Mimimum Requirements to Surf the Net?

JoJoArmani

Hello!

I'm just wondering what would the mimimum requirements be for surfing the net on a laptop?

I ask as I have a PC for all my photos/music etc etc but I am thinking of getting a laptop for the family just to surf the net.

So what is the min spec I need to look for - in other words the cheapest spec!

Thanks in advance

JoJo

superscaper

Pretty much anything will "surf the net" if that's all you want it for.

Conor_3

Agreed. I've been online with computers that would now be over 15 years old.

superscaper

Conor wrote: »

Agreed. I've been online with computers that would now be over 15 years old.

I was also thinking about the first time I surfed the web was with an Acorn Archimedes 5000 about 13 years ago and that computer was bought 15/16 years ago. It was so exciting when they introduced a browser upgrade to allow animated gifs to be displayed :rotfl: . The good old days

JoJoArmani

Oh well thats good news!

Won't it help though if it has x amount of ram/HD so it's not dead slow?

TY!

superscaper

JoJoArmani wrote: »

Oh well thats good news!

Won't it help though if it has x amount of ram/HD so it's not dead slow?

TY!

I think that's more dependant on which operating system you buy it with. In terms of general speed of the PC (whether you're surfing the net or not). If you're buying it with Vista then you probably could do with 2 GiB of RAM minimum.

rainbowtrout

I think you'll find the only limiting factor on the speed of surfing is the speed of your internet connection rather than the hardware.

ormus

no not for surfing the net. the slowest part will be you BB connection.
any puter since the last 5 yrs will be acceptable for the net.
a new basic laptop now has a decent spec compared to a few yrs ago.

superscaper

On thoughts of hardware make sure it has an ethernet and/or usb ports and/or wireless capability depending on how you're planning to connect to the net. Most modern laptops should have all of those (or at very least USB and ethernet ports).

JoJoArmani

Ok - thanks - it will need to be wireless really - or there'll be wires all over the place! Think I'm going to look for Xp as I have vista on the PC and I think Xp will be less hastle.

How much Ram will I need to run Xp smoothly? Also can I add more ram if I get a laptop without sufficient?

Thanks again!

superscaper

You should be able to add ram (depends on the specific laptop), for XP I'd say 512 MiB should be minimum for it to run smoothly. If you want it to be wireless do you already have a wireless router?
You could still get a laptop without wireless and buy a separate wireless USB dongle or wireless PCMCIA card.