NEED: Windows XP laptop with solid state drive - must be NEW

[Sketcz]

As the title says.

I'm going to Japan in September and I need a laptop. I've tried Vista, 7 and 8, and they are all ****. I must have a Windows XP laptop. Must be solid state, so survive the hard knocks, and it must be new.

Is there anywhere that still sells this kind of thing?

I just need it for word processing, reviewing video footage, backing up data to the HDD, and so on. So not really a gaming PC. Low specs is fine. But I definitely want solid state.

Any advice?

EDIT:
What about this?

http://www.portableuniverse.co.uk/All+Laptop+Stock/Dell+Latitude+D620+2GB.html

It's got an old type HDD, but it's cheap. Any thoughts?

[briareos_kerensky]

WinXP should have no problems running on a new laptop, though with standard OS drivers. Generic LAN/WLAN drivers shouldn't be too hard to find, though the SSD will suffer from the lack of TRIM support from the OS. Video and audio drivers might be harder to find, especially as many manufacturer don't release drivers for mobile devices and you'll have to rely on the notebook vendors for those.

You don't need a SSD to have good shock resistance. My old notebook with its mechanical HDD has two trips to Japan under its belt (along other shorter trips) and the HDD never suffered a malfunction; while in operation, HDDs can sustain around 70g, unless you plan to throw your notebook around, it's unlikely it will suffer a mechanical failure (in fact, you probably won't ever get near that threshold if you throw the notebook around).
High capacity SSDs are very expensive, and if you plan to use it as storage for videos, it's better to get a decently sized mechanical HDD at 7200RPM.

Besides, I've just bought a new notebook with Win8; setting it up as I wanted (as closer as possible to my desktop) took at hour or so, after that the difference between Win8 and Win7 are irrelevant...except that the Win8 notebook boots faster than the Win7 desktop and its SATAIII SSD.
If you are in desperate need of WinXP (outdated by all accounts), you can get a notebook with Win7 and get MicroSoft's free WinXP virtual machine or go with any other virtualisation software.

[charlesr]

Instead of worrying about your HDD you spend your money on an online backup solution like www.sugarsync.com - these also keeps (5?) old versions in case you screw anything up.

Whilst Win8 is rubbish UI, you can turn off the win8 stuff and go straight to the desktop if you install pokki. It gives an old start menu too. On the plus side the stability of Win8 will mean your files are more safe.

If you must have XP, then an XP license on ebay should be quite cheap and put it on any laptop.

[Sketcz]

Cheers on the HDD advice. Non-solid state it is!

Install my own OS? Charles, I'm paying a man ?110 to do this next week to a pre-assembled Dell tower I have because I want XP on it. I don't feel up to installing it on a laptop.

Any places sell them pre-installed?

[QualityChimp]

Loads of places sell XP laptops, but a lot of them will be refurbished.

I'm not sure why you're scared of Windows 7?

You could consider buying something like this Western Digital hard drive, which makes backups as you make changes:

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=640

What are you using it for during the trip? You're not editing any video or anything are you? Mainly Word and the like?

[Sketcz]

How reliable is refurbished?

Yes, just Word, Excel, VLC media player, and maybe Corel Photopaint. Firefox. Pretty basic stuff.

I'm hiring a video editor for that big job!

[speedlolita]

I guess you like the legacy support of XP?

In my opinion grabbing a X series ThinkPad might be a good idea. Shove a HDD in mine for when I feel like installing XP. With it's C2D L7500 CPU and 4GB of RAM it makes mince meat of stuff such as you've listed. Look on eBay for ThinkPad X60/X60s/X61/X61s.

[Sketcz]

Had a look at this one:

http://www.portableuniverse.co.uk/All+Laptop+Stock/Lenovo+ThinkPad+X61.html

Then realised, no optical drive?

[speedlolita]

Do you need one at all? I have the dock for optical drive if I need it.

[QualityChimp]

Or an external USB DVD drive?

I still don't get why you've got such a boner for XP if you're just using standard software. If you had some XP-specific software, it would make sense.

If you bought a new Win 7 laptop, you'd be covered with a warranty and possibly phone support if anything went wrong, whereas a refurbished laptop, with a downgraded OS that is no longer supported by Microsoft seems like you're actually making the thing harder to support.

Is it just that you're used to XP?

You know I'm not griefing you, Sketczy, as I know you're rushing to getting ready to visit Japan and spend all the Kickstarter money on gashapon toys and geisha girls, I just think you're making life harder for yourself with the XP limitations.

[Sketcz]

Mainly it's the fact that right now I'm rockin the net with an Alcatel dial-up broadband modem. And the drivers don't work on later versions of Windows. Somehow I got it working on Win7, once, but I don't know how. And I've never been able to do it again. As long as I'm happy to keep the laptop online upon my return, it's cool. Also, I dislike Win7 because unsigned hardware drivers won't work, meaning no PS3 controller through the USB.

Maybe I'll just get a swanky Win7 laptop and put some Wii games on it. I'd have to use the keyboard because of the driver problem though (and no, I don't like the 360 controller).

I'm not touching 8. Microsoft has rigged it so the OS won't run software that isn't authorised by them. There was a big article on Gamasutra. For a while, 18 rated games like Skyrim weren't even allowed on it. WTF?!

[speedlolita]

Also, I dislike Win7 because unsigned hardware drivers won't work, meaning no PS3 controller through the USB.

I'm not touching 8. Microsoft has rigged it so the OS won't run software that isn't authorised by them. There was a big article on Gamasutra. For a while, 18 rated games like Skyrim weren't even allowed on it. WTF?!

I don't think either of these are true. I installed Skyrim just fine on an RTM build of Windows 8.

[charlesr]

Any reason you don't just get a router? I have several kicking about. You can have one of them.

[briareos_kerensky]

Also, I dislike Win7 because unsigned hardware drivers won't work, meaning no PS3 controller through the USB.
Maybe I'll just get a swanky Win7 laptop and put some Wii games on it. I'd have to use the keyboard because of the driver problem though (and no, I don't like the 360 controller).
I'm not touching 8. Microsoft has rigged it so the OS won't run software that isn't authorised by them. There was a big article on Gamasutra. For a while, 18 rated games like Skyrim weren't even allowed on it. WTF?!

XInput works perfectly fine on two Win7 x64 machines I have. Unsigned drivers are allowed, they just take an extra step to be installed. It's like the UAC: it's an extra step to protect the computer illiterates but can be easily ignored by expert users; of course those are the users that will moan more about the extra click they have to take to make things work.

I don't about unauthorised applications on Win8, I've installed everything that worked on Win7 on my new Win8 notebook, including software dating back to 1995 (to be more specific, ACD See 2.41). You can't really enforce an authorisation method on a widely used OS such as Windows, unless everything goes through the store, which is completely skippable. Once you configure Metro as you want, it's essentially a full-screen start menu.

[Sketcz]

Here's what I read about Win8:

http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/179420/the_next_twenty_years_what_.php?print=1

I've got a router, but it's less stable than the dial-up broadband.