Ice Storm pix

The cheapest notebooks I find go for EUR 450 here, but the comparison
is probably meaningless without statings features and peripherals. I
don't think the low market ones are anything to write home about, but
your 399 one probably isn't either. I bought myself a nice one last
week from a supermarket chain. It's an Intel dual core 1.66 GHz, with 2
Gig RAM, 250 Gig HD, non-shared graphics card, 15'' widescreen, multi
format DVD burner, digital TV tuner card with remote, web cam, mic,
fingerprint sensor, all peripherals that are considered standards these
days (network, WLAN, sound, video, SD card), Winderz and lots of
software preinstalled, and a notebook bag. All for 899, which I
consider a bargain, with all those features you'd pay more in regular
stores. Now compare

Here's what I got for $399 a few months ago here in the US:

Compaq Presario C563NR Notebook PC

# Intel(R) Celeron(R) M processor 520 with 533MHz frontside bus, 1MB L2
cache and 1.6GHz processor speed
# 512MB DDR2 memory for multitasking power (upgraded to 1526 MB for
another $80)
# Multiformat DVD±RW/CD-RW drive
# 15.4" WXGA high-definition TFT-LCD widescreen display with
BrightView technology and 1280 x 800 resolution.
# 80GB Serial ATA hard drive (5400 rpm)
# Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with up to 64MB shared memory;
built-in Altec Lansing audio
# 3 high-speed USB 2.0 ports for fast digital video, audio and data
transfer; S-video TV-out
# Built-in high-speed wireless LAN (802.11b/g); built-in 10/100 Base-T
Ethernet LAN (with RJ-45 connector); high speed 56 Kbps modem
# Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic Edition operating system
preinstalled.

This little wonder has been marvelous, fast, connects wirelessly
automatically to any available network, and -- at less than $500 (with
the additional RAM I added later), it's almost unbelievably cheap. My
first laptop -- also a Presario -- was a Pentium III that cost nearly
$3,000, so the comparision beween the two is striking.

Sure, it's not the "latest greatest" -- but it does everything I want,
and is nearly disposable at that price...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Do tell, Jay. Where did you get it?

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
...
The cheapest notebooks I find go for EUR 450 here, but the comparison
is probably meaningless without statings features and peripherals. I
don't think the low market ones are anything to write home about, but
your 399 one probably isn't either. I bought myself a nice one last
week from a supermarket chain. It's an Intel dual core 1.66 GHz, with 2
Gig RAM, 250 Gig HD, non-shared graphics card, 15'' widescreen, multi
format DVD burner, digital TV tuner card with remote, web cam, mic,
fingerprint sensor, all peripherals that are considered standards these
days (network, WLAN, sound, video, SD card), Winderz and lots of
software preinstalled, and a notebook bag. All for 899, which I
consider a bargain, with all those features you'd pay more in regular
stores. Now compare

Here's what I got for $399 a few months ago here in the US:

Compaq Presario C563NR Notebook PC

# Intel(R) Celeron(R) M processor 520 with 533MHz frontside bus, 1MB L2
cache and 1.6GHz processor speed
# 512MB DDR2 memory for multitasking power (upgraded to 1526 MB for
another $80)
# Multiformat DVD±RW/CD-RW drive
# 15.4" WXGA high-definition TFT-LCD widescreen display with
BrightView technology and 1280 x 800 resolution.
# 80GB Serial ATA hard drive (5400 rpm)
# Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with up to 64MB shared memory;
built-in Altec Lansing audio
# 3 high-speed USB 2.0 ports for fast digital video, audio and data
transfer; S-video TV-out
# Built-in high-speed wireless LAN (802.11b/g); built-in 10/100 Base-T
Ethernet LAN (with RJ-45 connector); high speed 56 Kbps modem
# Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic Edition operating system
preinstalled.

This little wonder has been marvelous, fast, connects wirelessly
automatically to any available network, and -- at less than $500 (with
the additional RAM I added later), it's almost unbelievably cheap. My
first laptop -- also a Presario -- was a Pentium III that cost nearly
$3,000, so the comparision beween the two is striking.

Sure, it's not the "latest greatest" -- but it does everything I want,
and is nearly disposable at that price...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Do tell, Jay. *Where did you get it?

Best Buy, in an unadvertised special. Just stumbled on it, really.

Since then they've run several more specials on this (and similar)
models.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Was it available with XP instead of that pos Vista?

Jim

--
"If you think you can, or think you can't, you're right."
--Henry Ford

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
...
The cheapest notebooks I find go for EUR 450 here, but the comparison
is probably meaningless without statings features and peripherals. I
don't think the low market ones are anything to write home about, but
your 399 one probably isn't either. I bought myself a nice one last
week from a supermarket chain. It's an Intel dual core 1.66 GHz, with 2
Gig RAM, 250 Gig HD, non-shared graphics card, 15'' widescreen, multi
format DVD burner, digital TV tuner card with remote, web cam, mic,
fingerprint sensor, all peripherals that are considered standards these
days (network, WLAN, sound, video, SD card), Winderz and lots of
software preinstalled, and a notebook bag. All for 899, which I
consider a bargain, with all those features you'd pay more in regular
stores. Now compare

Here's what I got for $399 a few months ago here in the US:

Compaq Presario C563NR Notebook PC

# Intel(R) Celeron(R) M processor 520 with 533MHz frontside bus, 1MB L2
cache and 1.6GHz processor speed
# 512MB DDR2 memory for multitasking power (upgraded to 1526 MB for
another $80)
# Multiformat DVD±RW/CD-RW drive
# 15.4" WXGA high-definition TFT-LCD widescreen display with
BrightView technology and 1280 x 800 resolution.
# 80GB Serial ATA hard drive (5400 rpm)
# Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with up to 64MB shared memory;
built-in Altec Lansing audio
# 3 high-speed USB 2.0 ports for fast digital video, audio and data
transfer; S-video TV-out
# Built-in high-speed wireless LAN (802.11b/g); built-in 10/100 Base-T
Ethernet LAN (with RJ-45 connector); high speed 56 Kbps modem
# Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic Edition operating system
preinstalled.

This little wonder has been marvelous, fast, connects wirelessly
automatically to any available network, and -- at less than $500 (with
the additional RAM I added later), it's almost unbelievably cheap. My
first laptop -- also a Presario -- was a Pentium III that cost nearly
$3,000, so the comparision beween the two is striking.

Sure, it's not the "latest greatest" -- but it does everything I want,
and is nearly disposable at that price...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Was it available with XP instead of that pos Vista?

Nope. My intention was to buy this (admittedly RAM-challenged) laptop
and install XP -- but to my surprise I discovered that I actually
liked Vista -- even with just 512 K of RAM.

Over the course of a month or two, however, as I added more "stuff"
the insufficient RAM became more apparent, and everything started
running in slow-motion -- so I tripled it.

Since then, this little toy has been simply perfect. It's 100-times
better than my old laptop, for (literally) 1/8th the price.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In article ,
Jay Honeck wrote:

Nope. My intention was to buy this (admittedly RAM-challenged) laptop
and install XP -- but to my surprise I discovered that I actually
liked Vista -- even with just 512 K of RAM.

You are a sick man.

:-)

and to bring this back on topic a little (gasp!), Jay, did you read
the AOPA article about kids and flying lessons? Any thoughts?

--
Bob Noel
(goodness, please trim replies!!!)

and to bring this back on topic a little (gasp!), Jay, did you read
the AOPA article about kids and flying lessons? *Any thoughts?

Haven't seen it. Which edition (month) is that article in?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In article ,
Jay Honeck wrote:

and to bring this back on topic a little (gasp!), Jay, did you read
the AOPA article about kids and flying lessons? *Any thoughts?

Haven't seen it. Which edition (month) is that article in?

Jan 08

--
Bob Noel
(goodness, please trim replies!!!)

Jan 08

Either I haven't received that one yet (likely) or it got squirreled
away by one of the other pilots in this family.

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On 2007-12-20, Jay Honeck wrote:
Compaq Presario C563NR Notebook PC

3 months ago? Compaq? I thought HP had dropped the Compaq brand, they
certainly have here (they called it HP-Compaq for a while, then just
dropped the Compaq altogether).

I'm a bit miffed about Hewlett-Paqard actually - we have 70 of their
slimline desktops. Within 9 months *all* of them had failed and had to
have new motherboards under warranty (bad capacitors). About 1/3rd of
them shipped with bad hard discs. The same machines are now failing for a
second time, this time with bad capacitors in the power supply. Of
course they are now out of warranty so we're going to have to pay to
have all the power supplies replaced.

--
From the sunny Isle of Man.
Yes, the Reply-To email address is valid.