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Cheapo laptop to buy in USA? Cheapo laptop to buy in USA?
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Communications Connecting - internet cafes, laptops, smart phones - how to connect, use, which one, and intercom/radio systems.
Photo by Alessio Corradini, on the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia, of two locals

I haven't been everywhere...
but it's on my list!


Photo by Alessio Corradini,
on the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia,
of two locals



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  #1  
Old 17 Nov 2009
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Cheapo laptop to buy in USA?
Because they've forgotten to invent internet cafes in the US, and because I've heard you can buy a small wi/fi laptop there for under $200, can anyone recommend one?

I'm not keen on PC's but obviously a Mac is going to be too expensive and it'll probably get nicked or broken anyway, so a PC it is.

Main requirements -
1. Cheap.
2. Cheap.
3. Wifi-ability.
4. Ability to put photos onto CD.
5. Sturdy.

I'll be buying in Texas (or northern Mexico).

Cheers (and sorry if this has been covered a million times already - I have looked!)
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Old 18 Nov 2009
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Forgotten to invent Internet Cafe's in the US, you must be going to the wrong places. There are plenty of Cafe's with wi-fi, they're just not called Internet Cafe's, lots of ordinary Cafe's have wi-fi and if you get stuck the local library will have, usually free, computer time with internet access. Also most hotel/motel lobbies will have free access and the staff usually don't have a problem with you sitting in the lobby with your laptop, they're very friendly in the US of A !

We bought a small Philips laptop that's now done around 43,000 miles bouncing around in the back of a goldwing Trike (in a padded Travel Cube) over four trips to the USA that's done superbly well.
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Old 18 Nov 2009
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?? The only choices are not PC or Mac. I would look at a Asus EEE PC with a solid-state drive loaded with Linux. Cheap, sturdy, wireless, quick boot up, perfect for quickly checking e-mail or web-surfing.

While they have a small hard drive and no CD drive, you could load your pix on cheap USB thumb drives, which are available just about everywhere.
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Old 18 Nov 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Texastrike View Post
Forgotten to invent Internet Cafe's in the US, you must be going to the wrong places. There are plenty of Cafe's with wi-fi, they're just not called Internet Cafe's

We bought a small Philips laptop that's now done around 43,000 miles bouncing around in the back of a goldwing Trike (in a padded Travel Cube) over four trips to the USA that's done superbly well.

I should have explained that by "internet cafe" I meant a room with computers in it!

43000 miles ought to cover it though...
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Old 18 Nov 2009
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Originally Posted by motoreiter View Post
?? The only choices are not PC or Mac. I would look at a Asus EEE PC with a solid-state drive loaded with Linux. Cheap, sturdy, wireless, quick boot up, perfect for quickly checking e-mail or web-surfing.

While they have a small hard drive and no CD drive, you could load your pix on cheap USB thumb drives, which are available just about everywhere.
Sounds good! Thanks...
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Old 19 Nov 2009
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cheap pc.
Hi.
Have to agree with the eeepc.
Bought one for motorcycle travel as it's quite small and the battery lasts well.
No cd drive but use sd cards instead.
You can get ones with a normal hard drive (HDD) or with a flash memory drive which are a bit more shock proof, ideal for biking.
Most cw built in web cam, wifi and 3 usb ports.
With windows or linux.
Cost £140 GBP in the uk.
Hope this helps.
Dave.
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Old 20 Nov 2009
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P.c.
One of the better putors for your usage likely would be the Acer Aspire One AD250. with Windows 7
Google it on Amazon.com w/6 cell battery (6.5-8hours) it should cost around $350.max.
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Old 20 Nov 2009
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If you want ages of battery life have a look at the EEEPC 1005HA. I can get about 10 hours out of mine, which I'm truly impressed by. It goes down if you're using it for music/videos obviously but it's still pretty good. A ten inch screen is big enough to see and it does make room for a slightly larger keyboard.

Downside, it's got a spinning hard-disc, not solid state, but I'm not sure that makes a lot of difference if you're stationary when you're using it, and of course no CD/DVD drive.

Upside it's got almost 160gb of memory, SD expansion slot, and best of all a factory reset feature, so if Windows goes wobbly, you just hit F9 on start up and it resets. It does mean you lose everything stored on C: But as the disc is partitioned, put all your data and installer files on D: and you're back up and running in about ten mins.
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