Cheapest Laptop for offloading...

Jarek Zabczynski

Jarek Zabczynski

Veteran
Anyone know of a cheap laptop that I can use for ONLY offloading and transferring footage in the field? The lowest I've seen with a PC card slot have been around $500...

for example...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115346

I'd love to find something at $400 or less. Anyone know if they exist? Is it safe to use a cheap laptop for this purpose? I currently use an OTG USB drive but that ties up my camera during transfer. I want to be able to shoot one card while I offload the other. Would also be great to back up to a second drive right away.

I'd also prefer something that comes with XP and not Vista.

Thanks!
 
The only PCs I've seen for less usually involved substantial rebates.

CompUSA, Staples, and Office Depot often run $399.00 specials on the weekend, but with rebates.
 
Look at Toshiba models, they are some of the most likely to have the slot.
For XP, you will probably have to look in the clearance sections of most stores,
that's where you will find the models that are a few months old and still have
XP. I ended up spending $800 on a suitable Toshiba laptop, but if I had settled for a smaller HD, etc. could have gotten one for less.
 
If the laptop of your choice comes with Vista instead of XP, just nuke the drive and install XP on it instead of settling for a different laptop. I would make an image backup first so you can restore it later if you want to.
 
The Circuit City ad does not mention a type II Cardbus slot, but the Acer site does. I would confirm that this, but a/t Acer, that would be the right slot.

PC CardBus Type II is what you need.
 
David S. said:
The Circuit City ad does not mention a type II Cardbus slot, but the Acer site does. I would confirm that this, but a/t Acer, that would be the right slot.

PC CardBus Type II is what you need.
Click to expand...

I went to Circuit City with a P2 card and drivers for Vista. Installed and transferred my card flawlessly. So I bought it. $378 w/tax. :D I feel like I stole it. :D I recommend getting one while you still can.

Now, it has Vista installed. Should I bother going through the trouble of formatting it with XP? I'm only using this thing for P2 transfer and it seems to work fine the way it is. Any thoughts?
 
Well I've gone through and configured this thing to my liking. For $350 it's pretty kickass. My only gripe about its stock configuration is that the 80gig hard drive is partitioned into two 32gig partitions. One for boot and programs and the other for data. Should be good for two 16gig card dumps. My question is... doesn't an 80 gig drive equate to 74gigs of actual space? The total on the drives shows 64.7gigs when you add the two. Where's the other 10gigs I should have? Does partitioning make you lose space?
 
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