Pablo666 Posted March 8, 2003 Report Share Posted March 8, 2003 Hi - this is slightly off-topic, I know - I live in India and will be in Bkk in a week or so - I won't be going back to the US anytime soon and am on the lookout for a decent notebook - would pay around US$2000 or so....anyone have any personal favorites? I'm using a 3 yr old Dell Latitude and the keys are falling off....I don't care how much it weighs so it does not have to be one of those ultra-sleek ones - also would like some sort of graphic accelerators as I love to play games when I'm not working (or is it I like to work when I'm not playing...I forget). Anyways would be grateful for any help in deciding besides checking on CNET.com Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 8, 2003 Report Share Posted March 8, 2003 ECS desknote laptop. You can get a 2.53ghz 256ddr 20gb setup for around $1200. Performance/cost beats any brand name laptop. Only drawback, the battery unit isn't inclusive and is pretty hefty. Mainly I use the laptop as a "desktop replacement" that is semi-portable. It's always plugged into the wall outlet. If you wanna be hauling the laptop to starbucks every afternoon, I'd pass on the desknote. If you want a computer with POWER that you can move around with relative ease, get the desknote. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 10, 2003 Report Share Posted March 10, 2003 Talking in terms of the US, laptops from the likes of sony and ibm start under a grand these days. Don't get robbed on paying extra for more RAM or hard drive space. You can get a half gig of RAM and 60GB notebook drive for a total of about $200 aftermarket. My observation is Thailand is not a good place to buy electronics/computer stuff (unless you are talking software, hehe). Do your homework by checking street prices online to know how good a deal something is. My experience is places like pantip and tohome.com tend to go 30% over US street price for old technology and you can't find new technology at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gummigut Posted March 10, 2003 Report Share Posted March 10, 2003 Laptops, especially the latest models are not exactly cheap over here. As for desktop components. Pricing of commonly found parts in Thailand: memory, hard drives, CPU's, etc... are right in line with internet shops in the US. What I'd like to know about are the second tier name brand laptops. They seem oftly cheap to me. <<burp>> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 10, 2003 Report Share Posted March 10, 2003 On a similar topic, has anyone here ever tried to connect to the internet on a laptop (or even a PDA) using a bluetooth-equipped cell phone as a "modem"? I'm looking for a convenient way to keep up with e-mails while on the road, and this seems like it might be the best way (that is, if it really works as well as the manufacturers claim it does). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 10, 2003 Report Share Posted March 10, 2003 Don't know if there is GPRS Mobile Data System in LOS already, and if yes, for what price? For regular Data Connection, it is very slow and expensive .... Why don't you plug in from your Hotel Landline, buy a Card with 40 Hours at Pantip? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Straycat Posted March 10, 2003 Report Share Posted March 10, 2003 I have a bluetooth equiped phone, but I've not used the feature at all -- mainly 'cause I don't have bluetooth in my laptop. I use IR between laptop and phone. Works well IMHO, but I can see that many users have problems to set up the correct configuration. Unfortunately, bluetooth will not make it any faster from phone to network. There you'll still be stuck with 9,6 kbit/s anyhow....(unless you have GPRS or High Speed Data services available). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pablo666 Posted March 11, 2003 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2003 Thanks for the reply & advice.....I looked up this notebook - looks good, but I'll have to see if it sells in India....otherwise will wait till I'm back in the US for a visit.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 11, 2003 Report Share Posted March 11, 2003 I frequently use the combination of - bluetooth equipped phone (Nokia 8910) - a Bluetooth PC card (3Com) - laptop (Fujistu S6010) - GPRS (AIS) - Linux (RedHat 8) Everything was purchased locally. Getting this working was non-trivial. It would probably be easier with Windows XP, but I haven't tried. The 3Com card is good because it has a retractable antenna; when it's retracted it doesn't stick out of the PC card slot, so it can be left in the laptop all the time. Actually, I haven't yet had a need to open out the antenna. The bottom line is that it does work. GPRS coverage is available only in and around Bangkok (I've used it out as far as Korat). It is pretty cool to be able to leave your mobile in your pocket, open up your laptop and connect without having to plug anything in. However, it's slowwww. It's only just useable. It's also not very reliable. I mostly use it to surf the Web while I'm sitting in Bangkok traffic (I don't drive). IR didn't really work for this, because it's hard to keep the computer and mobile aligned while the car is moving. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 11, 2003 Report Share Posted March 11, 2003 What's the pricing for GPRS in Bangkok? What contract do you need? Prepaid also? Pricing per MB or by Minute? Any info on that would help. I have the Hardware, but never before thought of using it in LOS before reading your Post! Sunny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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