new netbook vs old laptop

Soldato
Joined
22 Jun 2005
Posts
9,066
Location
Nottinghamshire
I am considering purchasing a small laptop, reviewing my options I can buy a used D420 with a 1.2ghz core duo for around £160-70 with 1gb ram etc

OR

A Brand new netbook with intel atom for roughly the same price, the major advantage of the D420 is its a proper business machine built to an extremely high spec and it has a decent display with a good res.

Anyone offer any thoughts on which to go for, or anything I may be omitting?
 
Soldato
Joined
2 Jun 2004
Posts
18,423
Comes down to how much you need higher specs Vs portability.

Personally I'd always go for brand new gear when it comes to laptops/netbooks though. With used stuff you never know how many times the previous owner dropped it. :p
 
Soldato
Joined
15 Oct 2003
Posts
14,742
Location
Chengdu
My thoughts...
The D420, you'd probably be wanting to rebuild it, given my experience of the D series... After a year they will be running hot and the hinges will be on their way out.
You'd also be getting near the age when the battery was due replacement. (Annoyingly it'll come up with a warning error and then flat out stop working past a certain time)

If you fixed it up then they are still decent. Very easy to work on also.

I'm not a fan of netbooks as they dont seem particularly great value to me, but an old laptop will eventually need some work.

What hard-disk is in the Dell? Avoid the ghastly SSD that shipped in the D430s (not sure if it's in the D420 also). With a 5400rpm 1.8" drive in, they can be tolerable to work on.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
9 Oct 2008
Posts
2,993
Location
London, England
I have an HP 2510p, which is essentially the same specification as the D420, including the 1.8" ZIF 4200RPM hard drive. The drive is infuriatingly slow to load programs; it makes the 2.5" SATA2 7200RPM drive in my Studio 15 seem like an SSD in comparison, in terms of both responsiveness and raw transfer rates. Upgrading to 2GB RAM helped a great deal with running Windows 7, however.

The advantages of the older laptop over a netbook won me over though; non-glossy screen with a decent resolution, proper dual core CPU, nice keyboard, docking station and, in my view, superior build quality. The biggest downside is the crappy hard drive, though with prices dropping it shouldn't be too long before you'll be able to drop in a 64GB SSD for a reasonable amount, and eliminate the issue almost entirely.
 
Back
Top Bottom