I want a laptop that I can do my quick books, excel crap, turbo tax and upload video's out of my camcorder (firewire or something like that)..... and I have a wireless internet at my house so I need that capability built in....

I don't want to have to open the thing and add cards, etc.... I just want it to show up and i will put my quickie books in it and maybe a year of turbo tax and be able to use it.

I don't want to spend a zillion $$ though.

any suggestions?

thanks

 

all i can say is if your intention is to use the portable outside the home dont buy such a large lcd screen that the laptop is way fragile. i have a Averatec 6100 and its screen is too large to be a true portable.

one good thing about the averatec is it has built in surround sound audio and a optical spdif connector. Connected to a creative audio ddts-100 decoder box gives good sound.

 

Is Averatec a fairly new company? I've seen that name a lot in the local Best Buy and Future Shops around here, but I've never heard of that brand before a few months ago. What's the reliability like?

 

i would not buy another, its been working well at around the house, would not put it into a backpack and take it to work/school.

as above its screen is to large and mechanically it is not stable. this is the 2nd unit i have had (warrenty), the first developed a black line across the screen after a few trips to work. thus the bassis for my theory. the wide screen is nice and has good color brightness, just fagile.

another problemo: the Averatec 6100 i have seems to over heat and shut down after a few hours of full power, say watching a movie. the cpu overheats.

it was a close out at SamsClub, they mis marked the thing and i got it a year ago for $500 so i cant complain.

one very good thing about the Averatec6100 is it has built in a soround sound system and it has a optical audio spdif connector. i connect it to the home system through a creative labs decoder box.

also it has jsut about everything you would want as far as connectivity: usb1&2, SD card, firewire, pcmcia, dvd, 80211B&G, and ethernet.

 

I've got a no-nonsense Fujitsu Lifebook 7010D with 14" screen. I give it two thumbs way up as a portable but it is NOT a hard core gaming machine. I really like having almost every I/O built-in (except Bluetooth).

 

You want to do alot with your laptop. I'd get a 15" Apple Powerbook,
1GB RAM. It already comes with wireless and a high-end monitor, plus dvi, usb2.0, firewire, etc.

iLife, MS Office & Quickbooks will round out the software you need.

 

My Dell 700M is pretty sweet. Even though Dell has sucked in the past, it's light and powerful.

 

something with a celeron-M will be cheap and last a long time on batteries.

just about any midrange laptop has wireless now.