Computer Hardware Question

[tryfuhl]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

Soliciting advice on computer hardware again from the trusty Warpath community.

I recently set up a wireless N network in my house. My desktop in the basement connects to this network through it's wireless-N adapter.

I'm now looking for a laptop to add to the equation. I just want the laptop to successfully and smoothly do the following:

- Surf internet
- Email
- Stream video from sites like YouTube
- Pull up files, such as home videos of my kids which are housed on the desktop in the basement, and watch them on the laptop

You'll be hard pressed to find a laptop nowadays that won't meet those requirements. What formats and resolutions are you shooting video on? If you're shooting in say 1080p from an HD camcorder you'll need something beefier. If it's like 480 pretty much anything will do that.

As you can see I'm not asking it to do much. I don't need it to hold large files. It will not hold my music or video libraries, so it doesn't need much hard drive. Seems like one of those Mini Net Books would be perfect for my needs, except for the fact that I'm unwilling to have smaller than a 13 inch display. And I want something with an N adapter to take advantage of my existing N network.

I'd hold off of the netbook as most of the good ones are 300-500 bucks and you can get a solid 14 or 15 inch for that price. Plus typing on those things is a bitch.

So I've been looking at 13-15 inch laptops and trying to decide what hardware I need. I have the following questions:

Will a celeron processor be adequate to perform the above tasks?

Yes, the newer celerons should be fine. How much are you looking to spend? It's not too much to get a better processor model.

Will 2GB of RAM be adequate?

Yes. If it's expandable cool

Will Vista give me a headache because of the Celeron processor - or is Vista just a pain regardless of your processor speed?

Vista after SP1 was pretty much fine. I hate how some of the settings are placed but as far as actual function, no big deal. A lot of desktop manufacturers are allowing a free copy of Windows 7 when it comes out, maybe they're doing the same for laptops, not sure. I have a Windows 7 build I've been playing around with and it's great. I was also able to run it on an athlon xp 2900+ with 1.25gb ddr RAM without real issue

Any other things I should be concerned with?

Thanks fellas.

Nope, but what's your budget?