Questions about building a laptop on the cheap

I've just recently got to college, and over the summer I built a new desktop rig, thinking it would be fine. Now, however, I kind of feel like I'd like to have a laptop too. I figure, though, that since I already have a nice desktop, I'd just like a laptop (most likely running Linux) that has wireless internet capabilities and can run basic word processing applications. This does not have to game at all , it is just a workhorse to take to the library and the occasional lecture.

I'm cheap, and I like to build stuff myself. I know you can buy Asus cases and just pop pieces in there, but beyond that, I'm not really sure what to do. Any advice you guys could give me would be really appreciated; I'd give a price range, but honestly, I have no idea how much this should cost....All I can say is the cheapest possible configuration that would handle these tasks with no hassle. Thanks in advance guys.

Also, I'm not planning on any volt modding or overclocking.

well i m in college too and i have a gaming desktop and i got a "work" laptop last christmas (see specs below) to take notes in class, and just to have a secondary rig incase i screw up my desktop (i always try to "fix" it... to bad it is never broken in the first place... oh well i degress back on subject)

and here is my advice, even if you don't want it to play any games atleast get something that does not have intel extreme graphics on board (i now realize that it would have been worth the extra money even to get a low end graphics card in it), get a pentium-m in it so you get some decent battary life (nothing worse then having to plug in everywhere you go)

and really the best way to get the most bang for the buck is wait for a sale, i ended up getting my laptop for about $600 i saved about $350 because of rebates... you can buy a barebones laptop but you will end up saving more if you just get during a good sale

Unless you absolutely must build on yourself, I would just pick up a used laptop. See my sig for a great system that would work great for what you want. (It'll even play Quake 3 with good FPS) And you could get something similer for under $300.

the down side of buying a used laptop is battery life. I used to have a gateway solo5300 that i used for classes, but the batter would not make it over 1hr. I got a killer laptop for 1300, if you cut down on what you buy you can get alot for less.

Asus Z63A $593.90
1.5ghz CM $115.99
512mb DDR2 $56.10
40gb HD $62.40
DVD/CDRW $65.90
Wireless $28.40

Total $922.69 before shipping and not including an OS

this should give you 4-5hrs of battery life if you tweek it. If you dont mind the weight look at the Z70 its abit heavy but costs less than the Z63A. And if you dont mind spending more you can get one hell of a laptop

Asus Z63A
1.7ghz PM
1gb DDR2
100gb HD
8x DL DVD+RW
Wireless b/g

~$1300

You may also want to check out this little program. http://www.pbus-167.com/chc_main.htm
I think that the Asus barebone laptops are great. I feel sorry for wasting money on a Toshiba.
Thanks

You can also check out MSI barebones, I was close to buying a 1013 (s260 or s270, can't remember)

A decent barebone setuyp will run you around $1200, a cheap used book will costs about $300 on ebay,

$229
Dell L400
12inch TFT
Touchpad
700Mhz P3
20gb HDD
256MB memory (also max)
No CD drive
Under 1" thick


Not bad. Except now i got to buy some sort of cd drive.

Hm, well I'll continue to check ebay for a decent used one, but in the meantime, valence, where are those prices from? I'd rather build one from one of those Asus kits, but I'm not sure where the best place to buy the pieces would be. Does Newegg carry a good selection of these?

Tumnus said:

Hm, well I'll continue to check ebay for a decent used one, but in the meantime, valence, where are those prices from? I'd rather build one from one of those Asus kits, but I'm not sure where the best place to buy the pieces would be. Does Newegg carry a good selection of these?

Click to expand...

laptops4me.com carries turion 64 proceessors if you want,

Directron.com also carries a lot of DIY notebook stuff

Newegg.com is allright but not the best

Hit up nextag for nearly everything, newegg isn't neccesarrily king in newer and specialty markets(like watercooling; and cooling in general).

I get most my stuf from AMAX because i have reseller acct. They have the best prices i can find on the chasse but you can get most the other stuff for the same general price.