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"and now for something completely different, it's"

i am looking into purchasing a Notebook for the Wife. i figure i should get one with (excuse my ignorance) the cell phone connection thing.

she needs one for web surfing and e-mail when she is away from the office.

i am also shopping for a laptop for The Kid. she needs this as her desktop has crapped out. homework, music downloads, e-mail mostly. i think she would be able to connect wirelessly at her mothers but would be plugged in here.

not looking to spend a mortgage payment on any of this or anything. thanks.

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BenchWarmer Motorsports

another one of those damn LeMons heads

just another Chump

we are an Autocross Club Dammit............

two words: think. pad.

ping me offline (jtower@gmail.com), i can set you up with two thinkpads, i buy used ones all the time for my clients. wwan for the wife may be tricky to find but doable, i'll need to know what carrier she has.

I got a Dell from their outlet center. 17" bright screen, 4GB ram 320GB drive, Bluetooth, Windows 64bit OS, and wireless for $725 delivered. I would argue that since Dell no longer has a presence you should not have pay tax (well, you should )

Having an in like Jason is offering is a good thing.

I'll add my $.02 on "Broadband Wireless." Many of the machines have the little wireless card built in - you can order ones for the major carriers - (Sprint, Verizon, AT&T) but you're more or less stuck with that carrier for the life of the laptop. There are ways around that, but you're not exactly the most computer-savvy guy, which makes that challenging.

I'd recommend getting something like the Thinkpad, and going to your current wireless carrier and getting a USB Broadband Wireless device. As an existing customer, you might be able to negotiate a little better price than the list price on the website.

I've been using mobile broadband connections for a little over 4 years. I've used Verizon and Sprint for work. They're darn respectable. If the wife is driving on the trip down to NC, I can surf the web and work the entire way from MD to NC. It's fast enough for web surfing and email, and even for remote controlling other computers (which you won't do).

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Tom Freeman
'98 M3/4/5 | '93 Spec3 325i | '12 TSX sport wagon | '03 Tahoe
Team Silver Bullets '91 240SX

Steve,

For something really portable, small, light. Consider a Netbook. I just picked up this one below. $400. It has 9-10hrs battery. Weighs just under 3lbs. Display is very good. Surprisingly easy to see for web surfing and reading email. Comes with Windows 7 Starter. Pretty easy to use.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... 8122580711

For something better. I bought Ann this Sony VAIO laptop about 6 months ago. Works fine, display is excellent. It was package deal with MS Office upgrade at that time. Laptop was $700.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... 8125773741

Graham

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http://www.greywinds.com

I believe that my employer now requires that for folks with Blackberrys that they use tethering for laptop wireless broadband rather than an aircard (or whatever). This is to save duplicate charges and may make sense if most of the remote wireless access is for work email that the Blackberry handles.

Doesn't apply to me so I really haven't researched it. However, this link has info.

http://www.bbgeeks.com/blackberry-guide ... em-882549/

Dick

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

That would be great if the company didn't give me an AT&T Curve.

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

Wes,

It isn't about you. Its about Steve's wife . . .

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

Tiger Direct is your freeeeeind:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... tigerdeals

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Stacy King
Midlife Crisis Participant

IBM Used has a bunch of particularly good old Thinkpads available right now. I bought a T43 15" 1500x1050 (appx) with 2GB RAM for my wife the other day for about $100 less than I saw it _anywhere_ else.

PM me or any other IBMer in the club for the Employee Purchase log in - it's legal/expected for folks to share their codes, so no ethical worries about that.

--Kevin H.

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2003 WRX (again!)

Check the Best Buy sale flyer; a few months ago I got a nice Toshiba 15.4" laptop for the kids for $299. Once I turned off all of the Vista "Aero" crap it ran great. They haven't managed to kill it yet and it seems to work fine for kids stuff.

I also got a small Dell notebook for travel that I use the AT&T wireless broadband service with. It's nice because I got a card that I popped in under the keyboard so I don't have to plug anything in to it. Google "Dell Coupon Codes" for Dell's specials. They usually have some good deals. I got my current monster Dell laptop for half off as a refurb that was returned for a screen replacement. I got my last one on a 35% off coupon.

Many cell phones also have high-speed tethering now, even relatively cheap flip phones. I used to tether to my RAZR phone via bluetooth and got >600K speeds through it, and that was years ago. That worked well for being mobile; I didn't have to wire anything up to connect, the performance was great, and I could use the phone with any laptop with a single account.

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"Every ship is a minesweeper, once."