I finally got time to go to Nova to look around. Very useful. The same model I was looking at was being offered for a good price at a lot of stores, but apparently the newer version which has a faster chip is only a little more expensive, so I think I’ll go with that one. You have to go to all the stores and ask around to see who has the best deal. Yes, they’re definitely brand new, and they get Windows XP in English put on for free.
Europe, let me know how it goes after you buy your laptop. I will being getting mine in April, so still have sometime to think about it. Oh, let me know which booth at Nova you will be getting your laptop at. If they can install English XP then I will definitely going to the same place. Cheers!
Okay, I’ll try to remember, but they ALL install English XP - and for free. I guess they know that’s how they can get us to buy it, and it doesn’t cost them anything. Also, if you need to, you can ask around, and what they have on offer, or the prices, may change from month to month.
I’d also send the vote for an Apple. Lots of studies show people are more productive and get things done faster on Macs. If may get time getting used to it, but everyone I know that has switched has been very happy.
With the release of ilife5, it has now become much easier to produce your own dvds (using imovie and iphoto to idvd) than it previously was on ibooks. Not much need to get a $65K powerbook when you can now do it on a $36K ibook. The powerbooks are to damn pretty though. Obviously buffing up the ram and an ext burner are needed if you don’t put in a superdrive though.
After some initial research I have come up with two alternatives, and I would like comments from the more experienced users on Forumosa. :bravo:
Acer Ferrari 3400 LMi
Asus M6900N
Both seems to pack a punch, but not too heavy to carry around.
Does anyone have an opinion on the difference between the CPU powers for the AMD Athlon 3000 and the Intel Pentium M 2.0GHz?
When you get English Win XP installed, is it a clean installation, or do they just put it on top of the Chinese? The reason I am asking is because my current Twinhead seems to start both Norton Anti Virus and Zone Alarm twice, and it is really slow (good reason to buy a new notebook?!)
:s -How can I check if it an installation from scratch or if it is just slapped on top of the Chinese version? :loco:
My current notebook don’t have any CD-R or similar easy device for copy/transfer of my user files and folders. Any suggestions for transferring these files to the new notebook are most welcome, especially my 4GB 
Outlook Express related files/folders create a headache for me - tragedy if they get lost or corrupted.
All comments and good advice are most welcome.
[quote=“X3M”]Does anyone have an opinion on the difference between the CPU powers for the AMD Athlon 3000 and the Intel Pentium M 2.0GHz?
[/quote]
Of those choices you definitely want the Pentium M. The Athlon is a desktop PC chip, so your power and cooling requirements will be much larger, meaning that the battery life will be pretty short. Athlon or P4 laptops rarely get over 2 hours of battery life whereas Pentium M is usually at least 3 hours and often more than 4 hours. AMD also has a low-power chip called the Turion, but it is fairly new, so it doesn’t have as much of a track record as the Pentium M.
Does your old laptop have an ethernet port? If so you could connect the two laptops with a cross-over cable and copy the files. If not, there’s also special USB cables that let you copy files across.
Go with the Asus, just bought the A3000 model. Paid $34,000 with wireless mouse, flashdrive, extra 256 ram (total 512) and English version of XP installed. And yes, it was a complete re-install, and not just over the Chinese version. They also threw in some software like Office and Norton Utilities. Plus, Asus offers a 2 year international warranty unlike the 1 year with most brands. I highly recommend the shop on the 2nd floor of Nova (booth 225). Ask for Mr. Liao, very nice guy and no bullshit.
[quote=“jlick”]
Does your old laptop have an ethernet port? If so you could connect the two laptops with a cross-over cable and copy the files. If not, there’s also special USB cables that let you copy files across.[/quote]
OK, USB or Crossover. Any special software, or will the PCs see each other when connected, so I just can copy/transfer the files/folders directly?
BTW, thanks for your clarification regarding CPU alternatives.
With an Ethernet crossover cable, you can turn on file sharing in the OS on one of the computers, then you should see the drive on the other computer in ‘Network Neighborhood’. For the USB option, it’s a special USB cable for file transfers and it will come with software to copy stuff.