Laptop Choice?

I just bought a Toshiba Satellite T130-11J. £520.

13.3", 4Gb RAM, lovely red colour, 8 hours battery life, 1.7kg, no optical drive, Windows 7.

It's lovely.

On a side note, I need to rip a DVD so that i can watch it on the laptop on the train. Can anyone recommend a good, free ripper? preferably one that can stream rip to a network share, rather than a local disk?

Thanks

On a side note, I need to rip a DVD so that i can watch it on the laptop on the train. Can anyone recommend a good, free ripper? preferably one that can stream rip to a network share, rather than a local disk?

Can Handbrake not do that?

edit: On another note.... i bought a Blu-ray of Benjamin Button this weekend and it came with a free digital copy of the film which you download direct to hard drive with an activation code. I want this on all disks!

Any recommendations for a netbook that comes pre-installed with Linux rather than Windows?

Yoo hoo Andy my dear;

http://www.linux-netbook.com/netbooks

Thanks Ed. Although, strictly speaking that isn't a recommendation per se, just a link. ;-)

eee pc 701.
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39030092,49293507-1,00.htm

Go to Cex, preowned FTW.

Site looks dodgy and unclear to me!

look like they don't have the Mini 10 anymore but the 11z which is defintely a lots better with a max RAM of 4GB, a very noticable difference, the £399 one with 2GB RAM, 250GB HD and Windows 7 is pretty nice.
Still better off getting either those DELL or Acer 15" laptop, more bang for your buck (especially as a main computer), I was very impressed with the Acer 5532 I got for my grandfather, it even play Bioshock reasonable well at medium setting much to my surprise.

The 11" doesnt come with a CD/DVD player, might as well get 15" and add all those extras to match the 11" price with the add on of it.

I just bought a Toshiba Satellite T130-11J. £520.

13.3", 4Gb RAM, lovely red colour, 8 hours battery life, 1.7kg, no optical drive, Windows 7.

Way outta my price range but I did see a Toshiba Satellite for around 350ish for a 15"

Can Handbrake not do that?

edit: On another note.... i bought a Blu-ray of Benjamin Button this weekend and it came with a free digital copy of the film which you download direct to hard drive with an activation code. I want this on all disks!

I agree!

Site looks dodgy and unclear to me!

Since most stuff their is second hand they dont have the time to update their site when they recieve new items, which is quite often, but instore its great.

Any recommendations for a netbook that comes pre-installed with Linux rather than Windows?

You can get the new HP Mini 210 with Linux.... i'll try to find a link. seems like it's US only for Linux atm.

Is handbrake not a Mac application?

I could boot up OS X on my iMac, I suppose....

Not quite dear boy, not quite.

eee pc 701.
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39030092,49293507-1,00.htm

I'm posting this from an eee 701. Had it about 2 years now and I still think it's great for what it does - i.e. it's so small / light that it's great for travelling with & doing ad-hoc stuff on the road rather than for use as an every day laptop (keys / screen is too small to use for any length).

The Linux distro it comes with (Xandros) is pretty crap imo. I stuck in a 32GB SSD card and installed eeeBuntu instead which is great. I'm going to keep it till it dies as all other netbooks I've seen are bigger.

Having said that if I was buying one 2nd hand I'd go for the 901 (think it's the same size but with a bigger screen
)

Well
15" purple dell for me. Or Acer 5532.

Not quite dear boy, not quite.

Aha, that is goodness.

Thanks guys.

Since most stuff there is second hand they dont have the time to update, and constant add all the items from all their shops, but instore its great.

Saw one in Harrow, apparently my friend has a 'red' card. I might drag him up there...

You can get the new HP Mini 210 with Linux.... i'll try to find a link. seems like it's US only for Linux atm.

What is it with netbooks and no CD drives?!

I'm posting this from an eee 701. Had it about 2 years now and I still think it's great for what it does - i.e. it's so small / light that it's great for travelling with & doing ad-hoc stuff on the road rather than for use as an every day laptop (keys / screen is too small to use for any length).
)

Ugly as fuck like the Tmobile G1.

What is it with netbooks and no CD drives?!

That's the whole point of one, compact small laptop without a big CD drive increasing the size (and it does take up a lot of rooms.

Ugly as fuck like the Tmobile G1.

Haha - I have one of those too! TBH I don't give a flying fuck what they look like. If that's your criteria just go for the one that looks best ;-)

Which is probably Apple.

That's the whole point of one, compact small laptop without a big CD drive increasing the size (and it does take up a lot of rooms.

Well fuck that then.

Haha - I have one of those too! TBH I don't give a flying fuck what they look like. If that's your criteria just go for the one that looks best ;-)

Which is probably Apple.

Ew. I hate Apple. :)

I think Apple have gone full circle now - so 'cool' they are the antithesis of cool - so ubiquitous yet 'unique' they are as individual as individual fruit trifles are individual......I dunno....I was doing quite well and then I lost it.....

re: linux on netbooks

it certainly used to be the case that the flavour of linux these things shipped with was crap. I had a 701, and xandros was rubbish. My dad's HP Mini had opensuse, and that was similarly crap. I wiped it and installed debian, and did the same for him. So researching the OS might still be as important as the actaul machine - certainly a more mainstream linux might be a good choice from the point of view of future support (I believe the Dell's come with ubuntu, not sure about the others).

That said, with linux, viruses are much less of an issue, which can be a real boon on a computer used mainly for browsing.

and the cool kids now run gentoo on modded macbook pros. fyi.

also, make sure you check out the keyboard. some of them are real crap. asus have a model with chiclet keys, which I like.

You're not choosing a wedding dress, you're choosing a laptop.

Eggwobble, it might as well be my wedding dress at this rate.