS while I am away from home. My only requirements are that it has decent battery life, USB ports, a DB9 port, and whatever you think are nice basic features to have in a laptop. I havent used a laptop built in the last 8 years, so I have no idea what they come with nowadays, so chances are i'll be impressed with just about anything I get. I'd like to be able to tap into local wireless internet servers, or whatever the heck they're called.

I want to spend as LITTLE as possible. Can I get a decent laptop for a few hundred dollars? It can be refurbished, but I would like some kind of a warranty.

you need an Aston Martin port?

Yeah, I need it for tapping into my car's ECM to edit my fuel tables.....do most new laptops have this port?

By DB9 you mean a male D-subminiature 9 pin right? Serial Port for slang…

If that’s that case, think twice. Most modern laptops don’t come with Serial Ports, mostly because nobody uses them, ever. Most of them don’t even come with Parallel Ports (DB-25) any more; everyone just assumes everything uses USB.

And with good reason.

Now I could go all preachy on you and tell you one brand is better than another, but I won’t. You can get a cheap HP of dubious quality really cheap these days, and if that’s all you want, go for it. Just don’t call up asking for a DB9 port, there is know way the will no what the hell you are talking about.

Assuming you mean DE-9 (ie. RS232 serial port), no, very few (if any?) currently produced laptops will have one. You'll either have to get a USB-serial adapter, get an old laptop, or possibly get a PCMCIA RS232 card.

[edit]This was a response to Dash, not West.

Macbook.

<.<
>.>

*runs*

For the low price of ninety ninety, ninety ninety, ninety NINE!
[/mike the tv]

I would recommend HP for a simple laptop.

Or a Dell

I've been looking at a new Dell machine for around $800. Does Dell make a good laptop? Who else makes a good laptop?

Toshiba makes a good laptop. Dell and HP do not.

Tosh make lovely lappys, they however don't make great budget ones (last time I looked)

I would never buy refurbs again, even with a warranty.

I bought a refurbed IBM t-22 and it only lasted 6 months. (The motherboard went out for some reason)

For laptops, always buy new if you want something reliable.

Yeah, I bought a refurbed thinkpad, think it was a T23. The hard drive died within the first 24 hours, I learned my lesson.

As for Dell, I'd avoid their really cheap line. We've bought some (I forget the name of the line) at work to include with automated fixtures, and they're absolute pure crap.

Yes my cousin's Dell laptop kicked the bucket after a few years. Don't get one.

my dell laptop pwns nuts

Well, a Dell laptop I have is 4 years old and still works.

This Dell laptop has had more issues than I'd care to have had, or to mention. On the note of RS232's, my friend's brand new Voodoo has one, not that anything they make is in the $800 range though.

The worst part was that all of my files for a semester were on that thing, and it broke right before i was planning to back everything up. My most recent backup was from a month before; so I lost only the most recent files, but they were the ones I needed.

Since the motherboard is shot (replacing it would coast more than the laptop did in the first place, and I don't know laptop hardware so I would have to pay someone to do it) , I have no way to get the data off of there-- Assuming the hard drive is functional and all the files are there, I couldn't get them back even if I took the laptop apart and got the HD out because I have no other place to install the hard drive. (i'm not even entertaining the option of taking my new laptop apart; the old HD is 8 years old and it may not even be compatible in a hardware sense)

You can get adapters that convert it to IDE and plug it right into your PC...

[QUOTE=Cool Matty]You can get adapters that convert it to IDE and plug it right into your PC...[/QUOTE]
Yeah. Or even laptop HDD to USB (then it just works as any external drive).

You can get a nice Thinkpad for under a $1000.