Charlie Self wrote:

For shooting photos out of my own shop, I'm slowly running up on a need
for a method of viewing the shots more fully at the scene.

So I started checking used laptop prices, and keep running into a sort of
price settling at $700 ($699 plus shipping) to $800 ($799 plus shipping).
Checking these out, I find 6, 8, 10 or 12 gig hard drives, Pentium IIIs,
max of 128 megs of RAM, few details on USB, lots of CD readers and DVD
readers, screens in the 12" range.

Just for kicks, I thought I'd check the Dell site, since I've gotten good
value from my desktop Dell. Here we go: several of their 1150 models, with
Pentium IV, quarter to a half gig of RAM, 20 or 30 or 40 gig hard drive,
14+" screen, CDRW, bunch of other handy stuff, plus XP loaded. Prices
start at about $825.

Do these smaller outfits have rocks in their heads or are they out there
hoping to catch the ever unwary? Add 25 bucks to their prices and get a
hard drive that is 4-5 times as large, double or triple the RAM, a faster
CPU and a burner, plus other features and they expect to sell stuff.

Amazing.

Charlie Self
"I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities
he excites among his opponents." Sir Winston Churchill
Everyone wants a laptop. I have computers that I can't even give away but
everyone wants to know when I'm getting a new laptop, there is a wait list
to last longer than my lifetime of people wanting me old ones.

Be very careful of the Dell 1150 (and maybe others) it has a desktop cpu.
My wife bought one and it runs _HOT_. Just sitting on a desk with the
screen blank the cpu fan will turn on off every few minutes. Pick up the
machine and both cpu fans crank up to full speed shopvac sound level. Its
a 2.4GHz machine and with the software load from Dell it ran slower than my
1GHz latitude. I reloaded XP clean on it and its better but still not as
fast as it should be. Some of these new cheap laptops are really a rip
off, they throw in a fast cpu and huge screen so you have to have a big
battery and loose the benefit of portability, but they give it a slow hard
disk, slow system bus, slow memory, etc so you loose the benefit of the
fast cpu and bug screen. If you want a decent one look for a Latitude,
sign in the small business store and if they ask what the business is your
an "independent contractor". You will pay the same price buy won't get all
the "free" software included so instead you get a better quality system.
The computer makers work the same as tool makers, I paid the same for my
crapsman router as my PC router, but I got a bunch of accessories with the
crapsman and have to buy all the accessories for my PC. But the PC will do
a much better job and outlast the crapsman which I wore out in a short
time.