it’s not that bad… i think it’s like 1k
edit: yeah, the m11x, $800, and powerful at that
Ok I will tell you this: I am running a PC thats 7 years old right now, running fine, its probably not even worth $10 right now. It has 693 mb of Ram with an AMD Semprom processor LOL. It can compile just fine. I think the computers I posted are more than enough for compiling.
Does the school have any old laptops that aren’t being used? If the robotics team is tied to the school, you might find a great deal.
option 1) go to www.slickdeals.net and search for “laptop” or “notebook”
for example, this looks somewhat promising
http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?sduid=0&t=2284203
option 2) the classified sections of online tech forums are usually good places to get used computers e.g. notebookreview. Although they usually impose a min post count limit to access their classified sections to avoid fraud so you kind of need to already be a member/know someone who is.
option 3) the lenevo budget laptop lines are typically decent and are cheap, especially if you can get them on sale. About a year ago, I got my sister a 15" G530 with a core duo cpu for like $270 (I miss Bing cash back :p). Slickdeals.net is a good place to be notified of said sales.
Compaq Presario cq62
$300 at Best Buy new
2.2 ghz amd v120 single core
2 gigs ram
What more can you ask for?
This is my personal laptop, so I haven’t done much FIRST related programming on it, but this is my main computer. I do all my personal programming on it, mostly C# with XNA. If you’re used to dual core, you might be a little annoyed going back to single, but it really does everything you would ever need to do for FIRST. Full sized keyboard for easy typing.
Alienware are also big, heavy, awkward and slippery. My experience is with the larger model. I hate it. YMMV.
well… an alienware is probably a little overpowered for this…
Alienware is overkill, even at $800. A good used $200 something-or-the-other will suffice. Correct me if I’m wrong, but we’re not talking rendering videos or 3D models here.
well… you do want an all-purpose laptop, but yeah, alienware is a bit of overkill
-just a bit 
Just to add a low performance option: I was using a 7 year old XP compaq, with 512 MB RAM and 2.4Ghz processor. It worked, but it sure tried my patience. You can really use whatever you want it seems, but it might be worth your while to pay for speed so you are not waiting forever to compile everytime you update your robot code.
A note on that regarding the Beta Test - Labview teams will once again get a nice surprise in that the Labview team has streamlined and improved the compile times even more.
Thank you for your suggestions
sorry i was so long to return i have 3 AP classes and that keeps me from having much free time for robotics and stuff
If you are still thinking of something decent, look into a Dell Studio, I have a 1558, with an i5-520 and ATi (sort-of) dedicated graphics, and it was $1000, but they start around 600 with an i3 and 3gb of ram, and was ranked well by CR (hence why I got it). If you can get it through an EPP discount, thats even better. Comes with a DVD drive (slot load), and Up to 8 hours of battery (9-cell upgrade). To be honest, there are a lot of options out there, but a full sized laptop for 3-400 might not have a strong construction. It is your decision though.
We tried to use an ACER netbook with Windoze 7 Starter and could not install the drivers station. As I remember, we were able to install Labview - but not use it to drive. Anything we can add to Win 7 Starter that will allow us to run the driver’s station?
We have a purchased a couple Dell D420’s lease returns with XPPro that work well for programming - Labview (and driver’s station), and RobotC and pretty well PTC ProEngineer (a bit slow - and definitely need a 3 button external mouse).
The Dell’s are light, have good battery life and have pretty decent power for our uses. One down side is no serial port on the laptop, although there is a serial port on the docking station, and the laptop is still pretty light with the docking station. And the serial port is only needed for the IFI controllers and VEX controllers, both of which are not used by FIRST anymore, but we occasionally still use.
Chuck
I’m running a D620 (ebay lease purchase), and it does have a serial port: Ibought that model specifically for that reason.
Since Win7 has increased security policies, it is necessary to run the DS as administrator – even if logged in as an admin. The specific details are to right click, even on the start menu item, and chose the Run As Administratornoption.
Also, the drivers for the First Touch need to be updated to work reliably in Win7.
Greg McKaskle