Hi Gang:
The wife said she would spring for a birthday gift (tomorrow I will be 68) I would like to get a small laptop to mount on my board mostly just for lyrics. (get rid of the music rack) New/used? Dell/Ibm/toshiba/panasonic? 12" or 15" screen?
I know nothing about laptops, but surfing on ebay I see thousands of them, and see a few for less than $200.00 that look like they would do the trick? The only thing I can think of that it should enclude is cdrw drive, internal floppy (for my hundred's of disks), usb port and a pretty good sound card, and the usual things. I don't ever intend to hook it to the internet. It stays on the keyboard, mostly as a lyric's display and lyric's storage. (probably need help figuring out how to make it do this also)
ANY ADVISE OR COMMENTS WOULD BE MUCH APPRECIATED. Whats your suggestions?

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Cheers....Pose

If you're looking at used, be sure to get a Pentium 3 or similar. 30 gig HD and 256RAM are essential. Good luck finding a newer model with a floppy drive, they are hard to find - you might have to get a USB add-on. Bonus if it has any Windows Office loaded, especially Word, 'cuz you'lll want it for your lyrics. I suggest Dell; they will cost a little more, but are upgradeable and reliable. Good luck.

I'd look locally in newspaper classifieds and also local website classifieds if there are any. I put an ad in website classifieds that I wanted a laptop but it had to be cheap, else I'd just go buy a new one. I got one for $50! My brother was astounded. It was like brand new. Lady bought it for her kid, who never used it. It wasn't state of the art but for lyrics, it was totally adequate. Great soundcard... I don't think you're gonna get that in a cheap laptop.

I saw a Dell(?) recently, brand new from Dell for $599, so, there's your gauge. If you can't find one for $200 or less, just buy a new one.

Also, if used, reformat. Wipe that sucker clean. Then never go online, haha.

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Me Bill
Yamaha PSR2000

I just purchased a Dell Inspiron 700m for performance use (lyrics, midis, mp3). It's a 12" wide screen so once set up it'll appear more like a music rack rather than a laptop.

Glenn

Been checking around all morning, This ain't easy. seems like the dell's are the most popular (and most expensive) (BILL) Tried looking at the Dell site and could'nt find one for $599.00 Could'nt find anything less than 700.(GLENN) that looks like a very nice one you bought, but more money than I got to spend. (cassp) you're right on about the floppy drive, the ones with a internal floppy drive are usually 32mb with a processor almost big enough to run a calcalator. LOL
I've seen a couple of adds on TV from dell, I guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and call them and see if they still have the $595.00 special. either that or keep shuffling all the lyrics from the floor back to the music rack and trying to play with music sheets falling on top of my hands, and trying to remember the words and where the keys are,until I get a break to put stuff back in order. (anyone ever done this LOL....
Thank guys for helping out and getting my brain out of neutral. Whoops I think I'm in park.......Pose

I had been looking for one too, but have put it on hold.

I have found that if you check with Office Depot and Circuit City they will have new ones with rebate for even $499. Also, I would check WalMart online. They have a lot of merchandise that they don't stock. They also have low priced laptops.

The advantage to going to one of these places is you can return them.

The other thing I would try is go to Froogle.com and type in some of the specs you want. So if you want a laptop like cassp mentioned, you could search for: Pentium 3 30 HD 256RAM. Or you could list PIII I see is listed that way sometimes. If you look to the left you can pick priced low to high. Sometimes companies will first list accesories, so you might have to go in a number of pages before the actual laptops start.

Scott Langholff

Parade magazine in last Sunday's paper had a Dell ad featuring the Inspiron 1200 for $499.
30 gigs. 256 ram. 14" screen.
Eddie

Thanks guys I'll check these out.

I just missed one on ebay that I bid on, that was a sleeper, I would have got it for $155.00 except my wife came back from safeway and was leaning over my shoulder asking questions, missed by a couple of seconds. It was a dell.

I'll get off here and check out your suggestions....Thanks again.....Pose

If I were buying one for what you said and did not find a used one locally, I'd probably go for a refurbished Dell. I think they have full warranty.


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Me Bill
Yamaha PSR2000

Pose,

For what we do with computers we really do not need an ass kicking laptop with lots of bells, whistles, memory, and anything at all fancy.

The $499 Dell has been advertised on TV and the newspapers for a couple weeks, and all you need to do is call their 800 number and ask about it. The price is after instant rebates.

As for a used laptop, most will suffice, and there are lots of good ones at the local computer shows that take place monthly throughout the nation. Nearly every major city in the country has one of these going on, and that's where I got my first one for $300. It still works, does an excellent job, and to date, I have not used my Dell Inspiron backup comuter one time.

If you need more details, email me your phone number and I call you ASAP.

Gary

Hopefully my laptop saga is over.

I just purchased one off of Ebay after checking out almost a thousand units that sifted down from over 10 thousand on the start. (Now that's pinch'in pennies)

Ended up with a Dell latitude CPX
Pent 3
20gig HD
Floppy drive
CD-rom
loaded with all the goodies plus XP-pro and microsoft Office
A new battery and a new leather carrying case.
Seller had great feedbacks, so hopefully I've made a good deal. Out the door encluding shipping $300 smackers.

You guys are great, been very helpful and each suggestion steared me to end up a happy camper. (With a monitor for my board on my Birthday!)............

THANKS GUYS.........Pose

Just two things I noticed - 20 gig HD is OK if all you ever do is save lyrics. If you later want to save midi or mp3 files, you'll want to upgrade in time. Also, the CD ROM drive will not permit you to save to disk. That would be a biggie for me, but maybe you can continue to use floppies or USB thumbdrive (it does have USB, right).

Casp,

20 Gigs is a lot of space, especially if your computer is not clutterd with junk programs that eat up huge chunks of hard drive. Microsoft Works, or MS Word, both of which are good word processors, are relatively small programs. You can put a zillion midi files in a single gig, lyrics take up about the same amount of space, and most MP3s only occupy a couple megs at most.

My giging laptop only has 10 gigs of space and I'm only using 3 gigs for everything--including Windows. It's just a matter of priortizing and using only programs that are intended for performing on the job. Leave all the other stuff on your desktop.

Good Luck,

Gary

Cassp:
So far I've never used midi's for anything but swapping tunes back and forward on the svp world, or collecting styles. any good styles collected I have on the hard drive of my 9000, and maybe a few thousand styles that need to be gone thru and weeded down to add to the HD.
I've got a 8 gig Hd and its got a lot on it and I think there's about 1/8th of a gig on one partition.
The only regret is I did'nt get a burner with the computer, but I have one on the output of my Behringer mixer.

Also I have a dell desktop that has everything thats just off the music room, that I can use for editing files or burning copies etc. and surfing the net etc.

My next big project is to get my act in order and get lyrics to all my songs and get the songs in a decent library in my regs.(they're scattered everwhere) and get the HD reorganized and every style thats going to be in registration renamed and in folders in partition2 of the hard drive.
I guess I've been holding back thinking I may end up with a tyros II, But I love this 9000 and would not trade it for a Ty 1 but the price of the 3000 is very tempting. and after 3 years the 9000 is getting to be a problem for the weight. 3 years ago I was carrying it around in the case by one handle, Now its dolly time. (old age ain't for wimps.LOL
Thanks for your help its not easy to find just the right computer when your on a budget.but you guys sure were a big help....Pose

Hey Gar:
Ran your Win cleaner again today, and man I don't no what it did, but my monitor color brightened way up and I can see-I can see.
Everything is so bright and crisp....Thanks Buddy

Pose,

Email me your address again and I'll send you a CD filled with about 500 lyrics all done in MS Word.

Gary