[kasperl]

i am looking for something that meets these demands:

1) laptop like keyboard
2) 6+ hours battery life
3) reliable and strong, im using this at school, so it needs to be crash proof.
4) portable, not dragable. +-A4 size
5) good, readable screen
6) an easy pc interface, serial or parralel, if possible USB
7) basic text editor, notepad style, and somekind of agenda.
8) somewhat available in europe.
9) not too expensive, but money isn't that important, i just want i want to know what's on the market.

i hope you can help me with this, i saw the Psion netbook, but nobody sells Psion anymore.

[Stryke 9]

Well... you can either get the "laptop" bit, or you can get the "readable screen" and "not too expensive". The only other portable computer that's anything like that is a Handspring with the keyboard addon, which doesn't exactly pass any durability tests with flying colors. Or, probably, the battery life.

[Odyssey]

If you want something like that, why not just get an old Palm Vx, and get a foldable full-size keyboard attachment? Probably cheaper than any crappy laptop-imitation thingie, and infinitely more expandable. Pretty damn strong too, I know someone who had his left in the road for a few weeks in freezing conditions with plenty of rain, and after taking it apart to dry it, it worked fine ^_^ You also get all the benefits of a palmtop too.
I'm recommending a palm because of the battery life - if I underclock my Toshiba e740 I could probably get about 6 hours out of it fairly easily, but the palms do that with ease - and as an old palm would be so much cheaper it'd be a lot better for a school situation. I take my e740 to school, but I have to keep it in an inside blazer pocket and take care with it; I'd prefer it if I had something a little less valuable on my person in that circumstance :S
You can pick up Palm Vx's on UK Ebay fairly easily, along with keyboards etc.

[kasperl]

well, i checked palms webiste, cause  i wouldn;'t mind having some form of warranty on my products, and the cheapets soltuion is a 2MB palm for $100,- and a keyboard for another $100,- which is a fairly lartge amount for just 2MB and a 160*160 screen. and honestly, it doesn't look that robust.

[Stryke 9]

They aren't. You drop those suckers, they're gone. I should know, I did it twice on the (much tougher) Visors, took me months to repair it. Keyboard still doesn't have most of the leftmost keys working.


On the other hand, they're ****loads cheaper than a laptop, have better screens, and are extremely portable- two wallet-sized cases.

[kasperl]

ok,palm is out of the question then. what about laptops?

the only problem with those is battery life, but i don't really know...

[Odyssey]

I wouldn't say palm is out of the question. Stryke, the visor isn't a palm creation, it's a handspring creation, you can't just compare them because they run the same OS. AFAIK, the palm Vx is pretty damn robust. Visors must be pretty crappy to die when they're dropped, as my e740 is a lot heavier and I've dropped the damn thing on the floor from waist height at least twice by accident, not even a scratch.
The Vx is out of production, so good luck trying to find it with a warranty. On ebay UK, the average going price for a Vx is £40-60, and the keyboard £20 or so. Most are said to work, so if they arrive and don't then the seller is liable.
I wouldn't really recommend any palm models after the Vx, but that's just my opinion.

As for laptops, expect to be paying out of every orifice for one that's around A4 sized with a good battery life. The IBM Thinkpad t39 gets good reviews, and it's pretty robust. Stay away from sony, dell, etc., they break when you look at them. Toshibas are excellent for robustness, but I can't offhand think of any they've made that would fit your criteria.

[Stryke 9]

Screen sucks, could buy a ****in' AMAZING desktop for the same money you need to get a halfway decent laptop, break even worse when you drop 'em a lot of the time. Portable only in the technical sense, as if you're walking more than about ten minutes you'll feel like your arm is being slowly torn off at the shoulder. It's only as "crashproof" as the software on it (same as a desktop), they have that damned irritating keyboard nipple instead of a mouse.

Odyssey: Yeah, it sucks. But who's saying the Handspring's the only thing I've smashed? I tend to break stuff.

[Odyssey]

Maybe kasperl isn't as good at breaking stuff...

[kasperl]

Originally posted by Odyssey
Maybe kasperl isn't as good at breaking stuff...

i am, don't trust me.

anyway, i need a kinda big screen, and those palm miny things don't look to good. i am not just going to use this as an agenda, but for all my school work, notes, homework, everything. and about the A4 thing, it's pretty much the m,aximum, perhaps a bit bigger, but that's it, i just don't have the space for more in my briefcase, and buying anohter briefcase just for this sounds a little silly.

another demand, quick startup. i can get a school laptop if i really, really want to, but those things take 5 minutes to boot, and if i have to ask the theacher to not do antyhign the first 5 minutes of every class, i doubt people would like me. not that they do now, but that's another story.

[Odyssey]

Quick startup? You're asking a lot here - that'd require a damn fast laptop. As I said, the Thinkpad t39 is your best bet, although startup won't be quite that quick. If you want to get that kinda stuff, and you have a big wallet, try buying an e750 (better screen than e740, but an f-load more expensive), and the VGA-out+USB adapter that clips on the bottom (the range has an inbuilt graphics card and USB controller, the adapter only provides wiring to this - it's around £20). With that, you could plug in a USB keyboard, and, if you really really wanted a larger screen (I use my e740 for a lot of my schoolwork etc., so the screen that's on it should be fine, even more so with the e750) you could get one of those TFTs that have detachable supports, and plug it in. The output is 640x480. That's kind of a bodged solution, but in the end it'd be more compact than a laptop and start immediately. I stress, the external screen isn't really necessary. Although, even with it, it'd be cheaper than a laptop that does what you want.

[Stryke 9]

Kasperl: Just in advance, no, they don't have psychic interfaces or holographic feely screens for laptops. In fact, neither have been invented yet, so you can't get them cheaply, or, as a matter of fact, at all.

[Bri_Dog]

Do you want a laptop or a PDA?

I've got an Acer TravelMate 220, It's a great little machine. The battery will last between 5-7 hours depending on what you're doing and charges in half the time.

Specs:

1.13 GHz Celeron
256MB RAM
DVD-ROM
1, 3 1/2 inch floppy drive
Intel 830M Graphics chip
PCMCIA slot
2 USB ports
1 lan port
1 modem port (with onboard modem)
1 Serial port
1 Parallel port
1 Port from hooking up  a moniter to the sytem
1 keyboard/mouse port.

Price: $900-$1300 depending on who you buy from.

[Odyssey]

I've got a much better idea. It starts immediately, it's reliable, and you get a printed record immediately for easy reading. It never crashes either.


It's a typewriter. £10 or less at your local junk shop.

[kasperl]

Originally posted by Odyssey
I've got a much better idea. It starts immediately, it's reliable, and you get a printed record immediately for easy reading. It never crashes either.


It's a typewriter. £10 or less at your local junk shop.

and it wheighs a lot and doesn't have digital storage, and tyhose darn things can crash. i used to try and type tiwh them when i was a kid, if you type to fast, the keys and those things that hit the paper will jam.


seriouisly, is it to much to ask for something between a laptop and a PDA, and is shockresistantas well?

[kasperl]

Originally posted by Bri_Dog
Do you want a laptop or a PDA?

I've got an Acer TravelMate 220, It's a great little machine. The battery will last between 5-7 hours depending on what you're doing and charges in half the time.

Specs:

1.13 GHz Celeron
256MB RAM
DVD-ROM
1, 3 1/2 inch floppy drive
Intel 830M Graphics chip
PCMCIA slot
2 USB ports
1 lan port
1 modem port (with onboard modem)
1 Serial port
1 Parallel port
1 Port from hooking up  a moniter to the sytem
1 keyboard/mouse port.

Price: $900-$1300 depending on who you buy from.

actaully, that sounds pretty sweet. but the money, o the money. but i might be able to arrange that. i've got bad eyes and my bad handwriting is because bad motor skills, all unsolvable physical problems i experienced. i heard about a fund that will pay for a students laptop or things like that, as long as it is needed for normal studying.

how fast do these start?

[Odyssey]

The best you could get that fully meets your specifications is what I outlined with the pda + keyboard + screen, etc./whatever. What I said before the typewriter.

As for laptops starting fast - so long as you keep windows away from the thing, it might be okay. For really fast starting, try one of those cut-down versions of linux.

[Bri_Dog]

Originally posted by kasperl


actaully, that sounds pretty sweet. but the money, o the money. but i might be able to arrange that. i've got bad eyes and my bad handwriting is because bad motor skills, all unsolvable physical problems i experienced. i heard about a fund that will pay for a students laptop or things like that, as long as it is needed for normal studying.

Lucky me, my college gave me mine

how fast do these start? [/B]

With fast boot enabled it puts you at the login screen in about a minute.

[Stryke 9]

If you wanna fork over a lotta bread for a lousy toy, get a tablet computer. Smaller than a laptop, bigger than a PDA, worst thing that'll happen to it is probably a cracked screen. They're overpriced ridiculously, but they're the only thing even close to what you want.

[Odyssey]

Considering bread is 10p a loaf if you get it cheap, that's either one ****-load of bread (probably enough supplies for 10 years), or a tablet pc. Hmm. I'd take the bread, myself, it's tasty.