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Laptop help please

phattanglo

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phattanglo

phattanglo

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Could anyone please recommend a budget laptop or netbook that would run Stellarium either in open or none open GL.

It may eventually be used to guide a mount.

I would like it to be wifi enabled please and have a decent battery life.

It's to use when caravanning.

I know nothing about computers so any help would be appreciated.

My budget is no more than £300 otherwise I won't have enough for my new mount.

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Tugboat

Tugboat

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Hi

If it's only going to be used for Stellarium, based on your budget you are probably best off going for a netbook. It'll be more portable too, which may be more practical for caravanning.

To quote the Stellarium FAQ:

What are Stellarium's system requirements?

A graphics card capable of rendering OpenGL. A Riva TNT2, released in 1999 or 2000, should do. Stellarium is also fairly processor intensive, so you will get higher framerates with faster processors. Any reasonably recent computer should be able to run Stellarium. Furthermore your computer should be running a Linux, Windows or MacOSX operating system.

To give you an idea of what's possible, we've had success with these older computers:

Pentium III 800Mhz, 128MB RAM, Intel on board graphics (under Windows XP).

AMD K6 400 Mhz, 256MB RAM, Nvidia Gforce2 AGP, DirectX 9.0 (Windows XP)

Mac PPC's back to about 667MHz, running at least OSX 10.3.9, any Mac Intel

It would seem that system requirements aren't really too taxing by today's standards. With that in mind, here are a couple of suggestions from a quick internet search. They are also cheaper than your budget:

MSI Wind U135 - 277UK / Intel Atom N450 1.66GHz / 1GB / 160GB / 10 inch / Windows 7 Starter / Netbook / Laptop / Blue - Computers at Play.com (UK)

Asus Eee PC 1005 HA - BLK030S Seashell / Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz / 1GB / 250GB / 10 inch / Windows 7 Starter / Netbook / Laptop / Black - Netbooks at Play.com (UK)

Dell Inspiron 11Z 9995 / Intel Celeron 743 1.3GHz / 2GB / 250GB / 11.6'' / Windows Vista Home Premium / Netbook / Laptop / Obsidian Black - Computing at Play.com (UK)

I have no personal experience with any of them, but they each have their pros and cons, and some may be better suited to you than others (screen size, battery life for example). It should give you a useful starting point for some research. You may well be able to find them cheaper elsewhere too.

Some mentions of some of the above in combination with Stellarium:

Telescope Reviews: Stellarium on a netbook

Hope that helps a little!

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xmal

xmal

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I use a Samsung NC10. Bought it just over a year ago. Runs Stellarium really well. I think a netbook will definitely be the best for you here. When deciding I would look into battery life on the netbook. I can get 7-9hrs battery life depending on config. This is really useful, especially when you are in the field. Also be careful when checking out the batteries on some models. Some are 3-cell and others are 6-cell. The 6-cell have the much better battery life. Fire more questions if you need any more help.

xmal

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xmal

xmal

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Not sure about the openGL to be honest. I run Windows XP and just ran the Stellarium executable and it just works!! Wifi is bog standard, running 802.1a,b,g. These are the standard wifi protocols. The NC10 is very small and compact. The keyboard is not full size, but around 92-95% full size I estimate. It is a good size keyboard for a netbook class laptop, but bear that in mind. I really like my NC10.

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Daggerstab

Daggerstab

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Could anyone please recommend a budget laptop or netbook that would run Stellarium either in open or none open GL.

Just a quick clarification: Stellarium uses OpenGL for all its graphics and requires a graphics card that supports OpenGL. The "no OpenGL2" option in the last release is a workaround for some graphic glitches that appear on systems with buggy support for OpenGL version 2.

To quote the Stellarium FAQ:

(...)

It would seem that system requirements aren't really too taxing by today's standards.

The FAQ list is not up to date. The system requirements in it probably apply for an older version of Stellarium.

P.S. For the last six months, I've been doing my development work on Stellarium on a Lenovo Ideapad S9e netbook. Stellarium runs OK on it, except for constellation boundaries, which slow it down to a crawl. I guess the problem is in the built-in Intel video.

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Helen

Helen

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I have a samsung NC10 and love it (using it now!). Nice size, easy wifi, great battery life. I upgraded the ram to 2gb and with that I can capture solar shots and process them in registax and photoshop. The screen size is fine, but can be set to scroll to use standard display size.

Helen

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red dwalf

red dwalf

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i had the same problem as you a few months ago, i know nothing about laptops but with a limited budget i decided to get a second hand Dell d610 laptop, £150 plus £21 for a new battery and i love it, running windows xp it has 1.5 gb of memory and also a dvd drive ,something a netbook doesn`t have but netbooks do have a better battery life although my new battery lasts a good 3 hours, also it has a bigger screen than a netbook.

if your looking for a good laptop that runs all your astro cameras and software with ease then i would consider a Dell d610.

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CGolder

CGolder

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hello,

I have a Eeepc 1001ha my wife has a mini10v and i have experience with the samsung nc10. I would advice the Eeepc. all netbooks basically have the same spec's.

so things to look for are... battery life, operating system, price and memory upgrade capacity. Upgrading the momory to 2gb will cost about £40. you get get a netbook for £200. the 2gb upgrade makes a big difference. i run windows 7 ultimate and use my ToUcam and can use registax with no problems. team that with 6 hours bat life and the fact it fits nice and snug on my mount tray :)

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Ogri

Ogri

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Michael, Woolworths used to sell Medion. A friend bought one, and let's just say 'There wasn't anything special about it' . . . . . . .

Frankly, for the same money or less, I'd go with a 'more established' better quality manufacturer.

Yes they might have pulled their socks up like Acer have (the Acer 1810 netbook with the proper Intel SU4100 low voltage dual core CPU, is an absolute gem if you can get your hands on one, but they aren't cheap).

I'd want to have a really really close look at one before opening my wallet for a Medion.

The 3 year warranty might imply that they are getting their act together though (if it is worth the paper it is written on).

Bottom line for me though, a Medion needs to be at least £100 cheaper than that for a netbook, before I would consider one.

eta: it's also running the Intel 3150 graphics too.

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m.tweedy

m.tweedy

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Michael, Woolworths used to sell Medion. A friend bought one, and let's just say 'There wasn't anything special about it' . . . . . . .

Frankly, for the same money or less, I'd go with a 'more established' better quality manufacturer.

.

I must admit I recently bought a Toshiba Satellite but it was above the price (£300) and spotted the Medion but do not know how good it is. The Tosh runs for over 5 hours before needing a recharge-I am always careful to run the battery fully down before charging it back up.

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  • 2 weeks later...
nibber

nibber

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Can definately recommend a Samsung N140 netbook,outstanding battery life mine lasts between 7-10 hours depending what applications you are running,full size keyboard, upgraded my ram to 2Gb,they were quite pricy but now an old model cheapest i found on net was £215 delivered,just now (mine was £299 about a year ago)and i can dual boot between Windows XP and Windows 7 for anything that wont work with Windows 7,:mad:

Regards nibber

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