Notebook PC for taking notes!

Hey guys.

A lot of my notes for my lectures this year are online, and so far I've been printing them out and annotating them but I think it would be easier to get a laptop! Also, I could use it on the train and would save my mum having to come 100 miles to pick up my desktop PC (for gaming). I wouldn't expect to be able to game on this though, although if it could run lower end games I guess that would be fun.

Budget is really as low as possible - I really don't know much about laptops so that's why I'm asking here. The EEE Pc looks ok but how practical would it be for writing on in lectures/ And there's a new one coming out soon too isn't there? Are Intel celerons worth it or should I just ignore them altogether? Looking at Dell's offerings they're not bad, but then again I don't know which ones are any good. I may be able to get money off a Dell though as a friend can buy them through a Dell purchasing account - of course that depends if he's allowed to.

Can't make my mind up. Part of me wants to get an XPS for the 8400gs gpu, but they're £600. Mum's helping with the cost though.

There's too much choice! And all I really want it for is to be my kind of 'working' PC that I can sync with my desktop (should be fairly easy), and maybe some rudimentary gaming ability to stop me getting too bored. :surrender:

as a 50 something - who needs glasses - I was worried about the eee - but the size is fine - for text etc. The keyboards I adjusted too very quickly - most people reckon less than two weeks for it to feel natural.

If you want to create diagrams I am not so sure...

It's speed is fine running under Linux - no experience of trying it under windows - though I hear it's practical

It's robust - certainly feels tougher than my Sony.

yes there is a new one due soon - just announced - mind you it took about 6 months between original announcement & shipping...

I have 'girl hands' so small keys isn't the main concern, it's the capabilities as whether it will be able to open a powerpoint presentation and allow notes and such. I've just heard a lot of relatively negative press about it, when for £300 you can get a full blown laptop I could cope with the extra expense. But there is so much choice.

well the EEE is perfect for simple note taking and basic surfing but I wouldn't really take it's uses much passed that.

On the other hand something like the xps m1330 (which I'm typing on now :D) is perhaps a bit over the top. To me this laptop is all things to all men. It's gaming capability may very well suprise you, COD4 runs like a peach on it :p It's powerful enough to do video encoding if you want to. Takes about twice as long as my desktop but thats to be expected.

Perfect to carry around with you but big enough to use all day with any problems. 9 cell battery lasts in excess of 4.5 hours on power saver. I really can't fault it.

£600 - £700 is a relative bargain if you need what it offers.

If it's litterally just the odd slide show and note taking the eee seems like a good idea.

There will be 8-9" versions during this year I would imagine and lots more copy cats such as Acer. If you need it now though you need it now.

As someone who took notes on a laptop for three years while he was a student, I would recommend that you think about the weight of the laptop you choose. If you are going to be carrying it every day to and from class, you want something small and light that you can easily slip into your back pack.

Especially If you are studying a science or engineering subject where you will have lots of lectures in a day, I would also make sure you have a spare battery or two, so that you can keep going, without having to bring the power brick with you and search out a power point. Also if you are studying science, engineering or maths, then think about how you will enter diagrams, equations, graphs etc. I solved that problem by drawing them freehand on plain white paper, scanning then, and incorporating the scans into the notes. You might also consider a small graphics tablet, or getting relay good with a formula editor. What ever you do it needs to be fast rather than neat.

Not doing a science as such - accounting, finance & management.

I've wanted a laptop just 'for fun' for years but never been able to justify one. Now I have a reason, but I don't know whether to or not. I'm taking my notes on paper atm but as soon as I get in first thing I do is take them out my bag and put them on a 'pile' and then do revision exclusively from my core text books. I'm not brilliant at note taking in general, really. But I've always been more adept with IT rather than

Apparently though the dell discount is 20-30%, so that brings an xps from £600 to £500 odd, which is certainly competitive if my mum is putting half the money in. I like the 1530 since it's got a slightly bigger screen, but who knows. Maybe I should save my money for more important things. But if I'm using it for 3 years, it's going to piss me right off if it doesn't do the job.

Oh and for 'light' gaming I literally meant installing an old copy of Diablo on there or something equally daft. Can't imagine myself ever playing CoD4 on it. I looked at tablet PCs as they would be perfect but the price is incredible. Even though a standard touch screen isn't that much more expensive than your standard LCD, it seems no one has thought up of a budget tablet PC yet. In a <13" form factor it would be amazing for taking notes, just like a pad of paper.

What about the idea of buying an old one from ebay, ripping out the internals... and... hmmm probably not a good idea? :p

What Chrestomanci was suggesting is a graphics tablet rather than a tablet PC

Pen Tablets - Wacom

They will allow you to enter practically anything you like as quickly as you can write it and in any programme that will allow you to draw freehand with a mouse or is specifically designed for a pen tablet (the is probably a plug in for office out there to allow free hand annotations).

These are also interesting but perhaps not what you really require.

A5 version http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=465414
A4 Version http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=635078

But if you have copies of printed notes then you could write on them and then transfer the annotations to the electronic versions later.

All makes the pen and paper + a folder + using said folder seem like the better option :D

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Originally Posted by staffsMike

All makes the pen and paper + a folder + using said folder seem like the better option :D

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Yea, completely. I might just save the money until next year :p. I am just so damned unorganised with paper that taking notes is next to useless (except that writing whilst you're listening / reading reinforces it in your memory - so writing them is useful, even if I never read them again).

I have a graphics tablet from years ago when I used to do graphic design at school. They're massive (mine was about the size of an A3 piece of paper), the amount of space you get in a lecture is equivalent to the amount of space you get in standard seating on a train with a foldout tray in front of you. Not tonnes.

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Originally Posted by Webby

What Chrestomanci was suggesting is a graphics tablet rather than a tablet PC

Pen Tablets - Wacom

They will allow you to enter practically anything you like as quickly as you can write it and in any programme that will allow you to draw freehand with a mouse or is specifically designed for a pen tablet (the is probably a plug in for office out there to allow free hand annotations).

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I was actually thinking of something even smaller and cheaper, such as this A6 tablet from scan. If the lecture theatre are crowded then your fellow students won't thank you if you get out a big pile of stuff, and remember,that each diagram or formula is a separate drawing, so you should not need lots of space. You only want to be using the tablet for diagrams. Text should be entered via the keyboard as it will be faster, and will be searchable later.

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Originally Posted by Dreaming

Oh and for 'light' gaming I literally meant installing an old copy of Diablo on there or something equally daft. Can't imagine myself ever playing CoD4 on it.

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Well unless you want to restrict yourself to Linux versions of minesweeper and the like, then I think the Asus EE PC is out. Though check out KDE Games

Yea Chres (sorry is that your name?), the EEE PC does seem a bit limiting. Thing is, it is for lectures, but if you're going to be spending a lot of money you want it to be able to do other things too. Having said that - I'm surprised there isn't a company making specialised student laptops that have the basics for taking lecture notes perhaps with an inbuilt mic / forward facing webcam. Anyway...

Think I may go the XPS route simply because it will enable me to do more. Don't know about 15" or 13" though. And for me it will be pretty much all text.

I would go for the M1330 but thats all that was available when I bought mine so maybe I would have gone for the 1530.. I love this little thing though barely use my desktop now lol.

Something like this seems to meet your above requirements.
Rizeon S37E Custom Built Laptop

same but with an nvidia 8400
Rizeon Z37S Custom Built Laptop

Swizzle camera and dual array microphones. Not that cheap but it doesn't get that much more expensive to get the top spec one :)

It's based on an asus barebones so other companies might be offering them to, and if you can find the barebones itself you could in fact build your own :p

Get the Ausus eeePC.... simple

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Originally Posted by Dreaming

Yea Chres (sorry is that your name?),

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No it's a pseudonym. Lots of people on-line have them, and many of them don't have any similarity to the person's real name.

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Originally Posted by Dreaming

the EEE PC does seem a bit limiting. Thing is, it is for lectures, but if you're going to be spending a lot of money you want it to be able to do other things too.

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I guess it depends on how much money you want to spend, and how important you think gaming is. There is a third option though. For the price of a gaming laptop, you could buy an EEE PC, and still have enough money left over for a desktop gaming system to leave at your room in halls. That way the laptop you take to lectures will be very small and portable, and your gaming system will be more easily upgradable when you get some money to spend on it in a year or two.

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Originally Posted by Dreaming

Having said that - I'm surprised there isn't a company making specialised student laptops that have the basics for taking lecture notes perhaps with an inbuilt mic / forward facing webcam.

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Perhaps because normal laptops are good enough. You could always buy a USB webcam to point forward, or perhaps mod the EEE PC so that the built in webcam points forward, or you could even build something from a small dental mirror to change the field of view of the internal camera.

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Originally Posted by chrestomanci

As someone who took notes on a laptop for three years while he was a student, I would recommend that you think about the weight of the laptop you choose. If you are going to be carrying it every day to and from class, you want something small and light that you can easily slip into your back pack.

Especially If you are studying a science or engineering subject where you will have lots of lectures in a day, I would also make sure you have a spare battery or two, so that you can keep going, without having to bring the power brick with you and search out a power point. Also if you are studying science, engineering or maths, then think about how you will enter diagrams, equations, graphs etc. I solved that problem by drawing them freehand on plain white paper, scanning then, and incorporating the scans into the notes. You might also consider a small graphics tablet, or getting relay good with a formula editor. What ever you do it needs to be fast rather than neat.

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I study aeronautics and there are a lots of formulas and diagrams to draw.
It took me about 2 months to get used to typing notes on laptop rather than writing on paper.
My writing speed had gone down (since I rarely write anymore :S) but my typing speed went up to 480cpm :P.

Equations is not too bad with MS Office's Equation editor. The hotkeys are adequate for taking notes. If you are getting extremely lazy you might as well take photo of the diagrams and draw it (properly) later.

If the notes you will be typing is mostly text, I would too suggest the EEE PC. If it is very graphical you will definitely need the screen estate, 13" or 14" will be a good choice.

Regarding to the weight. Most of the days I have to be in Uni from 9 to 8 so I needed external power source. I rarely sit near to a power point in lecture (My eyes have very poor "horizontal resolution" so I could only sit right in the middle in order to see anything.) Back then when I bought the batteries new they last for 4.5 hours each and I have enough battery for almost the whole day. Then one year later the combined battery life dropped down to 5 hours. I bought a 138Wh (16-Cell) external battery rather than replacing the internal battery. Since then I carry it everyday I get quite used to the weight. (1.2kg battery + 2.4kg laptop)

Power points don't come by easily and you don't sit there long enough to charge the laptop :S (Charge rate is 1.5x the discharge rate, 3x if you shut down the laptop).

Don't go for Celeron laptops because they don't have power management.

Mind you that cheap laptops don't last long. My laptop is cheaply priced with really good CPU (T7200) but then the chassis is crap. Unless you plan to upgrade laptop every 18 months you might want to avoid Dell / HP and any "cheap" brand. Lenovo seems to build decent laptops.

Some Uni have student discount on Macbooks and you may want to look at it. Apple's warranty is quite good from what I heard.