My choice is Lenovo t-series laptop too. They are very reliable and you can still get microsoft XP os. necessary for TT's XTrader. You need dependable shit. That one time it fails you, could be a bitch.
From 2 to 1000 cars in just 3 months is impressive. How did you adjust yourself mentally for that transition ?
if you are a university student the small intel ato powered things are the best 8"-10" size and then get a full size desktop with two monitors at home.
Why a low end machine? If a screw up happens (and we have seen plenty with bad hardware creating software incompatibilities that are next to impossible to pin down) and you have an open trade then it will cost you more than that a machine is worth. If you are serious about this business, you'll want peace and quietness around you and not be distracted by unnnecessary annoying noise like loud fans, bad and noisy hard disks etc. Maria
I think The OP meant dependable but budget machine, now a days, one can buy a kick ass notebook for between 700-1000 that would have cost 2 Grand a few years ago.
All I need to run is Ensign and Trader's Workstation. Neither of those take a lot of resources like TradeStation, which nearly blew up my machine the last time I used it. I trade with a very tight stop, and place it on their servers as soon as I enter via a bracket trade so the world wont end if my connection drops. I am also trapped in a 9-5 job for probably another year or so and will only aggressively trade a few weeks a year. Thanks for the responses. I am going to try to find that Toshiba Satellite for under $700.....which seems doable.
I got my Lenovo Thinkpad T61 with a Penryn T8300 Core 2 Duo and 2GB of stock RAM for $640 on the EPP program - a buddy of mine worked for IBM and I was able to use his discount even after IBM sold off their laptop division to Lenovo.
The Intel Atom is decent enough for netbook applications, but I would want something significantly faster and more proven for a trading rig.
Hands down, SONY FW new size 16.4 Wide Screen pushes a 22 inch to max resolution. It just came out august, now available with 4 RAM. Magnesium Alloy case in white or metal. That is the perfect setup if you have the cash to spend. Plus it is sexy as hell. Anyways like I said if you want to look at it an be like wow than that's it. I am sure people are going to be like Sony ohhh no... Again this is not your traditional 17. Blows it out of the water.
I bought a Compaq Presario (HP) on sale at BB for $400 and it runs Ensign and TWS just fine. I carry an extra monitor and have a wireless mouse. Pretty good system for the $$$. Here's a similar deal......... http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9999101100050008&type=product&id=pcmprd101200050008