Well the 750Mhz laptop with 512mb ram has performed brilliantly this week. I also have a second battery in the bay usually taken by a cd/dvd writer to give it extra battery live.
What is running all the time?
– Truecrypt whole disk encryption
– Windows XP Pro
– Comodo Antivirus, firewall and malware.
– Cobian backup (with usb stick when not near network).
– Easyphp (Apache and SQL server)
Then at other times I have multiple apps open like…
– Abiword (word processing)
– FileZilla (ftp client)
– Notepad++ (php editing)
– KompoZer (web site editor)
– SumatraPDF (pdf viewer)
– Gimp (graphics)
– Virtual Image Printer Driver (for pdf printing)
– Firefox 3 Beta (excellent browser)
I decided not to access email via it or use skype on it. I’ve found I am more productive by checking email less often. I will move more software over to it next week also, but might use email on it next week.
So do older laptops live up to current business expectations? For most people I would say yes. I don’t plan to run games on it and you will notice the lack of expensive software. Do I really need vista and a high spec laptop with ram? I think not.
I have not checked out whole disk encryption on linux yet, but quite a bit of the software I was using has linux ports also or open source alternatives.
The responses are quite quick, especially as it is running as a server also. I am just as productive as I would of been on a higher spec system and am not waiting with an hour glass (well gimp took a little while to open, but then was fast and responsive).
No Microsoft Office or Norton Internet Security required for this laptop thank you.