I'm going to buy a laptop and was hoping perhaps one of you guys/gals could share their experience.

Here are my basic requirements:

1. Light and portable as much as possible.
2. Will be used allot for reading, so its display should be clear and easy on the eyes.
3. Windows XP preferable, but Vista will Do. English preferable but a Chinese ver. will do as well.
4. Should have an optical drive.
5. I don't play games so no need for high end graphic card/CPU but it should still be able to run latest apps.
6. Memory: at least 2GB.
7. Good battery.
8. Last but not least, not over 7K RMB, if possible.

there should be tons of laptops out there for you to choose from.

I do suggest window XP and 2gb (you won't be able to get anymore then 2gb on window xp) if you do get a vista system make sure that you get more then 3gb.

One other thing I suggest is getting a model that you can easily obtain the drivers for. I dropped my laptop 3 weeks ago and had to replace the hard drive. I was glad I saved all my links and was able to download it from the Canadian Web site. But sometimes it's almost impossible to find some drivers.

As for #2 and #7, it' all about the same a now a days.....like you said you won't be doing to much gaming so you know hwo to tweak your system, you should be able to get max battery and display at the same time

The Dell XPS and Studio ranges are light ultra-portable and good looking. I was particularly impressed recently by their international warranty. I bought my XPS in the UK and close to the warranty expiring the graphics card fried. Emailed Dell UK and they arranged for a Dell China guy in Shanghai come and replace the entire motherboard - no questions asked. They then extended the warranty for another year for free. Took a few days to arrange but once Dell China knew of it, they were round my apartment within 24 hours. My XPS cost about 9,000 RMB last year. I suspect it is now around 7,000 RMB. So long as you get a Dell international warranty, you'll find the service excellent and in English. Mine came with the international warranty as standard. Be warned that the graphics card in the XPS had a design issue causing it to overheat and fry. This has now been rectified but make sure that it is a 2008 plus model. If you want to buy one of these, specifically raise the issue with Dell before buying.

Weighs 4lbs
13.something inches widescreen
The screen very clear - backlit WXGA.
Battery lasts about 4 hours on low brightness setting.
Comes with English Vista though.......
Slot loading DVD (i.e. no ejecting tray, but the load is noisy).
Remote control





http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/dell-xp ... mncol;psum

Dell has a number of concession stores around Shanghai.

tassi wrote:I'm going to buy a laptop and was hoping perhaps one of you guys/gals could share their experience.

Here are my basic requirements:

1. Light and portable as much as possible.
2. Will be used allot for reading, so its display should be clear and easy on the eyes.
3. Windows XP preferable, but Vista will Do. English preferable but a Chinese ver. will do as well.
4. Should have an optical drive.
5. I don't play games so no need for high end graphic card/CPU but it should still be able to run latest apps.
6. Memory: at least 2GB.
7. Good battery.
8. Last but not least, not over 7K RMB, if possible.

hi if you are interested my wife she just buy a Vaio last month, now she see a New smaller Vaio '7 inch and she want sell her laptop 13 inch, and buy the smaller, if you interested let me know,price 6500 rmb ( she buy 8000 )

caffe1962 wrote:hi if you are interested my wife she just buy a Vaio last month, now she see a New smaller Vaio '7 inch and she want sell her laptop 13 inch, and buy the smaller, if you interested let me know,price 6500 rmb ( she buy 8000 )

caffe1962, Thanks, I rather buy a new one.

Shangster, Thanks, it also seem to be in the right price range so I'll check it out.

I just bought two Lenovo T200 for my kids. They were just a bit under RMB 9,000. They came with English Vista, but nothing stops you of course from installing XP.

what can I get for about RMB 3500? I need with WIFI and DVD drive.

3,500 will get you a high quality tiny notebook, like those Asus eepc things, but no drive because of their size, but will have wifi. Or a really lumpy and slow big laptop.

Yep, RMB 3,500 was what I paid for an ASUS a few months ago. 30 GB solid state drive. Great little machine, only a bit slow. But then I only need it for emails, internet, and my Weatherfax/NAVTEX on the boat.
First ran Linux on it, but later switched to XP.

just a word of caution about downgrading to xp from vista.

It's something to do with the BIOS not supporting SATA natively under XP resulting in the installation failure(not recognising hard disk). This can be solved by updating your bios (if available) or updating your windows xp installation (slipstreaming) with latest sata driver.

another complication is the driver. some of the new laptop, the hardware they no longer support windows xp driver. Based on my past experience, I managed to find generic driver for my audio, but the result is i cannot use the earphone jack (not functioning).

just sharing for anyone considering downgrading. All in all i still think it's worth the hassle in downgrading since vista imho is just a waste of memory and hard drive without any real benefit.

Only hardware I've seen thats completely incompatible with XP was a VAIO, everything else I've got 100% working, although finding drivers can be a pain in the ascii.

Windows 7 isn't half bad, so I'd look into that over Vista - as its easier to install.
Its also still free currently.

Used IBM X40 for just 1500 RMB with dock station.

Lenovo SL300 has some nice specs although in reviews there is general discontent from the touchpad and problematic pointer, which is a complete shame. Obviously not a real Thinkpad any longer. The screen panel also seem quite large for a 13". A bit on the heavy side.

Acer Apacher has a decent model with the right options and price yet it scores quite low on graphics.

Asus N20 is quite cool, yet it is sold without Windows -- in the store which I visited, at least -- which means one has to purchase a license and that's a considerable addition to cost.

RussianBear, yes the X41 was lovely... I'm already using an "ancient" Asus which has served me well without fail these past 7 years, so now it's time to get a more up to date model.

Bought a new Lenovo/IBM ThinkPad SL-400 2 months ago,
total cost 4,800 RMB (delivered to my door),
Several different models depending on features/price/availablity with most on-line dealers,
came with Vista Business & MS Office (Chinese),
reloaded to XP Pro & MS Office (English) myself,
Intel Core 2 Duo T6570 (2.1GHz 800MHz 2MBL2),
160 GB HD 5400 rpm,
4 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz SODIMM Memory,
256 MB nVidia GeForce 9300M GPU,
CD/DVD burner,
5.5 pounds,
14.1 inch screen (1440 x 900),
4 USB slots, Firewire, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI, VGA,
ExpressCard, SD memory reader,
Headphone and Microphone plugs,
no fingerprint reader, keyboard light or built-in camera,
no Bluetooth or Blu-ray Combo
built-in Wireless LAN,
standard 6 cell Li-Ion Battery (5 hours),
13.2 x 9.7 x 1.3 inches
Have had no problems yet.

jay_dee,

are you happy with your SL400? How is the battery life?

It's 14", 5.5lbs and somewhat bulky, so it doesn't fit in too well into the "light and portable" category.

battery lasts about 5 hours, which isn't bad

I am waiting for the netbooks to come with the Atom Duo at 2ghz. Then that will be a very nice toy to carry and it will have some guts to do some real applications.