Re: [tlug] OT: laptop in Akihabara (map)

[ijw@example.com]

> On Sat, Mar 26, 2005 at 12:06:08AM +0900, Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon wrote:
>> I don't think there are used shops in Shinjuku - at least I've never
>> seen them. Are there any?
>
> Two years ago there was a Softmap in Shinjuku that sold used laptops.
> IIRC, it was close to Yodibashi Camera.

It's still there, but Sofmap's prices don't seem terribly great to me, tbh.

Today's Akihabara recommendations:

- a nice, nearly new Fujitsu Loox in Otto (equivalent to a Lifebook P) -
1GHz, CDRW/DVD, small and with a lovely 1280x768 screen.  I was tempted
but it was 137,000 and that's a little more than I fancied paying for a
2nd hand laptop.  Especially when I can't communicate well enough to find
out whether there's a catch.  I think these go new for 240,000 though, so
the price is still quite good.

- something unbranded which I *think* was an AOpen barebones laptop.  New,
set up with a 40GB (why so small?) disk and a 1.5GHz Pentium M, slightly
bigger than the Lifebook and with a 1280x800 screen, 99,000 yen.  Anyone
know more about these?  I think it would be
http://solution.aopen.com.tw/products/nb/1551-AW1AG1.htm and a quick web
search suggests that it's much the same as a Dell 700m.  I've never seen a
barebones laptop before a couple of weeks ago - I could be tempted to put
one together, but where on earth do you go to get Pentium M processors to
plug in to it?

I actually ended up buying 25,000 worth of old IBM laptop (450MHz PIII,
128MB, with dock containing the CDROM), cos I was short of hardware to
experiment with.  I suspect it might still be building Gentoo next
weekend, mind.

Slightly OT: I was walking around Akihabara with a non-geek friend with a
mild gadget fetish.  After a while I realised that every shop we went
into, I kept saying "oh, I've got one of those at home" - including a
Picturebook, Libretto, another laptop, servers, SCSI boxes...  I really
need to flog some stuff on ebay next time I'm back...

-- 
Ian.